"A Small Place" Response

1. Did Kincaid realize the effect that writing her piece in such an angry tone would have on her readers?

2. What was Kincaid trying to accomplish by writing this piece?

3. Is tourism truly a bad thing?

After reading “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, I was left with mixed feelings. Honestly, I felt a little offended by the piece as a whole; she was almost rude in the way that she blamed the hardships of her people on the English. To me, it seemed as though she was a small child lashing out at the world in general because she couldn’t quite pinpoint who exactly had wronged her and instead just threw a tantrum hoping something would come of it. As I learned during elementary school, this was definitely not the way to solve any type of problem, and especially not one on the scale that Kincaid is advocating.

Something else that bothered me was the hatred Kincaid seemed to hold for any and all tourists that came through Antigua. I could definitely relate to her in the sense that tourists are annoying: they stick out like a sore thumb, they crowd areas that are already overcrowded, they don’t participate in the social norms of the area (which can often be perceived as rudeness, but is usually just naivety or plain stupidity), and they’re overall just obnoxious. However, there are a lot of positive aspects to tourism. For one, they bring business to local venues and increase overall revenue for the city, allowing us to invest in new projects and better our towns. In addition, I personally have always been extremely flattered and felt so immensely fortunate that I was blessed enough to live in a place that people vacation to. It made me feel proud of my hometown. Unfortunately, Kincaid is so angry that she doesn’t have the ability to perceive things this way; instead, she is angry at the people who visit for reminding her of how the English have changed her country and that we have the wealth to be able to travel while she and her people are stuck there. In all honesty, I thought it was a childish way to view things.

Overall, I think this piece had many strong points, but the overall argument was masked by the tone of the author, very similar to Paglia’s article “Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex.” If the same piece had been written in a less accusatory tone (wherein I didn’t think it right of her to criminalize me when I personally have done nothing wrong), I think it would have been a much more persuasive piece overall and reached a lot more people.