Jamaica Kincaid pissed me off. This made a lot more sense when I researched her a little, and found out that being agonistic was her primary mode of expression. That posture seems dated.
"On Seeing England for the First Time" is a rant against the forces of imperialism, told first from the perspective of a child growing up in Antigua, and later as a grown woman bearing the scars of cultural domination like an angry badge of pride. Using a first person narrator, it chafes against the cultural and economic domination of the English people, inevitably reaching an overarching personal conclusion. The entire English people and their culture should die.
Of course, this essay is written in the English language. The conclusion is just as oppressive as the circumstances the essay describes. Kincaid is filled with vindictive hate that strives to avoid balance of any sort. The language is overbearing and redundant, and by the time I reached the second paragraph, I was already tired of her insistence on repetition:
Each morning before I left for school, I ate a breakfast of half a grapefruit, an egg, bread and butter and a slice of cheese, and a cup of cocoa; or half a grapefruit, a bowl of oat porridge, bread and butter and a slice of cheese, and a cup of cocoa.The sheer idiocy repeating the laundry list twice muted the impact of the paragraph (all of these products were stamped with "Made in England") setting the tone for an essay meant to be slogged through, virtually punishing a reader for the act of reading. So what? Kincaid’s father wore an oppressive felt hat made in England, that’s what. And she resented it. Kincaid lost my sympathy at this point, though I was prepared to be a sympathetic reader. The English musician John Entwistle penned a similar rant, "Made in Japan," which does not require nearly this amount indulgence to appreciate; Kincaid’s lines are nearly anti-musical, without any real rhythm to help pull a reader through. The incessant focus on pointless details was fatiguing and tedious.
Researching Kincaid a bit, I found that critics were overwhelmingly positive about her writing skill. Obviously, this was a conscious stylistic choice perhaps meant to punish the anglophiles reading her essays. As a student of English literature, I was less annoyed by her opinion of English culture than her slanted method of using its own structures to portray her disgust with it. It was just plain painful to read. However, my impression that her style conveyed a deeper agenda was confirmed in several interviews. In a Salon interview from 1999, Kincaid said: "I really do believe that whatever is a source of shame -- if you are not responsible for it, such as the color of your skin or your sexuality -- you should just wear it as a badge." I do not share her shame. Though I am not English, I have been indoctrinated in a different fashion. Although the social agenda underwriting the Rhetoric program brands me as an "oppressor," I don’t feel oppressive and refuse to be condemned for the "sins of the fathers." To feel shame over factors outside my control, or to wear those attributes as a badge, does not seem like an effective strategy for me—particularly when it results in a rhetoric of anger and wrath.
These polemics have a short life span. Though the publication date of "On Seeing England for the First Time" places it in the 90s, it is infused with the sort of self-defeating rhetoric of the 60s. When everything becomes US vs. THEM, the real problems are buried in mindless rhetoric. Kincaid’s inability to let go of the old revolutionary school is problematic. The Salon interview really shows the difference in perspective between her and her children:
One day they were watching one of those Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland shows -- in which they'd say, Let's put on a show! -- and suddenly Mickey and Judy and the rest of the cast were in blackface. Their father was appalled, and took them aside afterward and started to tell them about the history of American injustice. And our little girl said: Oh come on Dad, it's not Mickey and Judy's fault! [Laughs.] Basically they don't feel like -- and we wait for them to be rudely awakenedRudely awakened by what? As the distinctions between the races fade, only those who insist on difference are bound to be disappointed. I feel sad for Kincaid’s paranoia, though it is well grounded in experience. The rhetoric of difference is part of the reason why great strides toward equality were stopped short. Antagonism is it’s own worst enemy. When writers adopt the position of aggressive shame over factors outside their control, they only alienate their audience. The root causes of fashionable adherence to ideals are ignored; it doesn’t matter that the hat her father wore came from England, only that it was impractical. It doesn’t matter that the icon on the jacket, used as a gesture of defiance in the second half of the essay, was the Prince of Wales—it matters that icons were in fashion at all. Adopting the rhetoric of intolerance, the same rhetoric used by people like George Wallace or Rush Limbaugh only cements the social difference. This difference is not likely to be embraced by a generation raised on rap music and cultural diversity on television. Specific change will not be attained by hatred of a past that does not exist for those who live in a land filled with Nike tennis shoes and Gap jeans, made in sweat shops surrounding the globe.
I disliked Kincaid's essay on England because it intimated that murdering history could somehow change the present. Hatred of history is just hatred; it does not create change. Worse still, it clouds the real issues: slavery to fashion, and the lack of economic opportunity. These issues have no color. I found the essay tedious and evasive of deep concerns, lost in the specifics of a rebellious agenda.
