Annie John.pdf

Annie John Context Jamaica Kincaid was born was born on May 25, 1949 at Holberton Hospital in St. John, Antigua. She was originally named Elaine Potter Richardson. Richardson was her mother's surname. Her parents were not married and her biological father never played a role in her life. Her mother, Annie, married her stepfather, David Drew, soon after Kincaid's birth. Kincaid considers Drew her father and he serves as the model for the fathers in each of her novels. Annie and David Drew had three subsequent children, all boys. Jamaica Kincaid's mother taught her to read at the age of three. Kincaid won a scholarship to the Princess Margaret School and excelled as a student, despite her occasionally mischievous attitude. After her father fell ill, however, Kincaid, as the girl in the family, dropped out at the age of thirteen. She left Antigua at age seventeen and moved to Scarsdale, New York to work as an au pair. She stayed in Scarsdale for a few months, before moving to Manhattan to be an au pair for the family of Michael Arlen, a New Yorker writer. She remained with the Arlen family for four years. As she worked, Kincaid acquired her general equivalency diploma and started taking photography classes at the New School for Social Research. Eventually, she won a scholarship to Franconia College in New Hampshire, but dropped out after two years. After returning to New York in 1973, she changed her named to Jamaica Kincaid to be anonymous as she tried her hand at writing. Ingenue published her first article, "When I was Seventeen," in the same year. She soon became friends with Scott Trow, who wrote the "Talk of the Town" column in the New Yorker. Trow eventually introduced her to William Shawn, the magazine's editor. In 1976, Kincaid became a New Yorker staff writer herself. In 1979, she married William Shawn's son, the composer Allen Shawn. They had two children, Annie and Harold, in 1985 and 1988. They currently live in Bennington, Vermont where Shawn is a professor at Bennington College. Kincaid's first book, At the Bottom of the River, is a collection of short stories that received the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award soon after its publication in 1983. Annie John was published two years later in 1985. The publication of Annie John was unique in that the New Yorker published each of the novel's chapters separately before they were compiled and published as the novel. For this reason, reviewers initially wondered if they should categorize the book as a novel or a collection of short stories. The independent nature of the chapters makes their compilation somewhat episodic, which is to say that each chapter involves a series of episodes about a certain time in a young girl's life. The strong voice of the narrator links the different segments together, but the book still differs from a tightly constructed novel in which every episode interlaces to form a close knit whole. Annie John represents a classic bildungsroman or growing up novel, which chronicles the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a character. More specifically, Annie John can also be recognized as a Caribbean bildungsroman. Many Caribbean bildungsromans not only focus on the central character's growth, but they also parallel their experiences with those of the West Indian colonies where they live. Other examples of similar Caribbean bildungsromans include Merle Hodge's Crick Crack, Monkey (1970), Zee Edgell's Beka Lamb

(1982), and Michelle Cliff's Abeng (1984). In these novels, as in Annie John, the protagonist's growth toward maturity parallels her society's progress from colonialism to independence. In Annie John, the protagonist's conflict with the dominant mores of society can best be seen through her problematic relationship with her mother. The complexity of the narrator's emotions towards her mother demonstrates the often-difficult relationship between Antigua and its British protectorate. Since the publication of Annie John, Kincaid has published six books: a group of prose sketches, Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam, and Tulip, in 1986; an essay on the politics of Antigua, A Small Place, in 1988; the novels, Lucy and The Autobiography of my Mother in 1990 and 1995; a memoir about her brother's death from AIDS, My Brother, in 1997; and My Garden Book in 1999. Major themes in Kincaid's word include the relationship between mothers and daughters, which is crucial in Annie John, the complexities of colonization, and gardening. Critics long have praised Kincaid's lyrical, incantatory prose, which is characterized by rich colorful details about life in the Caribbean, including names or local plants and foods. Her work has also been examined in light of post-colonial and feminist theories.

Plot Overview Annie John chronicles the life of the main character, Annie John, from the age of ten until the age of seventeen. Annie John lives with her mother and father in a city on the island of Antigua. During her tenth year, Annie becomes obsessed with the idea of death after spending the summer outside the city near a cemetery and learning that children die. When she returns to the city, Annie starts stopping by funeral parlors just to watch mourners. One day, a young hunchbacked girl her age dies. Annie rushes from school to attend the girl's wake where she gets to view the dead girl's body. Later, she realizes that in her excitement she forgot to bring the fish home for dinner. She makes up a small lie, but her mother knows the truth. For her punishment, Annie is forced to her eat her dinner outside under the breadfruit tree. Generally during summer vacation, Annie and her mother spend all their time together. Her mother lets Annie sleep in and then adds some hot water to the bath for her. Sometimes they even take a bath together after her mother adds herbs and spices that the obeah woman, a local healer, recommends. After the bath, they usually go to town where her mother teaches Annie how to shop and get the best products for the best prices. Annie thinks that her mother is very beautiful and very wise. Mrs. John grew up in Dominica but came to Antigua when she was sixteen following a conflict with her parents. Annie's father had children by other women too, and sometimes these women curse Mrs. John on the street. One day, Annie returns home and finds her parents making love in bed. She feels rejected when seeing them because she is not part of their union. In particular, she feels angry at her mother's neglect of their special relationship and starts to view her coldly. When Annie starts school, she becomes best friends with Gwen. Annie is the brightest student in the class whose essay on the first day of school is praised. Although liked by the teachers, Annie also is popular with the students since she stands up for everyone, is good at sports, and makes rambunctious jokes when in private. Annie and Gwen walk to and from school together everyday. Annie tries to use their relationship to assuage her grief at being neglected by her mother, but it does not entirely work. Annie eventually befriends the Red Girl, a tomboyish girl from a lower class who runs around dirty and disheveled. Annie admires her unstructured, carefree life and Annie starts to mimic her by playing marbles. Annie also begins a pattern of petty thievery to buy the Red Girl presents and lies daily so that she can meet up with the Red Girl after school. One day Annie's mother catches her coming out from under the house, where Annie hides her stolen loot. Her mother sees her with a marble and searches everywhere to find Annie's stash. Annie denies that she has any other marbles despite her mother's entreaties and takes pleasure in her mother's inability to find them. Eventually, Annie starts to menstruate and the Red Girl moves away, so Annie stops playing marbles altogether. Annie's good grades make her the prefect of her class, despite her occasionally mischievous behavior. One day during a history lesson, Annie grows bored because she knows the material and starts reading ahead in her book. She finds out that Christopher Columbus was imprisoned later in his life for having offended the Queen. Annie sees a picture of him in chains and writes under it, "The Great Man Can No Longer Move," a phrase that her father once used to describe

her grandfather. Her teacher, Miss Edward, sees her and upbraids her for blasphemous behavior. Annie is sent to the principal who takes the prefect position away from her and orders her to copy Book I and Book II of Milton's Paradise Lost. After her scolding, Annie returns home hoping that her mother will cheer her up, but her father and mother seem too absorbed in each other to notice her distress. Furthermore, her mother tricks her into eating breadfruit, something Annie detests, by making it look like rice. When faced with her mother's betrayal, Annie feels complete hatred for her. Annie's unhappiness comes to resemble a heavy black ball inside her that is covered with cobwebs. Annie cannot easily say what caused this ball but it makes her feel miserable all the time. Her success continues at school and she is promoted into a class with much older girls. Annie feels socially isolated and even finds Gwen to be a dull companion. Annie dreams of moving to Belgium, a place that Jane Eyre visited, so that Annie's mother can no longer find her. One day after school, Annie avoids Gwen and heads into town instead. Annie stares at her reflection in a store window and feel overcome by sadness at seeing herself look so ugly and ragged. A group of boys nearby starts teasing her and she speaks to one of them since she knew him as a child. When they keep laughing at her, she goes home. Her mother confronts her in the yard and tells Annie that she saw Annie's flirtatious behavior in town. After her mother calls Annie a slut, Annie loses her temper and says, "like mother, like daughter." Her mother then says that she always loved her best until that moment. Annie senses that something dark has come between them. At dinner that night, Annie tells her father she wants her own trunk like the one that her mother has. Annie suffers a mental breakdown that coincides with a three-month rainstorm and becomes bedridden. In her sickness, her behavior reverts to that of an infant. She cannot be left alone, she wets her bed, and she needs help eating. Both the local doctor and an obeah woman treat her, but she remains ill. Eventually, her grandmother, Ma Chess, comes. She heals Annie not with her powerful knowledge of obeah, but from holding her throughout the days. After Annie is better, they notice that she has grown even taller than she was. She has to get a new set of clothing before returning to school. Finally, Annie turns seventeen and decides to leave Antigua to study nursing in England. Now she looks forward to living a separate life and being away from her mother. As she walks to the boat with them, she remembers her young life with its warmth, but acknowledges that there is no space left for her at her parents' house. Her parents wave goodbye as she disappears on the boat and Annie lies in her cabin with expectations of the future.

Character List Annie John - The protagonist of the novel. Annie is bright, spunky, and witty. She tells her own story in tones that vary from serious to comic. Her struggle throughout the novel is to become a separate self. For most of the book, she wants to remain united with her mother and therefore fights the separation in every way possible. She finds substitutes with her friends and becomes disobedient. In her disobedience, she comes to define herself in a unique way that stands in contrast to the complacently demanded of other young girls in the Antiguan social order. Read an in-depth analysis of Annie John. Annie's mother - Annie's mother is a strong, capable, beautiful woman whom Annie admires and deeply loves. We are generally only able to see the mother as Annie sees her, which may place her in a negative light. When Annie is young, her mother takes complete and loving care of her. Annie's hatred of her mother grows as a result of her mother saying that she is a separate being. Annie's mother is marked by power in the realms of obeah, the powerful spiritual beliefs native to the Caribbean. She is brave enough to prepare a dead girl for her final rest in a coffin, but also caring enough to carefully bathe her daughter. Annie's mother's sexuality appears to have been the cause for her departure from her home island of Dominica and also is one of the reasons that Annie grows to hate her. Read an in-depth analysis of Annie's mother. Annie's father - Annie's father is a kindly, quiet man who is always pleasant to Annie and in the household sphere. While he is kind, the household runs according to his presence. His wife wakes up early to prepare food for him and she cooks for him throughout the day. Before marrying Annie's mother, her father slept with other women and even fathered their children. These women occasionally harass Annie's mother on the street. This legacy of philandering suggests his previous sexual freedom. He is approximately thirty years older than Annie's mother and now has conveniently retired to a life of quiet domesticity. Although he appears to be a kind man, his presence carries subtle undertones of the unequal power relations between genders in the Antigua of Annie's childhood. Gwen - Annie's best friend in school. Annie uses her relationship with Gwen to fill the void she feels after her mother appears to betray her. Gwen and Annie become inseparable and share their secrets and stories with one another. At the same time, Annie senses that their friendship lacks something since the two girls cling to each other primary because of separation anxiety. After Annie's illness, when she craves rather than fears separation, Annie realizes that her connection with Gwen is not very meaningful. Gwen's docility and willingness to conform to the social order handed down by the colonial power makes her dull in Annie's eyes. The Red Girl - A local lower class girl whom Annie befriends. The Red Girl's life is as unstructured as Annie's is structured and Annie wants to be like her. The Red Girl only has to wash and comb her hair once a week and is allowed to run wild without parental control. Annie becomes a bit of a hooligan herself after befriending the Red Girl. They are frequently playing marbles, lying constantly, and being a petty thief. The Red Girl stands as a fully defiant character who refuses to live according to the norms that the colonial society imposes on her.

She has not been indoctrinated by the English social order because she does not seem to attend school. She refuses to wear the clothes established as proper by the English system and she even seems to lack a proper English name, being only referred to as the "Red Girl." Annie's willingness to interact with the Red Girl demonstrates her own desire for defiance against the dominant social order. Read an in-depth analysis of The Red Girl. Ma Chess - Annie's grandmother. Ma Chess lives on Dominica but comes to Antigua to heal Annie. Ma Chess is a powerful female figure who is deeply connected with the local healing religion of the island, obeah. She appears to have powers outside of her self that she uses to maintain her own health and to bring Annie's back to her. Ma Chess is a deeply intuitive, strong woman who represents the strength of the local Antiguan culture and who stands apart from a Caribbean world organized according to the British social order. Pa Chess - Annie's mother's father. Annie's mother and he quarreled when she was young, which led Annie's mother to leave home at the age of sixteen. Later in life, he becomes decrepit and unable to walk around freely. He represents oppressive male control over a family. When his son became sick, he refused to let an obeah woman treat him and after he died Ma Chess, his wife, never spoke to him again. Nalda - The girl who dies after having a disease where she eats mud. Annie's mother prepares Nalda's dead body for the funeral. Sonia - The slowwitted girl whom Annie adores and pesters at school, until she discovers that Sonia's mother died. Annie no longer talks to her after that because she finds Sonia too shameful without a mother. Mineu - The boy that Annie played with when she was a young girl. He tricked her into sitting naked on a red anthill, so that she was stung all over. When she meets him later in life, she remembers this incident as a time when her mother stood up for her. Hilarene - The girl who is second in class behind Annie. Annie finds Hilarene boring and dull because Hilarene has no spunk and is very well behaved. Annie's disobedience relates to her desire to defy the dominant social order, the colonial ideal handed down by the school. Because Hilarene lacks a similar desire, Annie finds her uninteresting. Miss Nelson - Annie's original homeroom teacher at school who praised Annie's essay about her mother. Her surname is the same as one of the British Admirals who conquered the Caribbean, thus suggesting her place as an instructor in the colonial social order. Miss Edward - Annie's history teacher at school who grows extremely upset with Annie's defacing of the history book. Her name is the same as several of the British kings suggesting her place in maintaining the British social order. Miss Charlotte - Annie's neighbor who falls down dead on the street. Ma Jolie - The obeah woman who moved to Antigua from Dominica and who comes to treat Annie during her illness.

Analysis of Major Characters Annie John Annie John is the narrator and central character in the novel, who therefore dominates the text. Because she is the narrator, everything that the reader hears and sees is filtered through her voice. Likewise, the depiction of her self and of all the other characters comes as she wills it. As it most evident through her depiction of her mother, her description of what actually happens often takes place with a highly subjective perspective. Although just a growing girl, Annie is a complex figure. In her early youth, she struggles fiercely against the idea of separation from her mother. Her fears about being left alone in the world dominate her early days and when they are not entirely resolved transform into bitterness and hatred. At the same time, as she grows into her adolescence, she learns to harden herself against efforts to restrict her personal freedom and articulation. Both Annie's mother and her teachers have a firm idea of who Annie should become. Annie manages to evade these definitions and develop a uniquely dual consciousness by both her abilities and her insolence. On the one hand, her ability to adhere to the colonial order allows her to become the best student in the class who is made the class prefect and later promoted several grades above her level. On the other hand, she keeps up her feisty spirit by being rambunctious outside the classroom. She entertains the other girls with dirty songs, becomes a thief and a liar, and even an expert in marbles. While some of these activities carry a dishonest taint, they all prove crucial to Annie's personal development in a colonial atmosphere that tries to define who it thinks that she is. Annie's attitude often carries a certain arrogance, especially toward the end of the book where she believes many of the other characters to lack the necessary spirit, like Gwen, however even her defiance and arrogance seem understandable, since they are the tools that allowed her to thrive in a colonial environment that sought to define who she is. Annie's mother (Mrs. John) The characterization of Mrs. John only comes from Annie because Annie is the sole narrator of the novel. Because Annie hates her mother for much of the book, Mrs. John's character often comes across negatively. Given Annie's strong emotions toward her mother, however, these impressions are not generally credible. Initially, Mrs. John appears to be a wonderful mother. She is strong, capable, and beautiful. When she walks through the markets in town, the sellers all run to greet her. She contains powerful knowledge about nature, the rituals of obeah, and even about death. It is she who first teaches Annie about death and she who later has the strength to prepare a dead child for the grave. Her ability to not be cowed by the ugly natural elements of the world show her to be a courageous woman, especially in Annie's eyes. The kindness of Annie's mother can initially be seen from the lengthy baths that she gives her, the fact that she kisses her before sleep even though Annie is supposed to lose the kiss as punishment, and the time that she takes to retell Annie the family history as seen in her trunk. When Annie starts to dislike her mother, the mother still appears to be reasonable. Annie's initial anger at her mother starts because her mother insists that they are separate people, which Annie cannot accept. Because Annie's anger at her mother appears to be an outgrowth of Annie's immaturity, it does not appear initially that Annie's mother has done anything wrong in

suggesting the true fact that she and her daughter are separate people. Annie's mother is also a sexual creature, which is one of the reasons that Annie hates her. Mrs. John manages to captivate her husband's attentions as they eat lunch together and later they are actually shown having sex. The legacy of sexual promiscuity seems to hang over Annie's mother early life. Her flight from Dominica at age sixteen took place after a fight with her father that appears most likely linked with her being engaged in some early sexual activity. Still, although Annie envies her parents' sexual union, Mrs. John does not seem to neglect her daughter by having sexual relationships with her husband. Because Annie's description of her mother is not believable, there is no way to determine if Mrs. John actually neglected her daughter in her attentions to her husband or not. The Red Girl The Red Girl is a character that is about Annie's age who represents the defiant person that Annie wishes to become. The Red Girl exists in a world that is very different from Annie's structured one. The Red Girl does not need to bathe, dress, and attend school everyday. Whereas Annie's life is defined by her attention to expected social behavior, the Red Girl's life lies outside of those expectations. The Red Girl represents the world outside of the British colonial order. The Red Girl does not adhere to the British form of dress or schooling. Without a name, she even seems to exist outside of the British language and code of legal documents. The Red Girl offers Annie a sense of self and of Antigua that Annie is not able to learn about in school. By spending time with her, Annie learns the possibilities that lie apart from her mother's dominion. When the Red Girl leaves Antigua, Annie dreams that the Red Girl's boat will capsize and Annie will save her. The two girls will then live together on an isolated island. Each time colonial ships pass, Annie and the Red Girl will send them confusing symbols so that the ships crash upon the shore. In this dream, Annie demonstrates her desire to become a person who will subvert the colonial system as she imagines that the Red Girl does. The ships that they will destroy represent the British Empire and by sending them to their destruction, Annie will defy the colonial system. The presence of the Red Girl plays a crucial role in Annie's development to become an independent person in a colonial country.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes Mother-Daughter Relationships

The mother-daughter relationship drives the plot in Annie John and is its primary theme. The difficulties and tensions in this relationship stem from Annie's inability to accept the fact that she is a separate self. Kincaid paints Annie's desire to remain united with her mother as an emotion shared by most girls of her age. Annie's classmates all commiserate with her essay about her fear of separation. Furthermore, the girls befriend one another in an effort to find substitutes for the maternal love that appears to be dissipating. As Annie ages, she finds herself caught between love and hatred for her mother, which drives her to be both a good student and a disobedient child. Again, the rationale behind her adolescent rebellion seems to be proffered as an explanation for a general psychological trend rather than merely a specific fictional phenomenon. The dynamics of mother-daughter relationships take up a prominent place in Jamaica Kincaid's work and have frequently appeared in her other novels such as Lucy and The Autobiography of My Mother. Colonizers and Colonial Education

Antigua was colonized by the British until 1967 and remained a commonwealth in 1981. As Annie John takes place in the 1950s, it remains in the colonial period. Kincaid explores the colonial relationship particularly through her discussion of the school that Annie attends. It is run as a British institution and all the materials taught in the school deal with English literature, history, and culture. The girls dress in a formal British style and they are discouraged from engaging in local activities, such as calypso dancing in the playground. Annie's musing on the failure of the school to discuss the negative history of slavery and her delight in the imprisonment of Columbus highlight the ways in which the school teaches the students not to question the history and social order that is being handed down to them. Annie excels in her school, which shows that she has learned all of the skills necessary to prove her intellectual and social worth in the colonial world. However, her spunky behavior behind the teachers' backs shows that her feisty Antiguan spirit still thrives within. Gender Relations

Although Annie's father appears a gentle and reticent man, he serves as a testament to the unequal gender relations in Antigua. Annie's father is about thirty years older than his wife. He had numerous sexual affairs before marrying Annie's mother and the women with whom he slept frequently harass Annie's mother on the street. Now that he has his married life secured, he provides for the family while his wife takes care of his domestic and sexual needs. While as a man Annie's father could philander, Annie's mother interprets Annie's mere discussion with a group of boys as inappropriate sexual misconduct and calls her a "slut." With these two standards, it becomes clear that the behavior expected of men and women in Antigua are quite different. Although the women who curse at Annie's mother appear unfriendly, even Kincaid's depiction of them is sympathetic. They, after all, committed the same sexual act as Annie's father, but have been left in the difficult economic position of raising their children without a

husband. Motifs Obeah

Obeah is the local spiritual system that relies upon the use of herbs as well as sorcery and spells. Obeah reappears many times in the novel from the way that Mrs. John takes a bath, to the healing of Annie, to the Obeah blessed clothing that Annie wears on her way to England. Obeah is a powerful part of the native culture that remains, despite the cultural dominion of the British Empire. In particular, Obeah links the Caribbean culture its pre-colonization people, while simultaneously suggesting the blend of Amerindian, African, and European cultures that make up the islands. Obeah particularly is intimately connected with strong female characters. The male figures in the novel, Annie's father and grandfather, both shun it. Annie's grandmother particularly seems to dwell in a mystical world of obeah that fully defies the logical world of the colonial culture. She arrives and leaves Antigua on days that the ferry does not run, for example. She is the only one to be able to heal Annie, despite the efforts of the obeah woman and the local Doctor. The existence of obeah in Annie's world demonstrates the power of the local spiritual beliefs to survive, despite the colonial conditions. Water

Water reappears through the novel as a powerful natural force that helps to both heal and transform. Its ability to heal can be seen in the baths that Annie and her mother take at the beginning of the novel. The salt water of the ocean likewise strengthens Annie's kidneys. The rainstorm that persists during Annie's illness cleanses and transforms the island while providing a nourishing environment for her to recover. Finally, the ocean allows for Annie's ultimate rebirth by pushing her on her way toward a new life in England. Kincaid's use of a powerful natural element as a fictional tool carries an edge of magical realism that is consistent with a Caribbean setting in which magical practices such as obeah play such an important role. Death

Annie obsesses over death in her opening chapter and initially, the idea of death portends the possibility of separation that Annie fears. As the novel continues, the idea of death reappears amongst the tombstones upon which Annie and her classmates usually sit during recess. These tombstones belong to old white people, meaning former colonial slave owners, who once governed Antigua. The young Antiguan girls now sit on the tombstones and sing dirty songs or show each other their body parts while making inappropriate comments. Here the image of death is placed next to the idea of life and seriousness of these old men's death seems joked upon by the fact that barely teenage girls are primping on their graves. The constant return of the girls and the narrative to the tombstone area testifies to Kincaid's ironic commentary upon the history that these colonial masters represent. Symbols Annie's mother's trunk

Annie's mother trunk and the other trunks in the story symbolize the self. When Annie is a

young girl, her favorite pastime involves looking through her mother's trunk. Annie uses the stories about the objects in the trunk to define who she is. At that young age, Annie shares her mother's trunk because she has no separate self of her own. Annie's mother trunk came all the way with her from Dominica and therefore seems to be the object that contains all the family history. Eventually when Annie decides that she has a separate self, she wants her own trunk. It, in turn, will become her history and a representation of her self, as her mother's was for her. When Annie leaves Antigua for England, she brings her trunk with her. Her trunk bears a label that reads, "My name is Annie John," a strong affirmation of Annie's new sense of self. Marbles

The first two marbles that Annie receives are given to her by her mother after they arrived free in a package of oats. One is white with blue and the other is white with yellowish brown. Annie thinks that the one with blue represents the oceans, while the one with brown represents the landmasses of the world. In fact, these marbles and the ones that Annie subsequently gathers represent the new world that she is creating for herself. After receiving her first marbles, Annie goes on to become a marble devotee. She wins marbles from everyone and gathers a small stash. Just as her marble career is getting underway, so too is Annie's world changing as Annie spends hours with the Red Girl, a representative of the non-socialized order. The time playing marbles will help Annie to see beyond the world that her mother and teachers outline. When Annie's mother furiously searches for Annie's marbles, what she really wants to find is not so much the little balls, but rather the new world that these marbles have opened up for her daughter. This world is one that defies the common social program and her mother does not want her to have it. Milton's Paradise Lost

Annie's principal makes Annie copy Paradise Lost as punishment for having blasphemed Christopher Columbus in her history book. The specific use of Paradise Lost for this punishment is apt. The book describes how the angel Lucifer challenged God and was subsequently tossed out of the paradise of heaven into darkness and exile. Annie's current predicament is similar to that of Lucifer's. Annie wants to challenge the dominant power of both her mother, and by association the colonial order, but fears the fate of exile. The principal's choice of the book also carries an implicit threat, indicating how Annie will be punished if she continues to question the colonial authority that establishes Columbus as a hero. On the other hand, the idea of exile simply compounds Annie's already existent fears about being left all alone. The concept of a "lost paradise" also seems appropriate in Antigua, an island that may look like paradise but became a virtual hell when the British arrived and set up the institution of slavery.

Chapter One: Figures in the Distance Summary

The narrator, Annie John, is currently ten years old. She is spending her summer holiday outside of town since her father, who is a carpenter, is putting a new roof on their house in the city. In the country, the narrator has little to do except play with their pig and watch their ducks, since she likes to eat their eggs. She can also see a nearby cemetery, but at first does not know what it is. One day her mother explains that the bunch of people are there because someone died and based upon their behavior, it may have been a child. Annie is surprised. She has never known that children died. She is afraid of the dead because they come back and haunt you. But after her discussion with her mother, she is also fascinated and often stands on the road each day waiting for a funeral procession to pass. When she moves back to town, Annie remains obsessed with death. A girl that she knows, Nalda, gets a fever and dies suddenly in the car on the way to the doctor. Nalda's mother is too distressed to deal with the body, so Annie's mother cleans up the child and dresses her for the coffin. Annie views her mother's hands suspiciously for a while after the Nalda incident, because she knows that her mother's hands touched a dead person. Annie brags about Nalda's death to the other kids at school and they all start telling stories about people they heard of who had died One girl at school, Sonia, is slowwitted but Annie likes her, therefore pesters her daily. One day Annie learns, however, that Sonia's mother, who was with child, died. Because Annie views Sonia as too shameful, being now without a mother, she stops talking to her. Their neighbor from across the street, Miss Charlotte, just up and died one day as well. She collapsed suddenly in the street and then was dead. Annie tries to picture Miss Charlotte dead, but cannot. She is fascinated with death and spirits as are the other kids at school. The mother of one girl stopped sucking her thumb after her mother told her she washed the girl's thumb in water that had touched a dead person. Annie thought that the mother had lied, but it worked anyhow because the dead were scary. Annie's obsession with death drives her to swing by funerals even though she does not know who has died. Usually, she just stands outside the church and watch the grieving family members. One day a hunchbacked girl, who was Annie's age, dies and Annie decides to attend the wake. As soon as school is over, she bolts to the funeral home. Once inside, Annie walks over to the hunchbacked girl in the open coffin and stares at her for a long time-so long that a line forms behind her. The adults are nice to Annie however since they assume that she knew the girl from school. When Annie gets home, Annie realizes that in her excitement, she forgot to pick up the fish as her mother instructed her to. She lies and says that the fisherman did not go out on the sea that day. Her mother knows she is lying. The fisherman got so tired of waiting for Annie that he dropped off the fish himself. As her punishment, her mother makes her eat her dinner outside. Her mother kisses her goodnight before sleep anyhow. Analysis

The opening chapter of the novel introduces its protagonist, Annie John, as well as the novel's

narrative style. The chapter is told through Annie's voice, which although it will mature as she ages, remains consistent for the next seven chapters. Here the narrator is only ten and her imagery is colorful and descriptive. Kincaid's prose style reveals her heavy use of specific details that conjure colors and textures of her native island. For example, it is not just three fish that Annie forgot to bring home, but three specific fish: an angelfish,; a kanya fish, and a lady doctorfish. Names of foods and flowers are also mentioned in detail, a specificity that will continue throughout the novel and contribute to its visual richness. The episodic nature of the novel becomes apparent in this opening chapter. The chapter opens the novel, but could stand on its own as well with no further conclusion. Each of the chapters from Annie John were originally published as separate stories in the New Yorker, although in a slightly different form. Their placement together makes sense because the powerful narrative voice of Annie John connects them. They also proceed roughly in chronological order as she describes her early life. The specific plot of this chapter is not deeply connected with the overall plot of the book. However, the chapter does serve to develop the main characters that will be further explored in the pages to come and for that reason provides an important introductory role. Specifically in this episode, the ten-year-old Annie becomes obsessed with death. On the one hand, her obsession arises from the fear of death, on the other hands it is simple curiosity. In the first section of the chapter, Annie learns that children can die. In the second section, she describes in detail the death of Nalda, whom Annie knew. Annie's description of her fear of death suggests the powerful spiritual beliefs of people on her island, thinking that death or death people could hurt you- as seen with the girl who stops sucking her thumb because it may have touched water that touched a dead person. While Annie may be afraid of death, her curiosity about it leads her to describe morbid details in a humorous tone. Upon learning that the hunchback died, for example, Annie laments the fact that she never touched the hunch on the girl's back to see it if was hollow. Likewise, when Annie sees the dead hunchback girl at the funeral parlor, she compares looking at her to looking through a View Master. Annie's not entirely gentle thoughts about a dead person are typical of the voice of a ten year old, which simultaneously adds a comic touch. The relationship between Annie and her mother starts to be developed in this chapter. Annie's mother is a powerful woman who teaches Annie about death and who even has the powers necessary to prepare a dead girl for the grave. Annie's fear of her mother's hands touching her after that preparation foreshadows Annie's later dread of her mother's touch as their relationship falls apart. Similarly, Annie's failure to bring home the fish as she was supposed to foreshadows her future disobedience and conflict with her mother. At the end of this chapter, Annie and her mother still feel tightly connected, however, and despite her promises to do otherwise her mother sends Annie to bed with a kiss.

Chapter Two: The Circling Hand Summary

When Annie is on holiday from school, she is allowed to sleep in until long after her father goes to work. Her father always wakes at seven with the church bell, eats the breakfast, jumps in a cold bath, and shaves. Because Annie John is a girl, her mother adds hot water to the bath when it is Annie's turn. Sometimes Annie and her mother take a bath together. Mrs. John often puts special herbs and flowers in the bath for healing purposes, and fully washes Annie. After their baths, Annie and her mother eat and then head to town. Annie feels proud and important to go shopping with her mother. Mrs. John uses good shopping sense and always instructs Annie on how to buy the best products and clothes. On their way home from town, an angry woman occasionally approaches them and curses. Annie's mother always hides her in her skirt at these moments, but despite her efforts, Annie knows that this woman is one of several who hate her mother because they had children with her father but are not married to him. Mrs. John usually cooks a sumptuous lunch after they get home and Annie's father returns to eat. As they eat, Annie admires her mother's beauty and notices that her father finds her mother's commentary incredibly funny and always laughs when she talks. Annie loves her mother very much and believes their life together to be a virtual paradise. Mrs. John grew up on the island of Dominica but fled home at the age of sixteen for Antigua. She came to Antigua with only a trunk painted yellow and green. Sometimes Annie and her mother look through this trunk and her mother tells stories of the objects within it. Annie knows all these stories, but finds no greater joy than to sit on her mother's lap hearing them all again. Sometimes Annie starts to worry about people who have no one to love them. Her father, for example, lost both of his parents at a young age because they simply moved away to South America. After they left, he lived with his grandmother until one morning he woke up and found her dead. Upon her death, he left home. When Annie's father tells her this story, they both cry. Annie feels bad that her father was left all alone and she fears that her own parents will go away like her father's did. She is afraid to be left alone because she loves everything as it is. When she gets to be around twelve, Annie's body starts to mature physically and her mother starts suggesting that Annie might not always live with them. One day, her mother shows her how to fold sheets, but mentions that Annie may want to fold them in a different way when she gets her own home. Another time while shopping, Annie wants to get fabric with men playing pianos on it, but her mother tells Annie that she is too old to go around looking a younger version of her. Eventually Annie gets the fabric, but whenever she wears the dress she feels resentful. Her mother also starts stressing that Annie needs to grow into a lady. She sends Annie to a woman who will teach her manners and to a piano teacher, but Annie gets kicked out of both classes for misbehaving. Annie lies about getting kicked out of the manners class, but her mother hears about Annie eating a plum from the piano and turns her back angrily on her daughter. Annie feels distressed at her mother's anger, but even more at their growing separation.

Despite her growing distress at her mother's behavior, Annie remembers that she soon will be attending a new school. She spends considerable time in town getting her books and new uniforms. One day she returns from Sunday school to find her parents making love in bed, with her mother's hand circling on her father's back She feels angry that her parents are not paying attention to her. When she sees her mother at dinner, she sees her in a totally new way. They have changed. Annie John feels disgusted when she looks at her mother's hands. She makes a cruel insolent remark to her mother because she is angry. Her mother looks sad and turns away. Annie decides that her relationship with her mother has totally changed, but consoles herself with the knowledge that she will attend school the following Monday and meet Gwen, so all shall be fine. Analysis

This chapter cuts to the heart of the relationship between Annie and her mother. In its opening segments, Annie's depicts her early life as a small paradise in which she and her mother share most moments of her summer vacation. As they bathe together, Annie's body almost becomes that of her mother. The water plays an important symbolic role of purification and revitalization that will continue throughout the novel. They eat breakfast together and shop together in town. Annie believes that her mother is the smartest and best mother, who also is extraordinarily beautiful. Annie's mother always knows where to buy the best bread, crabs, and fish. She knows how to wash the laundry and dry it on the large rocks in the yard. She cooks delicious meals at lunch for all three of them. Annie finds her mother to be without fault and assumes that they will always live in total peace with one another. Annie starts to develop fears of separation in the beginning of this chapter. These fears foreshadow the chapter's later events as well as the subsequent plot of the novel. The story of Annie's father is a story of separation from all loving family members and Annie cries when she hears it because she imagines living alone to be the worst thing in the world. Annie's father is a kind figure, but it is his absence during the day that makes her special relationship with her mother possible. Annie does not feel a similarly unique unity with her father, although she loves him. Her mother's trunk, like the baths, serves as a symbolic unification of mother and daughter. Annie loves to hear the stories from the trunk again and again because these stories serve as the foundation of her personal sense of self. Just as she feels at one with her mother's body as the bathe together, so does she feel one with her mother's stories, because at this juncture she lacks a separate self with its own tales so she simply assumes those of her mother. By the end of the novel, Annie will be forced to see her mother's separateness, as a result of seeing her mother's sexuality. This sexuality first is apparent when her mother and father seem entranced by each other as they eat lunch. When Annie sees her parents making love, however, she realizes the seriousness of the situation. She has run home to show her mother an award that she won at Sunday school, but no one pays attention to her. The special unit between her mother and her self has been broken. Her mother is paying more attention to her father than to her, and Annie is jealous. The title of the chapter, "The Circling Hand," references the motion of Mrs. John's hand during this sex scene. For the second time in the novel, Annie decides that her mother's hands can never touch her again, since they have been so polluted by sex. Annie's anger at being left out of the parental unit leads her to be insolent later that evening in a way that she has never been before. Her mother looks hurt, but Annie decides that war lines have

been drawn. Annie soon will attend school and befriend Gwen and keep their friendship a secret as to get back at her mother. While the sex scene brings final clarity to why Annie resents her mother, Annie's distress at being a separate person has grown throughout the chapter. First Annie's mother has wanted Annie to dress in a way different from her and next she sends her to special courses that will help her develop as her own person. Annie rebels in these classes because she wants to stop the process of separation, but her rebellion has little effect except taking her mother further away from her by making her angry. The opening sections of the chapter use simple, clear, and childish language that show how much the narrator adores her mother. It is this adoration and her belief in the paradise of her early childhood that will lead to Annie's inability to accept the need to separate from her mother as she grows. This inability in turn will lead to the rising action in the novel and its ultimate conflict.

Chapter Three: Gwen Summary

Annie is on her way to attend a new school and feels both excited and nervous at the transition. She visited the school the week before, so she knows her way around when she gets there. Once in homeroom, one of the other girls asks if she is Annie John and comments that they heard she is very smart, which Annie agrees with. The teacher, Miss Nelson, enters and takes the roll. She tells the girls that they will all be writing an original autobiographical essay that morning that they will read to each other in the afternoon. Annie works all morning until lunch and, in her excitement, dashes back to school right after eating with her parents. The class sits outside under a tree while everyone reads their essays. Many of the essays deal with dreams of emigration, family members living abroad, or times when friends met members of the British aristocracy. Annie's story describes when she and her mother uses to swim at Rat Island when Annie was young to strengthen Annie's kidneys. Because Annie could not swim, her mother held her as they moved through the water. One day, Annie started watching some ships passing in the distance and when she turned back around she could not find her mother. Finally, Annie saw that her mother was lying on a rock not too far away. Annie started jumping and waving, but her mother did not see her and Annie could not swim to reach her. Her mother's separation made Annie weep because she feared that they might never be reunited. When Annie's mother finally reached the shore, she felt surprised at Annie's tears. When Annie explained her fear, her mother said that she would never leave Annie. After the episode, Annie occasionally dreamt of it and sometimes visualized the ocean separating both her mother and father from her. One morning after the dream, Annie told her mother of it and her mother explained again that she would never leave Annie. Upon finishing the essay, Annie thinks that her classmates were almost touched to tears and that they loved it. Miss Nelson compliments Annie and asks her for a copy of the paper so it can be posted where everyone can read it. Annie reflects that part of the essay contained a slight lie, because when she told her mother about the dream her mother had simply told her not to eat fruit before bed because it was giving her bad dreams. As they walked back to the classroom, Annie feels proud. A girl named Gwen pinches her arm and gives Annie a black rock that came from the base of a volcano. This moment starts their deep friendship to come. Later the two girls walk home together. Gwen and Annie soon become fully in love with one another and are inseparable. They share all their stories and secrets together. They walk to and from school together everyday. They become a tight pair, just as some of the other girls have become in their school. Because Annie is the brightest student in the class, the teacher often leaves her in charge if she has to leave the room. Annie always stands up for everyone, though, and this tendency makes her popular. She also is gifted at sports and is slightly mischievous. The girls frequently sit behind the school in a cluster of tombstones during recess. They sing dirty songs and discuss their soon-to-be growing breasts. One day, Annie starts to menstruate, and is the first girl to do so. Her mother teaches her how to wrap cloth between her legs. As Annie walks to school, she

thinks that everyone who looks at her knows that she is bleeding. During recess, she feels bound by decorum to show off to the other girls as they sit in the tombstone area, but Annie wishes that she were not the first girl to have started. Later in class, Annie starts visualizing her own blood and faints. The nurse lets Annie rest, but then decides to send her home to her mother. When Annie reaches home, her mother comes forward with concern, but Annie feels only bitterness and anger. Analysis

Annie's struggles with her self and her mother continue in this chapter, although another important factor appears: Annie's attendance in school. School represents the social order that has been constructed by the British colonial power that still governs Antigua. The teachers in Annie's school are named after English kings (Miss Edward and Miss George) an English fleet Admiral (Miss Nelson) and the famous London Prison (Miss Newgate). Annie subtly criticizes the English order by commenting on the personal body issues of British people. First she observes that that the headmistress of the school, Miss Moore, who moved to Antigua from England always looks like a dried prune who had been left out in the sun. Second, she notes that English people often smell like fish because they do not wash enough. Annie will excel in adhering to the standards required by her teachers, the representatives of the British educational order, but her rebelliousness, which is just barely visible in this chapter but will grow, shows the feisty Antiguan spirit that remains underneath. Annie's essay for school articulates her fear of separation from her mother, which surfaced in the previous chapter. The general admiration of Annie's theme indicates that the other girls of her age group share her emotion. In Annie's story, water again plays an important symbolic role, as both a transformer and purifier. First, Annie and her mother swim at the beach in order to strength Annie's internal organs. Initially, they swim together with Annie's mother holding her. This joint movement through recalls the tendency for Annie to bathe with her mother. More importantly, the salty water of the ocean recalls the amniotic fluid of the womb and Annie's bobbing up and down in the water while clinging to her mother suggests a pre-birth state. After Annie's mother separates onto a rock, a stream of this same salty water will now divide them, just as the passing of the amniotic fluid that brought Annie to life rendered them asunder. In this way, Annie's story carries metaphoric undertones about Annie's pain at being separated from her mother with the act of birth. At the same time, the imagery also foreshadows Annie's future life movement. As a young girl, Annie feels pained when she sees water dividing her from her mother. As she grows however, Annie will purposely separate herself from her mother with similar water, by moving to England and placing the Atlantic Ocean between them. Annie will later come to embrace and even desire this separation that she now so bitterly fears. Thus her essay serves as both a commentary upon the inherent separation between mother and daughter, while simultaneously foreshadowing the future. The title of this chapter, "Gwen," comes from Annie's new friendship with Gwen. But like the chapter before "the Circling Hand," the name does not so much invoke the importance of the object mentioned but rather what that object represents. Annie does profess to love Gwen, but there is little doubt that Annie uses her friendship with Gwen primarily to compensate for the neglect that she feels from her mother. Since it is becoming clear to Annie that she and her mother may not spend the rest of their lives together, Annie uses Gwen as a substitute. The two

share their stories and secrets and plan a life together, but to a large extent the depth of their relationship comes from their psychological need to replace a distancing maternal relationship. Nor are Gwen and Annie the only ones to create such mollifying bonds. Kincaid points out that most of the other girls find a similar mate to cling to and in doing so, she suggests that Annie's troubles with her mother are not necessarily individual, but rather a natural development of a growing adolescent psyche. Annie's desire to be popular at school also helps her to satisfy the lack of love that she feels from her mother. Annie's final dismay over her menstruation again highlights her desire not to separate from her mother. With menstruation, Annie has undeniably become a separate self. Her body has now reached female maturity and she is no longer a child. Annie feels almost morose at the development. Normally, the chance to show other girls something that they have not yet experienced would make her exuberant, but, although she does show them due to decorum, she wishes that she could be a spectator rather than being center stage. Annie is dragging her heels in every way possible as to not be pushed into adulthood, but, as her menstruation indicates, it is a process that she cannot stop. Perhaps in reaction to her internal stress about the unpreventable arrival of womanhood, she faints in her class. This faint manages to send her back to the comfort of her mother, but although her mother greets her with concern, Annie feels only bitterness. Annie longs for unification with her mother but seems to realize that it is now impossible, so she continues to view her only with anger.

Chapter Four: The Red Girl Summary

Annie always leaves her house and returns to it by slamming the gate so that her mother can hear when she has come and gone. Before or after she slams the gate, however, she secretly sneaks under the house where she hides stolen and precious objects. Primarily, these objects are books because Annie cannot bear to part with books she has read, so she steals them and stows them under the house. One day, Annie is throwing a stone at the guava tree trying to knock a fruit down, when the Red Girl comes along. The Red Girl promptly climbs up the tree, something that only boys do, and collects the guava for Annie. Annie is stunned. Annie has known the Red Girl for many years because Annie's mother long has criticized the way that the Red Girl's mother cares for her. The Red Girl only has to take a bath and comb her hair once a week and she always wears ripped and stained clothing. Annie, who has to take a bath everyday, with her hair combed, shoes shined, and uniform clean, feels somewhat envious of the Red Girl's freedom. The two girls go to a nearby lighthouse where they are strictly not allowed to play. From the top, they watch the sea and Annie feels ecstatic. Before leaving, the Red Girl gives Annie three marbles, which Annie decides to hide from her mother. After meeting up with the Red Girl, Annie sees Gwen after school but finds Gwen dull. Annie does not tell her about the Red Girl. Annie then starts playing marbles and finds out that she is good at it. She starts winning other girls' marbles and acquires so many that she hides them under the house. Soon, Annie maintains a deceptive secret life. After getting home to school, she lies to her mother about having to do some schoolwork outside so that she can play with the Red Girl. Annie even starts stealing small objects from her parents so that she can give the Red Girl presents. Annie hides all of her marbles and other stolen goods under the house. One day, she spends hours winning a beautiful marble to give it to the Red Girl. As she is climbing out from under the house with it, however, her mother sees her. The mother seizes the marble and demands to know where the others are. She searches furiously under and around the house. She cannot find the marbles, a fact that Annie finds wryly ironic. The mother's quest continues for days. Finally, her mother tells a story about how when she was a girl she once carried a bunch of green figs home on her head for her father. Annie's mother felt that the figs were very heavy and upon reaching her house, she put them down and a large black snake crawled out of them and into the woods. Annie feels overcome by love and emotion at the end of the story as she pictures her beautiful mother with a black snake on her head. She decides to tell her mother about the marbles, but when her mother asks in a deceptive tone, Annie immediately denies ever having them. Soon after her mother's quest, Annie stops playing marbles because she starts to menstruate and the Red Girl moved away to Anguilla. When Annie hears of the Red Girl's departure, she dreams that the Red Girl's ship capsizes, Annie saves her, and together they live on a small island eating wild boars and grapes. When ships pass, the two girls send confusing signals so that the ships crash into the rocks and all the people in them are lost. Analysis

This chapter represents the pinnacle of Annie's rebellion against her mother. Annie meets the Red Girl and adores her because the Red Girl seems to be everything that Annie is not. The Red Girl's mother lets her run around filthy and ragged, while doing whatever she likes. As Annie spends more time with the Red Girl, she increasingly throws off the rules that she is supposed to follow. She becomes a petty thief. She lies consistently to her mother. She masters marbles, a game her mother deplores. These acts of disobedience are an extension of Annie's anger at her mother. By acting up against her, Annie is taking her revenge upon a mother who insists that they are separate people. Through her disobedience Annie also draws attention to herself, which might be a further attempt to reclaim a connection with her mother that cannot be captured. Annie's behavior with the Red Girl also is a commentary upon the dominant British colonial structure at the time. The Red Girl effectively stands outside that structure. She does not partake in the colonial education system, therefore does not follow its social order as does Annie. The Red Girl does not wear clean European style clothing, as Annie does. She lets her hair grow wild and she climbs up trees. She does not behave in the civilized way that Antiguans come to learn from their British masters. Even the fact that she lacks a proper name and is simply called "Red Girl," a description that could indicate the color of her skin, shows that she stands apart from the governmental system that imposes names and laws upon its subjects. Annie's attempts to be like the Red Girl demonstrates her own desire to throw off the dominant social order imposed by the colonial class and their expectations. Annie's mother, with her propriety and sense of order, appears as this representative of the dominant order, even though she is Antiguan. The relationship between controlling mother and disobedient daughter parallels the relationship between controlling colonizer and disobedient subjects. In this way, Annie's personal growth and disobedience touch on larger themes of the Antiguan desire for personal articulation within a dominant colonial culture. The final image of the chapter shows Annie and the Red Girl as powerful figures who destroy colonial ships through their manipulation of navigational symbols. With such a dream, Annie demonstrates her desire to stand firmly beside the Red Girl as a figure who has the ability to subvert the dominant colonial order. While Annie's mother represents the dominant social order, her story of the fig and the snake evokes the magical realm of Antiguan folklore. The story almost gets Annie to confess, because Annie feels overcome with emotion when she envisions a black snake on her mother's head. The story reminds Annie of her Antiguan connection to her mother and of their need for joint unity to ward off such powerful figures as threatening black snakes. Furthermore, the story also contains a slight warning by Annie's mother, a woman who is more able to manipulate obeah, the local witchcraft, than her daughter. When Annie hears the treachery in her mother's tone, however, she refuses to tell her anything. Annie remembers that she and her mother are fighting a battle between the dominant and the rebellious class and she refuses to yield. The form of this chapter continues in the episodic style that characterizes the others. The close of the chapter however, suggests that the sequences in it take place before many of the events in the previous chapter. At the very end, Annie mentions that she stops playing marbles because the Red Girl moved away and because she started to menstruate. Since the act of menstruation was already fully described in Chapter Three, it seems that the events of Chapter Four must have taken place before some of the events of Chapter Three. This lack of continuity in time

highlights the fact that the novel has been constructed as a series of connected episodes that link together with Annie's powerful voice, but not necessarily as a tightly constructed novel would. As this discrepancy with times suggests, the sequences does not necessarily proceed in chronological time.

Chapter Five: Columbus in Chains Summary

Annie is sitting in her history class when the church bell tolls eleven am. She is the prefect of her class because she always gets the highest grades. Annie finds it slightly ironic that she is the prefect, because she often misbehaves. The girl who is just below Annie in terms of grades, Hilarene, is very boring and dull and never misbehaves. Their teacher, Miss Edward, is drilling students on events in the history of the West Indies. Ruth, a white girl who comes from England and who is the minister's daughter, gets one of the answers wrong. Ruth frequently is the dunce of the class, which means that each Monday she has to wear the dunce cap all day long because she did the worst on Friday's quiz. Annie feels bad for Ruth and thinks that Ruth probably does not know the West Indian history because she just arrived from England. Annie thinks that Ruth must feel constantly ashamed because her ancestors, white people, had owned slaves and every time she looked around Antigua, she must see that. Annie feels glad that she is a descendant of a slave, because she does not feel this guilt. Annie hypothesizes that if Africans found Europe instead of the other way around, Africans would not have enslaved anyone, but just would have commented on how nice Europe was, before turning around and heading home. Annie is bored because she already knows the whole lesson, so she is reading ahead in her history book. She comes to a page with a picture of Columbus in chains on it. Annie discovers that Columbus, whom she always had learned was illustrious, had been arrested after falling out of favor with the Queen. As a result, he was placed in chains and shipped back to Spain in the bottom of a boat. Annie likes the idea of Columbus being in chains. She thinks back to a time when her father heard about her grandfather's growing decrepitude and said, "So now the great man can no longer just get up and go." Annie starts to inscribe, "The great man can no longer just get up and go," underneath the picture of Columbus in chains. All of a sudden, Miss Edwards is bearing down upon her. Annie reflects briefly that Miss Edwards has never liked her very much. Annie believes that Miss Edwards's dislike stemmed back to a time when she saw Annie making bawdy jokes before the other girls in the tombstone area after school. The girls had congregated they had spent their recess dancing around the schoolyard while singing calypso songs. This dancing was greatly frowned upon, but the girls loved it and felt so energized that they had later gathered amongst the tombstones. Miss Edward had found them there and especially accused Annie, whose mother she spoke to directly. Miss Edward is outraged that Annie has defaced her history book, and accuses her of being blasphemous since she has slandered the great man who discovered her island. Miss Edwards sends her to the principal. The principal removes her prefect position and orders her to copy Book I and II of Milton's Paradise Lost. Annie feels irritated and looks forward to reaching her house where her mother will cheer her. When she gets there, however, her parents barely look at her since they are deep in conversation. Annie's mother hands her a plate, but Annie does not want to eat the dinner because it appears to be breadfruit, which she hates. Annie's mother insists that it is just rice, a new kind imported from Belgium. Annie eats it, even though it tastes like breadfruit. After dinner, Annie gets her mother to confess that it truly was breadfruit

that she shaped to look like rice. Annie feels a surge of hatred at yet another betrayal. Analysis

This chapter directly deals with issues of colonialism and postcolonial culture that have so far been subtly hinted at in the text. Annie launches into a discussion of the history of slavery in Antigua by discussing Ruth, a blonde haired English girl who recently moved there. Annie senses that Ruth must feel guilty because white people once enslaved black people and everyone knows it. Annie briefly comments upon the irony of colonization when she considers that all the Antiguan school children celebrate England and Queen Victoria's birthday, but really they all know that the British once enslaved them. Annie finds it ironic, but assumes that the past is the past. She feels bad for Ruth because Ruth, of course, knows less about the West Indies than them. Through the interaction of these two girls, Kincaid provides an individualized perspective upon the dynamics of life in a colonial state. Annie's discussion of colonization goes on as she contemplates Columbus who returned to Spain imprisoned. Annie feels happy that Columbus was put into chains because he returned to Spain much in the way that slaves were sent to the Americas. The phrase "the great man can go no where" is stuck in her head and so she inscribes it before she is discovered. Her crime almost is beyond belief. Miss Edwards is a representative of the English social order and as a teacher has defined herself according to the rules of this order. One of the primary rules, of course, is that the discoverer of Antigua, Christopher Columbus, should be honored. Annie's slight of Columbus stands outside of Miss Edwards's system of belief and it is for this reason that she refers to Annie's action as "blasphemous." "Blasphemy" is a particularly strong term that usually signifies the degradation of a major deity such as God or Jesus. That Miss Edwards would use it for someone who criticized Columbus shows that she holds Columbus in almost God-like state reverence. Because Columbus's importance is essential to the colonial system, Annie's act not only criticizes him, but also subverts the whole dominant colonial order. For this reason, it is a dangerous one for which she must be punished. The principal chooses to punish Annie by trying to reinforce the rules of English cultural dominion over her. The school has long tried to control the culture of the students, for example, by not allowing them to dance calypso at lunchtime, preferring that they read poems or hold polite discussions. In order to strongly re-inscribe English values upon Annie, the principal orders her to copy Milton's Paradise Lost. Kincaid's choice of Paradise Lost carries an appropriate subtext that relates both to the colonization of Antigua and to Annie's personal life. On the level of colonization, Antigua was a paradise before the British arrived and made it a lost paradise by transforming it into a slave colony. The title of the book that the principal uses for punishment, then, carries a certain irony that even she does not likely understand. In terms of Annie's personal life, the plot of Paradise Lost mirrors the plot of her own. Paradise Lost tells the story of Lucifer who challenged the dominant authority (God) and who, for his crimes, was cast out of the paradise of heaven into darkness and eternal exile. Annie herself is currently in a state of challenging the dominant authority (her mother) and fears being cast out into exile. The use of Milton's book thus provides a subtle commentary on several levels. The close of the chapter reinforces Annie's sadness and sense of exile from paradise. Although she longs for comforting from her parents, they are too involved with each other to pay her any

mind. Aside from just simply excluding her, Annie feels fully betrayed when she observes that her mother plotted a sneaky scheme to get her to eat breadfruit. Now her mother is not just failing to nourish their relationship but she is actively plotting against Annie. Annie feels depressed and in exile as the chapter comes to an end.

Chapter Six: Somewhere, Belgium Summary

Annie is now fifteen and she imagines that she is unhappier than anyone else could possible be. Her unhappiness cannot be traced to a simple factor, but thrives inside like a heavy black ball that is covered with cobwebs. Annie believes that this blackness inside makes everything that she once enjoyed appear sour. She and her mother now go through the world with two faces. To her father and to their friends, they act pleasant and friendly. Toward each other, though, the truth is apparent. Annie acts hidden and secretive toward her mother. Her mother pays her back by constantly complementing Annie in a way that annoys her. Annie is completely obsessed by her love and revulsion for her mother. She both wishes her dead and doubts that she will be able to survive without her. Annie starts to have a recurring dream in which she is walking down a road and with each footstep hears her voice saying, "I would kill my mother if I got the chance. My mother would kill me if she got the chance." This dream makes Annie feel afraid of her mother, but at the same time makes her feel empowered. In school, Annie has been raised out of her grade because of her abilities. She is now in a class with girls two or three years older than her and she feels out of place. These girls have fully mature bodies and appear very vain. Annie devotes her time to her studies and once again emerges as either the top or second to the top student. Gwen and Annie still walk home together, but Annie knows that something has changed between them. One day, Gwen suggests that Annie marry Gwen's brother, so that Gwen and Annie will always be together. This idea startles Annie and Gwen's suggestion of it reminds her of how far apart the two girls are. As Gwen keeps talking, Annie starts to daydream. She decides that she wants to move to Belgium, where Jane Eyre, her favorite character, once traveled. In Belgium, Annie's mother could address letters to her as "Annie John, Somewhere Belgium," because Annie would not say in what city she was. Gwen assumes that Annie's silence means that she agrees with the marriage idea. Annie stops spending so much time with Gwen after the marriage discussion, and even lies about having extra work in order to avoid her. One day, evading Gwen, Annie walks into town after school. She finds herself in front of a clothing store and sees her reflection in the window. Annie sadly observes that she looks awkward and ugly, and she compares herself to a picture of young Lucifer. Some boys standing nearby start teasing her gently. Annie knows one of them, Mineu, because they used to play as children. One day when they were children, they acted out the hanging of a legendary murderer and Mineu got stuck in the noose and almost choked. His mother's arrival saved him, but everyone wondered why Annie had not run for help. Another time, Mineu tricked her by getting her to sit naked on a red anthill, where she promptly was stung all over. Annie's mother stood up for Annie then and she and Mineu stopped being friends when Mineu's mother refused to accept Mineu's fault. As the boys keep laughing at her on the street, Annie walks away. When Annie gets home, her mother appears angry that Annie is late from school. Her mother explains that she was in the clothing store and saw Annie looking in. She also saw Annie flirting and conducting herself improperly with those boys. After Annie's mother uses the slang

word for "slut" numerous times, Annie says "like mother like daughter." Silence grows between the two and the mother tells Annie that she always loved her best until that moment, and then walks away. As Annie watches her mother walk away, Annie feels that her mother is young and vigorous, while Annie is old and broken. Annie returns to her room depressed and contemplates her mother's old trunk sits under her bed. Later at dinner, Annie's father asks her what type of furniture he should make her next and Annie asks him to make her a trunk of her own. He agrees to do so. Analysis

Annie's relationship with her mother has completely disintegrated and Annie starts to feel the effects physically. Annie envisions a heavy black ball inside of her body that lends a sour edge to the world around. The ball comes everywhere with Annie and makes her miserable. Her relationship with her mother has disintegrated such that the two now stand completely opposed to one another. The world may think that everything is normal between them, but they know better. At the same time, Annie's relationships at school have also diminished. Due to her abilities, Annie is played in a class where she is no longer fits in socially with the other students. Even Annie's relationship with Gwen seems outdated and uninteresting. Annie's relationship with her mother stands as poorly as ever, while at the same time those things that previously supported her in her time of woe have disappeared. Annie's misery sends her into the world of fiction. Annie's favorite book is Jane Eyre and she, as did Jane, wants to go to Belgium. Although Annie once wanted to never be separate from her mother, her anger and dismay at their differences now makes Annie want to hide completely in some unknown Belgian town. It is worth noting that the character of Jane Eyre, herself, is an orphan who always felt cast out and separated from the world. Annie's tendency to identify with Jane, despite the fact that she has a family, demonstrates how alienated and isolated she feels from her mother. Annie's visit to town and her musing upon her reflection shows the extent to which she is falling apart. When Annie sees her face, she thinks that she is ugly and ragged. Annie compares herself to a painting of Young Lucifer. The comparison to Lucifer is consistent with the last chapter's reference to Paradise Lost in that it again marks her as a person, like Lucifer, who has been kicked out of paradise by a dominant figure and who is now bound to eternal loneliness and isolation. Annie's feeling of dismay at her physical body and appearance prefigures her physical illness that follows in the next chapter. Already by obsessing over the black ball of sadness in her and by seeing her face with distortion, Annie appears to be on the cusp of a mental breakdown. The interaction between Annie and the boys of the street provides a further hostile world in which even young boys, including one who was her friend, torment her. Annie remembers a time when her mother staunchly defended her against this boy, but such a defense is no longer to be. The attack of Annie's mother calling her a "slut" injures Annie to the core. Of course, her mother has misunderstood, but Annie recoils to the defensive says simply "like mother, like daughter." The effectiveness of Annie's response suggests that it carries some truth, and that her mother was involved in early sexual experimentation and perhaps this accounts for why she fled from her family in Dominica. Annie feels sick after the confrontation, but sees her mother

as looking stronger and more vigorous than ever. Annie's final consideration of the trunk suggests her full rejection of her mother. Annie's desire to have a trunk of her own heralds her desire to willfully separate from her mother. The trunk, whose stories once defined her, now seems to oppress with its presence. Annie thinks she is ready to have her own trunk to put her own objects and stories into. Annie's desire for a trunk of her own foreshadows her eventual desire to emerge as a separate person.

Chapter Seven: The Long Rain Summary

Annie John becomes ill being weak, falling asleep constantly, and being scarcely able to walk to school. Her mother decides that she must stay home in bed. The island has been suffering from a drought for over a year, but just as Annie's illness begins it begins to rain. The rain will continue heavily for over three months and will cover all the dry land. After the rains ends, the islanders will feel that the sea has never gone back to the way that it had once been. From her sickbed, Annie listens to the rain on the metal roof. She feels weak and delusional. She can only hear the sound of the rain and not what her parents say. Eventually, they take her to the doctor. The doctor finds nothing wrong with her, but recommends increased protein. Her mother feeds her broth and egg cordial with rum in it. Her mother also plans to have a Dominican obeah woman who lives in Antigua, Ma Jolie, treat Annie, although her father does not like the idea. Annie continues to listen to the sound of the rain. She falls asleep and dreams that she walks to the ocean and drinks the sea, but that it starts leaking out of her every cell. When she wakes up, she finds herself in her father's lap by the fire because she has wet the bed. Her mother is changing the sheets. The next morning, Annie's mother feeds and bathes her. Her mother gives Annie some chocolate milk, which makes Annie remember how she was in the Brownies as a girl. Annie won many award in the Brownies and they held their meetings in the churchyard where they said to the pledge of allegiance to the English flag. After remembering the Brownies, Annie pictures herself as a small doll size Brownie who walks around the streets of Antigua. Sometime later, Ma Jolie, the obeah woman, treats Annie. She ties some strange smelling sachets on her and gives her lots of different medicine. The doctor visits Annie again, but gets upset to find that Ma Jolie has been treating her. For the first two weeks of her illness, Annie's mother and father never leave her alone, but finally one day her mother goes to the fish market. After she leaves, Annie, in her delirium, believes that the photographs on the table across from her are growing larger. The photographs start gyrating in a sexual manner and Annie feels overcome by their smell. She decides to clean them. She dumps them in a bath and scrubs each one clean before dusting them with talcum powder. After this bath, many significant portions of the photographs have disappeared such as the faces in a family wedding photo, the lower halves of her parents' bodies, and everything but Annie's confirmation shoes. Eventually, Annie's grandmother, Ma Chess, appears mysteriously from Dominica on a day when the ferry was not even running. She knows more about obeah than even Ma Jolie. She suffered a great loss when her own son and Annie's uncle, Johnny, died from an obeah curse years ago. Ma Chess stays in Annie's room everyday. She does not use medicine on her, but crawls into bed with her and holds her in a spoon position. Ma Chess sleeps at the foot of Annie's bed and never leaves her alone. It is from Ma Chess's attentions that Annie is healed. The rain continues for three and a half months. As it stops, Annie is healed. Ma Chess goes home just as mysteriously as she had come, also on a day when the ferry does not run. Annie's mother fixes the garden that had been damaged by the rain. Finally, Annie's mother takes her

outside and they realize that Annie has grown several inches during her illness. Annie now is taller than both parents. They have to buy her new uniforms and shoes for school. As she heals, Annie no longer feels angry at her mother's separateness, but actually comes to embrace it. She decides that she will soon go far away from Antigua to a place where no one will know her. Back at school, Annie acts different as well. She becomes aloof and uninterested in girlish gossip. Her speech becomes forceful and people listen to her words. She never answers questions about her illness, but occasionally refers to it in such as way that the other girls all wish that they had been sick too. Analysis

This chapter details Annie's emotional and physical breakdown that follows the fight with her mother in the last chapter. Annie's breakdown is also a necessary consequence to her inability to accept her need to grow into an independent and separate being. Because she cannot do so, she retreats into a world of sickness where her behaviors will imitate those of an infant. Annie, in her sickness, acts just like a baby who cannot eat alone or bathe herself, and she even wets her bed. Annie's mother finds cures from both the Western doctor and the local obeah woman, but neither of them work. Annie's grandmother, Ma Chess, knows how to cure Annie. Although Ma Chess apparently knows more obeah that the obeah woman, she uses a more simple technique to cure her grandchild. Ma Chess gives Annie all the attention that Annie feels her mother has denied her lately. Ma Chess lies constantly in bed with Annie and holds her as if she were an infant. Ma Chess's cure relies upon her knowledge of what Annie's psychology desires and ultimately it works. Water continues its symbolic role in this chapter. Kincaid mirrors Annie's breakdown with the onset of a three-month deluge of rain. Although the island has suffered from a drought for over a year, this rain will be so forceful that after it ends, the islanders will think that the sea has permanently shifted. In the same way, Annie will be completely different after the disease, after the rain, than she was before. Physically, she will have grown larger. Emotionally, she will be more secure and now prepared to accept her separation and independence from her parents, especially from her mother. The water thus continues to serve a purifying and transforming role, as it has previously done such as with the baths that Annie and her mother used to take. Initially, the sound of the rain adds to her sense of disconnectedness. Yet, by the end the sound of falling rain will have helped to purify and change, and when it stops she will be transformed. Annie's destruction of her family photographs carries symbolic meaning as well, in which Annie takes revenge against their images for faults owed to her. In her parents' snapshot, for example, the lower half of their bodies disappear which metaphorically indicates that they are no longer able to perform the sexual act that excludes her. In a family wedding photo, only Annie's face remains suggesting the quality of her reality and life as compared to the others. Finally, in her confirmation photo, only the shoes that she forced her mother to buy her remain, which again serve as an act of defiance toward her mother who tried to limit Annie's means of self-expression. Annie's parents see the destruction of the photographs as an indication of her illness, but her destruction of the images serve as a powerful expression of Annie's subconscious angers and desires.

By the end of the chapter, Annie's sense of self has emerged. Annie is healed and changed after her illness, after the storm. She has grown several inches and now towers over everyone. Her attitude has also changed. She begins to think of leaving her island and her family for her own space. She finds the other girls in school inane and uninteresting in their childish gossip. The pain that has subjugated Annie throughout the book has mostly disappeared as the chapter closes. Annie became ill, but by mothering her, Ma Chess made her well again, and now Annie is ready to go on her way.

Chapter Eight: A Walk to the Jetty Summary

Annie John is now seventeen and is going to head to England to study nursing. She wakes on the morning that she will leave knowing that later in the day she shall take a boat to Barbados and then to England. Annie looks over everything in her house thinking about her life and about how either her mother or father made everything that is in it. In one way this familiarity makes Annie feel nostalgic, but in another way it makes her realize that she has to go elsewhere to develop her own self. Annie hears the local church bell ring, which means that it is seven in the morning, when her father usually rises and goes to work. Annie rises and dresses in clothes and jewelry specifically touched by the obeah woman. She then eats a larger Sunday style breakfast with her parents. They act both cheery and sad and Annie acts the same way, even though she feels relief that she is going. Her mother suggests that Annie might get married after leaving and Annie bluntly dismisses the idea. After breakfast, Annie decides that she should say good-bye to Gwen, even though she no longer deeply cares for her. Gwen tells Annie that she is going to marry a local boy, Nevis, in the fall. Annie wishes her luck, but thinks in her head that Gwen has become absorbed by utter silliness. Annie later walks through town with her parents as they make their way to the ship that will take her away. Her mind swirls with memories as she passes the institutions of her youth: her school, her church, and the seamstress where she apprenticed. Annie remembers the first time her mother sent her on an errand, to get dried herbs from the store, and how her mother wept with pleasure when Annie returned successfully. Annie's mind contains a slideshow of memories from her island, but still she is planning to leave it behind. Finally, Annie and her parents reach the jetty that she will depart from. Annie remembers how she and her father used to walk there for exercise, and her father would chat with one of the watchmen. As Annie stares down, she suddenly feels worried about slipping through the jetty into the blue green water. A moment of panic hits her when she considers leaving her parents and her life behind. She wonders why she does not fall into a heap on the jetty right then and there. But she does not. She and her parents board the launch that will take them out to their boat. Once they get out to the boat, her mother introduces Annie to the captain and explains that Annie has never traveled alone. Annie will be sharing a cabin with another young woman. Annie's parents embrace her and her mother starts to cry, which makes Annie start to cry. Her mother tells her that it does not matter what Annie goes off and does because her mother will always be her mother and Antigua will always be her home. Annie smiles and looks loving, but feels in her heart how good it is that she is going. Her mother turns and walks out of the cabin. Soon after, Annie gets a large red cotton handkerchief out of her bag to wave good-bye to her family, as is the custom. When Annie's mother sees her waving, she waves furiously back until they can no longer see one another. Annie then goes back into the cabin and listens to the waves lapping the ship as they begin to leave. Analysis

In the final chapter, Annie's attitude toward her self and her parents differ from her feelings throughout much of the book. Annie has accepted the idea that she is a separate person. In fact, her separateness now seems profoundly important and she looks forward to being far from her parents and her history so that she can develop it. When she wakes on the final morning, she sees that her house leaves no space for her identity because it is full with her parents' identities. Everything in the house defines them and not her. Annie needs to find a new place of her own in order to be free to articulate her self. For this reason, she feels nostalgic in her house, but also matter-of-fact about her need to leave it. Annie's desire for separateness combined with her nostalgia lends her a dual consciousness throughout this chapter. At the breakfast table, her parents laugh with sadness at Annie's departure, while neighbors stop by to wish her luck on her adventure. Annie sees her parents' festive mood as evidence that they too believe that it is time for her to move on. Annie acts friendly on the surface, but feels a sense of disgust in her heart. When saying good-bye to Gwen, Annie thinks that Gwen has devolved into totally silliness, like a monkey. The fact that Gwen will soon be getting married while Annie fully shuns the notion of marriage, as she said to her parents, further underscores the difference between the two girls. Annie walk through town with her parents again reinforces her ambiguous feelings about her departure. In every sight, she sees her past. But Annie wants to be free from a place where everyone assumes that they know her history. In leaving her familial ground, she will be able to carve out new possibilities. Annie's desire to redefine her history according to her own terms is an emotion shared by many colonial people whose history and identities were frequently defined by those who colonized them. Annie has been trained with a sound colonial education, but she leaves the island with clothing and jewelry blessed by a local obeah woman. Upon reaching England, she will be able to redefine herself as she sees fit without the dictates of others around her. The sea again takes on a symbolic role in this chapter. When Annie first reaches the jetty, she fears falling through it into the blue-green water where the blue-green eels dwell. After a near panic at the concept of separation, she stills herself as she heads out to the boat and sees the clear crystalline ocean around her. With this view, the water appears to once again be a purifying liquid that will transform Annie as it carries her on her way to England. The final phrases of the novel use imagery that suggest the boat as another means of childbirth. Just as she left the salty amniotic fluid of her mother's womb, so too will the salt water of the ocean take her in a symbolic second birth to a new life separate from her mother's body. Annie's final moments with her mother are genuinely poignant, but as Annie departs it seems entirely correct that she should be going. She is a separate person and has finally accepted it. Through her symbolic voyage across the ocean, she will be born again and will come to begin anew in the new country of England.

Important Quotations Explained "My mother and I often took a bath together. Sometimes it was just a plain bath, which did not take very long. Other times it was a special bath in which the barks and flowers of many different trees, together with all sorts of oils, were boiled in the same large cauldron." Annie describes this scenario in the beginning of the second chapter, "A Circling Hand." The initial portions of this chapter describe Annie's early childhood with her mother. Annie views that early world as a paradise in which her mother and she were completely united. The ritualized baths were particularly intimate scenes during which the mother and daughter almost joined their bodies back together, as they had been before Annie's birth. Since Annie desires to stay permanently united with her mother, these moments of bathing represent some of her happier times with her mother. As the novel continues, Annie's ability to enact the intimacy that these baths created will fail. Annie spends the majority of the book fighting against the idea that she and her mother are separate people. "I was sure I could never let those hands touch me again; I was sure I could never let her kiss me again. All that was finished." Annie John makes this statement towards the end of the second chapter, "A Circling Hand." Earlier in the day, Annie had rushed home from Sunday School excited to tell her mother about a prize that she had won. Instead, she had found her parents making love. In particular, she had seen her mother's hand tracing a circle around her father's back, a motion that provides the title to the chapter "A Circling Hand." Because her mother's hand was involved in a sexual act, Annie now wants to fully reject it. Annie sees her parents' sexuality as a means by which they exclude her. In particular, she feels that her mother has completely betrayed her by forming a union with her father. For Annie, her mother has fully neglected and betrayed her through her sexuality and therefore their mother-daughter relationship was permanently changed. Annie's anger at the existence of her parents' sexuality will continue throughout the novel. "Gwen and I were soon inseparable. If you saw one, you saw the other. For me, each day began as I waited for Gwen to come by and fetch me for school" Annie makes this statement in the beginning of Chapter Three, "Gwen." Annie and Gwen have become best friends at school. Annie uses her relationship with Gwen in an effort to mollify the pain that she feels over being betrayed by her mother. Annie realizes that her mother and she might not always be together, so she finds another, Gwen, with whom she can cling on to. Her relationship with Gwen also serves as a means of revenge against her mother. Since her mother has chosen Annie's father over Annie, Annie will choose Gwen over her mother. Furthermore, Annie keeps her relationship with Gwen a secret, thereby trying to establish power over her moth. Annie constantly describes how much she loves Gwen and they share all their secrets, but at the same time this relationship exists solely as a substitute to Annie's failing relationship with her mother. "What just deserts, I thought, for I did not like Columbus. How I loved this picture—to see

the usually triumphant Columbus, brought so low, seated by the bottom of the boat watching things go by." Annie makes this statement in Chapter Five, "Columbus in Chains." She has become bored in his history class because she already knew the lesson, so she flipped ahead in the book and found a picture of Columbus in Chains. Annie never before had known that Columbus fell out of favor with the Queen and returned to Spain in chains. Although she is supposed to revere Columbus, the image of him in chains makes her happy because it seems a just reward to the man who brought colonization to her island. Annie thoughts about Columbus are connected to her opinions about slavery. Annie thinks that Africans would not have colonized Europeans the way that Europeans colonized Africans. She finds the fact that Columbus returned to Europe locked at the bottom of a boat, much in the way that slaves have been brought to the New World, to be completely fair and even humorous. Annie proceeds to deface the Columbus in Chains picture in her history book by writing "the great man can no longer get up and go" under it. Annie's writing serves as a revision to her colonial education, which fails to properly instruct her in the true, brutal history of Antigua. "I could hear the small waves lap lapping around the ship. They made an unexpected sound as if a vessel filled with liquid had been placed on its side and was now emptying out." This quote comes at the very end of the final "A Walk to the Jetty" chapter and it is the final statement of the novel. Annie is on the boat that will take her to Barbados, from where she will then head to England. After waving goodbye to her mother, she is lying on her bed in her cabin listening to the water move. The way that she describes the water evokes her final separation from her mother specifically because its terminology parallels that of giving birth. Like the uterus, the waves sounds like a "vessel filled with liquid"; furthermore, it sounds like the vessel is "emptying out" as the ship moves away. The watery sounds of the ship are taking Annie John away from her mother just as the act of birth once did. The salty water again plays an important symbolic role. In this second rebirth, Annie John emerges as an independent separate self who will now fully make her own way in the world.

Key Facts full title · Annie John author · Jamaica Kincaid type of work · Novel genre · bildungsroman, Caribbean novel language · English time and place written · New York City, 1982–1983 date of first publication · 1985 publisher · Penguin Books narrator · Annie John point of view · First person tone · It varies according to the age of Annie John. As a child, the language and imagery is very rich. As she ages, the tone grows more serious while also having more comic touches. tense · Past tense setting (time) · Sometime in the 1950s setting (place) · A city on Antigua protagonist · Annie John major conflict · Separation from mother and definition of self rising action · Annie's fear of separation from her family Annie's viewing of her parents as a sexual unit Annie's rebelliousness and insolence against her mother Annie's friendship with Gwen and the Red Girl. climax · Annie John has a breakdown as a result of the confrontation with her mother and her need to finally become a separate self. falling action · Annie recovers and recognizes herself as a separate person. She leaves Antigua to study in England. themes · Mother-daughter relationship Colonizer and colonial education Gender Relations motifs · Water Obeah Death

symbols · Annie's mother's trunk Marbles Milton's Paradise Lost foreshadowing · Annie's essay about separating from her mother Annie's feeling of a black ball of sadness inside her

Study Questions and Suggested Essay Topics Study Questions What issue is crucial in the breakdown of the relationship between Annie and her mother? What steps take place as it deteriorates? Annie's troubles with her mother originate with unwillingness to find her own identity that is separate from that of her parents. Annie's relationship with her mother begins to fall apart when Annie realizes that her mother and she are separate people who will not always be completely united. The awareness of separateness begins early, such as when Mrs. John suggests that Annie may one day have her own home, or when she wants Annie to stop looking like a "little her." When Annie discovers that her parents are a sexual unit, she feels particularly exiled and angered. Annie sees her mother's sexuality with her father as an act of betrayal against her. Annie rebels by forming a fierce friendship with Gwen, and later by being disobedient and dishonest. Despite her constant assertion that she no longer loves her mother, Annie still craves for her mother's attention and ultimately wants her life to return to how it was when she was a child. As Annie ages, physical changes in her body, such as menstruation, make it clear that no matter what she does, she will become a separate person. Annie's emotional breakdown comes when she is overcome by the demands that self and society place upon her. She recovers from her three-month illness by being coddled, as if she still were an infant, by her grandmother. After receiving the proper attention, Annie wakes up and now feels prepared to be her own self in the future. To some extent, she still feels bitterness toward her mother at the end of the novel, but since she has stopped fighting her inexorable development into a separate self, their relationship has less stress and tension. Discuss Annie's relationship with Gwen. How does it begin and why does it change? Annie becomes close friends with Gwen when she is around ten. The girls have met on their first day at their new school and have become fast friends. They walk to and from school everyday and share all of their secrets and stories. Annie uses Gwen's friendship initially to cope with the sadness that she feels about losing her mother's full attention. In Gwen, Annie looks for a substitute to replace her mother. Annie initially assumes that she can stay with Gwen forever, just as she once assumed that she could stay with her mother forever. Annie's relationship with Gwen changes because as they age the two girls become different people. In Annie's rebellion against her mother, she starts to explore the area outside of the normal social order. Annie befriends the Red Girl, plays marbles, and climbs the forbidden lighthouse. Gwen, on the other hand, remains firmly fixed to the identity provided her by the colonial culture. Late in the book when Gwen suggests that Annie marry her brother, Annie clearly sees that Gwen not only adheres to the general social order, but she also assumes that Annie does as well. Annie does not and finds the concept of her marrying Gwen's brother ridiculous. Because she is completely uninterested in another person who just complacently follows the social order, Annie seeks to avoid her in the future. By the end of the book, Annie views Gwen contemptuously, as a silly "monkey," because Gwen has not developed her own ways and spirit. Describe Annie's school and the kind of education that she receives? What type of outlook on

the world does her education provide her? Annie's school provides a rigorous education, but one that reinforces the correctness of the British culture and history. Although they live in Antigua, the school is run like a British institution and the students wear uniforms and clothing as English students would. Local customs and practices are looked down upon, such as the ritual that the girls have of dancing calypso in the schoolyard. Likewise, the view of history that the school teaches fails to focus upon the failings of the British Empire, particularly in Antigua. The students are not taught about slavery or other colonial abuses. Historical characters like Christopher Columbus are viewed with the utmost reverence. Although the majority of the teachers at the school are Antiguan, they have so internalized the philosophies of the British order that they can only teach from within its framework. The education helps to instruct the students on how to become content under the government of a colonial state. Because it does not teach the students to question, it suggests that they be complacent and happy under colonial rule, while simultaneously embracing the British colonial culture. Suggested Essay Topics Why is Annie so eager to leave Antigua at the end of the novel? Detail Mrs. John's hopes and fears for Annie's future? Do they conflict with Annie's? Do you think that Mrs. John is a sympathetic character? Annie's father is present throughout the novel, but plays a secondary role to Annie's mother. Discuss his importance. Why does Annie become so attracted to the Red Girl? What is it in the Red Girl's life that Annie longs for and lacks? Annie suffers a breakdown in Chapter Seven so that she is bed ridden for close to three months. Why does this happen? Discuss the events leading up to her breakdown and the way that she is changed after it. Annie's mother fled Dominica at the age of sixteen to arrive in Antigua. Why did she do this? What the significance of her flight to a new island and of her family?

Quiz On what Caribbean island does Annie John live? (A) Anguilla (B) Antigua (C) Dominica (D) Saint Lucia What island does Annie John's mother come from? (A) Dominica (B) Antigua (C) Saint Nevins (D) Jamaica What does Annie's father do for a living? (A) He runs a funeral home (B) He is a minister (C) He is a carpenter (D) Nothing, he is unemployed Who is Annie John's best friend in school? (A) Nalda (B) Hilarene (C) Gwen (D) Charlotte What food does Annie hate? (A) Breadfruit (B) Rice (C) Fish (D) Coconuts What does Annie write her essay at school about? (A) How her father built her a trunk (B) Her summer vacation outside of town (C) When her grandmother died (D) Her fear of losing her mother after she swam away on a beach Who is frequently the dunce in Annie's class? (A) Annie

(B) Hilarene (C) The Red Girl (D) Ruth, an English girl What does Annie find her parents doing when she gets home from Sunday school? (A) Fixing the roof (B) Searching under the house for her marbles (C) Making love (D) Eating lunch without her What girl does Annie befriend without telling Gwen? (A) The Red Girl (B) Nalda (C) Ruth (D) Hilarene Where is Annie going at the end of the novel? (A) To England (B) To Dominica (C) To the countryside of Antigua (D) To Anguilla What is Annie's favorite novel? (A) Jane Eyre (B) Uncle Tom's Cabin (C) Jude the Obscure (D) Wuthering Heights What text does the headmistress make Annie copy as punishment? (A) The Bible (B) Shakespeare's The Tempest (C) Milton's Paradise Lost (D) John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress Who comes to take care of Annie when she is sick? (A) Her Aunt May (B) The Red Girl (C) Gwen (D) Ma Chess Whose picture does Annie deface in the history book?

(A) King George's (B) Queen Victoria's (C) Queen Elizabeths' (D) Christopher Columbus's Annie's illness corresponds with what natural occurrence? (A) A drought (B) A rainbow (C) A torrential rainstorm (D) A solar eclipse What item does Annie's mother bring with her from Dominica? (A) A special obeah doll blessed by her mother (B) Her wedding dress (C) A trunk (D) A photo album of her family at home What happened to Annie's father's parents? (A) They drown at sea (B) They died of old age (C) They moved to South America (D) They moved to England Who harasses Annie and her mother as they walk back from town? (A) The old obeah woman who hates Annie's mother (B) A rabid dog (C) One of her mother's old beaus (D) A woman who had a child with Annie's father What does Annie become an expert at after meeting the Red Girl? (A) Swimming (B) Jumping rope (C) Playing marbles (D) Climbing guava trees to pick the fruit What thing does Annie not do when she is sick? (A) Wet her bed (B) Wash her family's photographs (C) Climb up on the roof of her house (D) Picture herself as a Brownie doll Where does Annie dream of moving?

(A) Argentina (B) France (C) Belgium (D) Dominica Who does Annie walk to school with everyday? (A) Nalda (B) The Red Girl (C) Gwen (D) Sonia Where do the girls at school hang out during recess? (A) In the playground (B) On the school steps (C) Around the lake next to the school (D) On the tombstones behind the school Annie pictures the sadness inside her as which of the following? (A) A red brick (B) A gold chest that will not open (C) A blue heart (D) A black ball covered with cobwebs What is Gwen planning to do at the end of the novel? (A) Study to become a nurse (B) Move to Saint Kitts (C) Study to become a teacher (D) Get married

Suggestions for Further Reading Covi, Giovanna. "Jamaica Kincaid and the Resistance to Canons." In Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature, edited by Carol Boyce Davis and Elaine Savory Fido, Trenton: Africa World Press, 1990. 345–354. Ferguson, Moira. Jamaica Kincaid: Where the Land Meets the Body. Charlotteburg: University Press of Virginia, 1994. Ferguson, Moira. Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to Jamaica Kincaid: Eastern Caribbean Connections. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Bloom, Harold, ed. Jamaica Kincaid: Modern Critical Views. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1998. Mistron, Deborah. Understanding Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John: A Student Case Book to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999. Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth. Jamaica Kincaid: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999. Simmons, Diane. Jamaica Kincaid. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994. Timothy, Helen Pyne. "Adolescent Rebellion and Gender Relations in At the Bottom of the River and Annie John." In Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference, edited by Selwyn R. Cudjoe, Weslesley: Calaloux Publishing, 1990, 233–242.

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Table of Contents Chapter One: Figures in the Distance Chapter Two: The Circling Hand Chapter Three: Gwen Chapter Four: The Red Girl Chapter Five: Columbus in Chains Chapter Six: Somewhere, Belgium Chapter Seven: The Long Rain Chapter Eight: A Walk to the Jetty