Stories of Growth (4) : A Black Girl

1
Stories of Growth (4) A Black Girls

• Individuation through Separation from (M)Other
  Annie John (1985)
• by Jamaica Kincaid

2
Stories of Growth w/ Support Obstacles?
3
(1) Family Mothers Friends

• In the Caribbean Area
• Wide Sargasso Sea mother(s) and friend Tia
• Abeng mother and friend Zoe
• Sugar Cane Alley grandmother, teachers and
  friends
• Bright Thursday -- grandmother, mother, the
  father who is aloof, the school she finally runs
  to
• West Africa -- The House at Sugar Beach Helene
  (Congo) and her friend Eunice (the natives)
• South Africa Music of the Violin mother vs.
  classmates
• India -- Gainda Sri Lanka -- Pigs Cant Fly
  mother cousins
• Iran Persepolis grandmother and mother

4
(1) Family Lost Fathers/Parents

• In the Caribbean Area
• Wide Sargasso Sea
• Sugar Cane Alley
• Bright Thursday the father who is aloof
• Brazil Central Station
• Kurds Turtle Can Fly

5
(2) Aspiring Child/Youth Educational System

• West Africa Half of a Yellow Sun
• Yesterday, Bright Thursday
• South Africa -- Music of the Violin
• the Caribbean Sugar Cane Alley
• Iran -- Persepolis

6
(3) Society War, Racial Conflicts Other Social
Problems

• In West and South Africa? Civil War
• A Long Way Gone -child solder
• War Games
• Yesterday AIDS
• Pakistan -- Earth
• Kurds Turtle Can Fly
• Haiti Children of the Sea

7
(3) Society Local Cultures

• West Africa
• War Games, Half of a Yellow Sun debia
• South Africa Yesterday, Prophetess --Sangoma
• Brazil Central Station taking photos with a
  saints image
• The Caribbean Area -- WWS Sugar Cane Alley

8
Annie John as a Bildungsroman
Major Question stories of forced separation in
WSS, Abeng and Bright Thursday Why the
voluntary and permanent separation from Antigua
and from her mother in particular?

• Kincaid I was always being told I should be
  something, and then my whole upbringing was
  something I was not it was English (Cudjoe 219).

9
Outline

• Ref. Kincaid
• About colonialism and Antigua
• And her mother
• Annie John
• Circling Hand
• Ref. A Walk to the Jetty

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Jamaica Kincaid Bio (1)

• Born Elaine Potter Richardson in St. Johns,
  Antigua in 1949 lived with her step-father,
  mother, and three brothers
• father a carpenter and cabinetmaker
• mother a homemaker and political activist.
• Completed her secondary education under the
  British system

• Girl http//www.youtube.com/watch?vMiGNbk9PMq0
  
• Lecture given by Jamaica Kincaid (SWI - Fiction
  and Poetry Reading Jamaica Kincaid and Henri
  Cole) http//www.youtube.com/watch?vplKETZkFGbM
  3640 Introd 4130--Kincaid

11
Jamaica Kincaid Bio (2)

• Left Antigua (before its Independence) when she
  was 17.
• As the eldest of four, and the only girl, she was
  apprenticed to a seamstress, then plucked from
  school, where she was excelling, and sent to the
  US as an au pair ("really a servant")
• changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid because her
  family disapproved of her writing. (source)

12
Antigua

• A lot more blacks than white people
• No experience of freedom apprenticeship
  (four-year waiting period) after Emancipation in
  1834. Freedom was immediate but total.
  (Murdoch 99)
• Economy suffers until tourism replaced sugar
  industry.
• A British colony till 1967.

http//www.geographia.com/antigua-barbuda/aghis01.
htm
13
Kincaid on Colonialism Antigua

• Within the structure of the British educational
  system imposed upon Antiguans, Kincaid grew to
  "detest everything about England, except the
  literature" (Vorda 79).
• A Small Place rage at colonialism the failure
  of Antigua independence
• "But nothing can erase my rage . . . for this
  wrong can never be made right and only the
  impossible can make me still can a way be found
  to make what happened not have happened?"
• You distorted or erased my history and glorified
  your own")

14
Kincaid about her mother

• She "should never have had children."
• She loves us when were dying - not when were
  thriving because then we dont need her.
  (source)
• She favors her sons over Kincaid.

15
Annie John

• central question
• What makes Annie change her views about her
  family and esp. her mother?
• pp. 18-19 12-year-old Annies views o her
  mother
• p. 132-33 136 17-yr-old Annies view
• Why are the mother and the daughter distanced
  from each other?
• Related issues
• 1. closeness to the mother fathers dominant
  role
• 2. the mothers teaching (the young-lady
  business)
• 3. The mothers social position and her
  relations with the father

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Mother-Daughter Relationship in Annie John

• Major Social Factors
• Caribbean society a male-dominated society in
  which the men are allowed to be irresponsible
  about housework, and enjoy sexual relationships
  outside marriage.
• Mother as a social institution to teach her
  girl to be socialized ( Englishized lady-like)

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Mother-Daughter Relationship in Annie John
Examples

• Figures in the Distance Pre-occupation with
  death a girl without a mother a shameful
  thing (8)
• The Circling Hand
• Pre-Oedipal symbiosis with the mother ?
• Forced to separate herself from the mother sent
  to be educated, witnessing the parents sexual
  intercourse (primal scene).

18
Annies independence process

• Columbus in Chain mainly about her rebellion
  at school, resisting British education at the
  end, mother is turned into a crocodile p. 84
• Gwen (a perfect pretty type) The Red Girl
  (lower-class) -- Exploring her own sexuality.
• Somewhere, Belgium age 15,
• out for a boy
• mother and daughter with two faces (one polite
  and loving, and the other hateful) called a slut
  by her mother after conversing with a boy --
  Well, like mother like daughter (p. 102)
• wants a trunk of her own.

19
Annies independence process (2)

• The Long Rain
• Fascination for the father (112-13)
• Illness grandmothers (Ma Chess) care-taking --
  a substitute for the mother (pp. 125-26)
• A Walk to the Jetty -- Leaving Antigua
• Waking up with Sadness and Readiness to leave
• Taking note of everything around her (repetition
  of never for the last time ? sadness
• Resentment against her parents and the
  environment readiness. )

20
The Circling Hand Questions for Group
Discussion

• 1. Mother-Daughter Relationship
• 1-1 Describe the mother and daughters closeness.
  
• What kind of gender model does the mother offer
  Annie? e.g. p. 13-14 25
• What's the significance of the trunk? P. 20
• 1-2 What role does the father take in this part?
  How does the mother relate to both of them. How
  do we know more about the society thru their
  relationships?
• Optional Do you remember being close to your
  mother, or father, and admiring them? Since when
  did the relationship change?
• 2. What does the title mean? What finishes her
  happy childhood and love for the family (p. 32).
  Only the parents sex?

21
The Circling Hand

• 1. The symbiotic stage (pp. 13-25)
• Examples of the daughters complete
  identification with the mother. pp. 13- 19
• -- Physical intimacy (bathing) 14
• -- protective 14-15
• -- Mothers gender role model shopping doing
  housework cooking, washing clothes p. 13-14
  25
• -- admiring the mother 18-19 be like the mother
  p. 139
• -- sharing cloth
• -- continuation of identity -- the Trunk P. 20
  (the mothers past Annies souvenirs
  story-telling)

22
The Circling Hand 1-2

• 1. The symbiotic stage (pp. 13-25)
• -- the fathers role outsider has a lot of
  women
• -- Someone to be sympathized with (Anniewants to
  give him a mother)
• -- Served and mothered by his wife p. 24
• A Walk
• -- builds and makes a lot of things in the house
• -- social factor p. 132 35 years older than
  his wife sickly

23
The Circling Hand (2)

• 2. Separation not just by the parents
• the changes at age 12
• in Annies body p. 25 p. 27 (? Persepolis)
• her schooling -- p. 29
• The changes in the mothers attitudes
• The mothers distanciation
• her dresses p. 26 trunk ritual p. 27
  differentiation 28-29
• the mothers expectations of her
• young lady business pp. 28-29 turning her
  back at Annie 28
• Housework 29-30

24
The Circling Hand (2)

• Why does the mother do this? Is it necessary
  for the mother to be so stern?
• Possible Reasons
• The mothers preoccupation with housework
• Her failure to smooth the transition from
  Annies childhood to puberty
• Her being influenced by the dominant British and
  patriarchal values.

25
The Circling Hand (3)

• 3. the primal scene
• the importance of the circling hand? P. 30
• What role does the father take after this scene?
  
• Context Annies wanting to reconquer her
  mother

26
The mothers hand

• 1. Mothers Hands
• -- taking care of Annie
• -- doing housework
• white, bony, dead, left out in the elements
  distanced from her
• a revision of feminine Oedipus as well as the
  primal scene
• Annie recognizes the fathers power quite late
  power conveyed thru the mothers serving hand.

27
A Walk to the Jetty Questions for Group
Discussion

• 4. Is Annies separation from her family and the
  past inevitable and absolute? e.g. 130-131
  never 133-34-35 for the last time Arent
  there contradictions between her readiness to
  leave and her sadness?
• Is it appropriate for Annie to criticize her
  parents? Are you sympathetic with her hatred of
  the mother? Pp. 133
• 5. What does she reject in leaving the place?
  Can you relate to her need to leave the place
  forever? pp. 144-148
• 6. Describe the narrative style of one-day
  progress with flashbacks, the use of repetition
  and/or symbolic descriptions

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A Walk to the Jetty separation after separation

• A. From Mother
• (Circling Hand 1.different dressesAs
  bitterness and hatred
• 2. Enforced lady education mothers
  disappointment
• 3.stop kids talking---awareness
• 4.after the turning pointAll that was
  finished talk back.)
• 5.complete separation--- never to be fooled
  again hypocrite 147
• 6. Talk back 136 mothers image degraded
• 7. On guard against the mothers love and
  expectations 147

29
A Walk to the Jettythe Past

• Walking away from the past (memories of
  education and transitional objects)
• Education 138-143
• Ms. Dulcie the seamstress, p. 138
• first experience of buying things 139
• saving money at 6 140 a pair of glasses at 8
• Porcelain dog and library 142
• Memories -- Transitional objects interests that
  she has outgrown glasses (141), porcelain dog
  (142)
• Memories -- Love Mother Gwen 137
• ? cannot deny the mothers good intention in
  educating her and love for her
• ? do we need to reject things we are no longer
  interested in or people who are no longer on a
  par with us?

30
A Walk to the Jetty separation from the social
norms (2)

• B. From the social norm(and oppression)
• 1. to be a lady ? e.g. exploited by Ms Dulcie
  138
• 2. marriage ? sexual inequality
• 3. Gwen constrained by marriage and ignorance
  p. 137
• 4. The community does not even want to say
  good-bye 136-37

31
A Walk to the Jetty

• Contradictory signs of independence signs of
  nostalgia in this chapter?
• Independence vs. Nostalgia
• Name, address,
• separation her listing of what she never wants
  to see joy at not having to see them. pp.
  130-132.
• her attention at whats hers and whats on her
  p. 134-35.
• remembering a lot
• Fear of vacancy and of hole
• the moment of getting out of bed 133
• fear of falling into the water 143
• contradictory feelings at the wharf 144 145,
  146, 147

32
Walking to Empty Oneself

• Does not know why it is an absolute departure for
  her 134
• Passing through the place as if she were in a
  dream 143
• Resisting the mother when she says shes always
  her mother. ? Resisting the permanent control.
• Emptied out at the end

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Conclusion Separation from the (m)other

• The mother is already an disadvantaged Other.
  (M/Other)
• stories of forced separation with social
  factors or voluntary and permanent separation
  ???
• WSS Annette-- post-emancipation society
• Abeng Kitty caught in between black and white
  skin
• Bright Thursday Myrtle eager to whiten her
  daughter.
• Annie John Annie, from the patriarchal and
  colonial society of Antigua