Kincaid's Metamorphosis From Elaine Potter Richardson To Jamaica Kincaid
1492 Words6 Pages
The metamorphosis from Elaine Potter Richardson to Jamaica Kincaid does not signify a mere change in the name but a deep anguish that forced her to protest and to create an identity for her own self. Kincaid, through her female protagonists, not only portrays herself in her novels, she also violently evokes the protest against the colonist conformity developed through British colonization. Her adversities have failed to trap her into a compromise and complacency. This chapter deals with how the female protagonists of Kincaid’s fiction, like Kincaid herself, violate and disintegrate the hegemonic structure and conventional norms and assert their individuality and they fashion their lives in a way that would enable them to demand freedom of choice and autonomy.
Kincaid has proved herself to be a defiant woman by adorning the mantle of a writer. Corbett remarks,
“Later in her adolescence she exposes her true identity by claiming forbidden desires and sharing her experiences with those who are still living under the colonizer’s whip. In…show more content… Her mother boasts “I am so glad you are not one of those girls who like to play marbles” (61). But in contrast to this Annie stays back after her school hours to play marbles with the Red Girl. Red Girl epitomizes an antagonistic symbol of her mother’s perception of a girl. As an experimentation and successful execution of her will, she develops a friendship with the Red Girl and proves her personal power. “The Red Girl occupies a fringe space outside of social convention, offering Annie John a path to the new, the unknown, the forbidden. Through the Red Girl, Annie John admires and participates in gender nonconformity and spatial transgressions that are unquestionably anti-colonial” (Valens 133). The untidy and unclean appearance of the Red Girl depicts the nonconformist attitude towards the established norms, which Annie fascinates