Free Sample Essay Example - Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John

This detailed sample literary criticism paper was written for a college sophomore criticism course. It applies a post-colonial theory of literature to Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, where a girl comes of age on the Caribbean island of Antigua. This free example writing assignment takes a complicated topic and addresses it in a easy-to-understand writing style. This sample college paper would be a good reference for someone who wants to write a critical literary essay on a topic involving multiple authors.

Nationalism - The Illusion of Escape

At one point in history Imperial Britain spans the globe - many proclaim that "the Sun never sets on the British empire." But discontent brews. According to Seamus Deane's article "Imperialism/Nationalism," London suffers from an imperial crisis: "it is the metropolitan world, surfeited with the spoils of success and excess, from which an escape into an authentically national tradition must be made" (Deane 358). This escape to tradition - nationalism - was employed by writers trying to shake off the imperial yoke. Deane cites Irish nationalist writers William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, who hoped that Ireland would "become a nation by recovering its tradition and refusing modernity" (364). Yet their resistance is futile because "Nationalism's opposition to imperialism is . . . nothing more than a continuation of imperialism by other means" (360). Despite their ambitions, Yeats' poetry only resurrects the "ideal of the heroic individual at bay in the modern world" (364), an idea borrowed from earlier colonial texts (354) while Joyce produces a "modern narrative of the dissolving self" (366), which mirrors the "impersonal system" (355) that characterized imperialism. Deane suggests that by "endlessly asserting cultural independence," nationalist countries reproduce "the very discourses by which [they] had been subjected" (360). The nationalist rebellion, Deane argues, is self-defeating. Deane's discussion of nationalism can be applied at the microcosmic level as seen in Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John. Annie comes of age in Antigua, a former British colony, and tries to break away from her mother and the underlying British culture. But like the nationalist writers, Annie, too, cannot escape. Though her nationalist rebellion consists of befriending the Red Girl, defacing Columbus and ultimately leaving Antigua, Annie John's actions only bring her closer to the oppressive British Empire.

Annie's secret friendship with the Red Girl, a person with unfavorable qualities, is an act of rebellion against her mother. "Such a nice woman, to keep that girl so dirty," (Kincaid 57) Annie's mother says of the Red Girl's mother. Unlike Annie, who must bathe and wear shoes regularly, the Red Girl is unwashed and unkempt. For Annie though, this lack of hygiene is a sign of freedom. Seeing that the Red Girl's habits disgust her mother, she declares - "Oh, what an angel she was, and what a heaven she lived in!" (58). Knowing that she cannot just stop bathing herself, Annie tries to emulate the Red Girl's free spirit in other ways. Thus, she climbs to the lighthouse against her mother's wishes (58) and also takes up marbles (60). These moments give Annie pleasure because she wants to "do exactly the opposite of whatever [her mother] desired" (61). But this association with the Red Girl brings Annie closer to the imperial culture. Annie's fondness for the Red Girl's "unbelievable, wonderful smell" (57) aligns her with the British, who as her mother points out "didn't wash often enough or wash properly when they finally did" (36). In addition, Annie's desire for the Red Girl's friendship is one based on domination, not equality. Much like the British Empire imposed its will on Antigua, Annie dreams the Red Girl "followed me around worshipfully and took with great forbearance any and every abuse I heaped on her" (57). For Seamus Deane, Annie's dreams of conquest are not unique. Yeats, an Irish nationalist, writes of an era wherein "the modern world is free-falling into violence" and Ireland rises to become the dominant power in terms of tradition and culture (Deane 364). Yet this new Ireland sounds much like the British Empire that Yeats wants to escape. Thus, Yeats is a nationalist writer with imperialist ambitions (Deane 366). By trying to escape her mother's control, Annie John replicates the imperial desire for conquest.

Annie's interaction with Miss Edward after she defaces Columbus' picture is another example of her nationalist rebellion. Annie challenges Miss Edward's authority when she writes, "The Great Man Can No Longer Just Get Up and Go" (Kincaid 78) under Columbus' picture. With this action, Annie creates her own interpretation of history instead of letting Miss Edward - the history teacher - provide such information. When Miss Edward gets upset, Annie mocks her appearance:

The small pimples on her face, already looking as if they were constantly irritated, now ballooned into huge, on-the-verge-of-exploding boils. Her head shook from side to side. Her strange bottom, which she carried high in the air, seemed to rise up so high that it almost touched the ceiling (82).

Miss Edward, a symbol of authority, is reduced to a grotesque, comic figure who is no threat to Annie. Humiliated by Annie's defiance, Miss Edward resorts to calling her "arrogant" and "blasphemous" (82) in order to retain control of the classroom. Seamus Deane would argue that humiliating Miss Edward is Annie's application of Self versus Other. Deane explains that the "self is produced in and through the appalling recognition of the Other's delinquent and savage formlessness" (Deane 356). In this vein, Annie defines her identity by reducing Miss Edward and what she represents into a comic non-entity. Annie gains satisfaction knowing she is not the monster that towers over her. But her application of Self versus Other, while temporarily defeating Miss Edward, makes her no better than the British conquerors. Deane argues that the "determination of what is '"difference"' or '"otherness"' might itself be a ruse of power" (Deane 357), thus revealing Annie's bid for independence as a bid for conquest. Even if Annie was not mimicking imperialist discourse, her use of "Old English lettering" (78) reveals that she cannot escape British culture because her act of rebellion relies on knowledge of the imperial language. Deane notes that Yeats and Joyce had to rely on English as well to get their nationalist views across (366), thus making them slaves to the language rather than masters of it. While Annie thinks she is rebelling, she merely perpetuates the old imperial tradition of dehumanize and conquer.

Annie's final act of rebellion involves leaving Antigua itself. Tired of the island, Annie longs for "a place where nobody [knows] a thing about me" and despairs that "the whole world into which I was born had become an unbearable burden" (Kincaid 128). This desire for exile stems from Annie's relationship with her mother - her presence is suffocating to the point where Annie cannot stand her gargling in the morning (131). Ready to leave old traditions behind, Annie even vows never to marry (132) just so she can be different from her mother. This desire to escape encompasses the heart of nationalism. Seamus Deane notes that some would say Annie's exile to England is much like Joyce's - a "paradigmatic refusal of the writer to surrender his or her freedom to the demands of an oppressive state or system" (Deane 367). Indeed, Antigua has become oppressive to Annie: thinking about her life makes her feel "as if someone has placed me in a hole and was forcing me first down and then up against the pressure of gravity" (Kincaid 133). But Deane argues that "escaping from the singularity of one culture into the multiplicity of all" is actually a "rejection of nationalism brought to an apparently liberating extreme (Deane 367). Thus, Annie's escape to England is not an escape at all; she journeys to the center of the imperial crisis where one sees the "dissolution of the individual self into a nullity" (Deane 355) brought on by modernization and a culture of excess. At the heart of the empire which once oppressed her people, Annie only faces more oppression as her dreams of individuality are replaced with the reality of surviving in the modern world. Annie John will get her wish - she will reach a place where nobody knows her, but she will also lose her identity.

From a postcolonial view, Annie John's nationalism has only brought her closer to Britain. But there may be hope for Jamaica Kincaid's heroine. Deane argues that, "postcolonialism has taken the harm out of nationalism by celebrating its inexhaustible capacity for minoritarian difference" (Deane 368). As an Antiguan, Annie's otherness may help resist assimilation into the greater culture. By bringing her divergent voice to Britain, Annie John may help others see what life is like beyond the modern, complicated world.

Works Cited