Being a native to your homeland, you tend to be more knowledgeable in the typical aspects of that place. It may not always be the case, but it is more likely that a native is more familiar with the land then a tourist. In Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place,” the author creates a hypothetical scenario of a tourist visiting the island of Antigua in order to present the island through the eyes of the naive and the competent.
She begins the stay by giving a beautiful description of the island through the eyes of a tourist. This image is tainted the minute she begins to inform the tourist of the corruption that lingers within the island. She tells us the impact the British colonization had on her people along with slavery, racism, political scandals, and poverty.
Through the story, we begin to take notice the love of author to be that of anger because she draws the readers to understand her anger of the people. She blames all that is wrong with the island on the influence the British had over their people during colonization. They made the people of that island love and glorify the English and she was dumbfounded on how the people could love England as much as they did even though they took away their traditions.
After all the anger she has expressed throughout her narrative, she concludes with describing the beauty the island once again. It made sense since she began the story with the description, but I believed she was describing out of irony. Such a beautiful island with many ugly, connotations to go alongside it. It was a twist because she never actually says this, but the reader would hope and assume this is what she was going for.
