Author & Context
This Caribbean island is the setting of A Small Place and Kincaid's home country.
What is Antigua?
The book opens by asking the reader to imagine themself as this type of visitor arriving in Antigua.
What is a tourist?
Antigua was colonized by this European empire.
What is Britain / the British Empire?
Kincaid presents tourism as a new form of this, continuing unequal power relations.
What is neo-colonialism?
Kincaid's tone is often described with this emotion, which she uses to confront readers with uncomfortable truths.
What is anger (or enraged)?
This author wrote A Small Place.
Who is Jamaica Kincaid?
A Small Place is divided into this many sections.
What is four?
Kincaid notes that many streets are named after these British naval figures.
Who are British naval officers?
Tourists experience Antigua as beautiful but remain ignorant of these everyday realities of Antiguans' lives.
What are political and social conditions (corruption, poverty, racism)?
Critic Susan Sontag praised Kincaid's writing for this kind of honesty about racism and colonialism.
What is emotional truthfulness?
A Small Place was published in this decade, during a period of postcolonial critique.
What is the 1980s? (1988)
One key early scene is the taxi ride from here to the hotel, passing broken buildings.
What is the airport?
Kincaid criticizes this British bank, whose wealth came from slavery and colonial exploitation.
What is Barclays Bank?
Kincaid argues that tourism puts locals into this kind of position in the global economic system.
What is a disenfranchised / subservient position?
The ruined library symbolizes this broader problem in Antigua's postcolonial society.
What is neglect of history / knowledge / public institutions?
Kincaid criticizes this Antiguan institution for being destroyed by an earthquake and never properly rebuilt.
What is the public library?
In later sections, Kincaid shifts from second person (you) to this point of view to describe her own childhood.
What is first person (I)?
According to Kincaid, Antiguans learned corruption and abuse from this group, whose practices they now sometimes imitate.
Who are their colonizers / former oppressors?
This exclusive resort club allows mostly white foreigners to enjoy Antigua while avoiding contact with most Antiguans.
What is the Mill Reef Club?
Kincaid's direct address to you forces the reader into this role, making them complicit in the systems she criticizes.
What is the tourist (or colonizer / beneficiary of privilege)?
Kincaid's book is often described as this type of nonfiction, mixing autobiography, history, and social critique.
What is creative nonfiction (or an essay)?
The book ends by reflecting on how living in a small place affects people's sense of this, especially about history and power.
What is perspective?
Kincaid suggests that Antiguans misremember this past system as dead, even though its effects continue in modern life.
What is slavery (and colonialism)?
Kincaid describes tourism as an ugly industry because it asks the tourist to escape their own life while ignoring this about the places they visit.
What is the suffering / exploitation / history of the people living there?
The title A Small Place suggests both the island's physical size and this limiting effect on how people see history and politics.
What is a restricted / distorted perspective?