Jamaica Kincaid's England

Submitted by pjo on Thu, 10/04/2012 - 22:05
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I think she internalized a lot of the influence England tried to exert on her country and people. I also believe this caused a backlash within her against England as a whole. She went to England with an agenda, to hate her oppressor and this blinded her to the beauties of an ancient foreign land. I think England was wrong to aggressively colonize and dominate other cultures but it's also wrong to let your past experiences to prejudice your experience of something new. No one she met inflicted her experiences on her and the land itself did nothing to harm her yet she could not see through her own hatred as it tinted everything from the people to the hedges of England. Coming from a communist country I can empathize with her and I think it was more a process of exorcising the demons of a long gone England that have been haunting her her whole life.