of things as worse than
they actually were under colonialist rule, blinding themselves to the
excesses of the current Antiguan leadership.
There is, suggests Kincaid, a sameness that often exists in corrupt
political regimes that Antigua today would rather forget, although she
ultimately is glad that her people have been liberated from colonial rule.
One of the most sophisticated ways that Kincaid deploys the device of
memory, is the way she uses the same narrative object and landscape but
sees them different observational eyes over the course of the narrative.
Kincaid begins the first few pages narration of A Small Place, her
autobiographical history of her home island, through the eyes what she sees
as a typical North American tourist. "If you go to Antigua as a tourist,
this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the
V. C. Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (V. C.) Bird is the Prime
Minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a
Prime Minister would want an airport named after himâ€"why not a school, why
not a hospital, why not some great public monument." (Kincaid, 3-4)
The reason that an airport bears the name of the Prime Minister is
because Antigua continues to sustain its economy through tourism and
foreign dollars, a kind of neo-colonial oppression, as the land is still
dependant upon the wealth of the West to survive, suggests Kincaid,
provocatively. The author first thus takes the reader into the eyes of a
travel book, forces him or her to enter the rhythm of seeing the world
through a tourist's eyes, and also through the native author's eyes, whom
is remembering her childhood home and seeing it in ways that cause her
despair as well as the joy of reminiscing.
...