Small Place Analysis

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Antigua, a very small island located in the Caribbean Sea. This island is not only beautiful but the birthplace of Jamaica Kincaid, author of A Small Place. In this short essay Kincaid recalls the Antigua she knew as a child, which is vastly different from what it is today. The reader is immersed into the small island right from the beginning, as if he or she was visiting the island. Kincaid then goes to point out several things that one would be oblivious to if they were a tourist visiting this foreign island, such as poverty and corruption. She then continues the essay by sharing her accounts of her childhood and how life was on the island and the issues she had to face, like racism and oppression. In this essay Kincaid has two main issues, naive tourists and her hatred of the English. The first issue that Kincaid addresses in the essay is how the tourists who visit this island are so unaware of what is going on around them. A good example of this is her description of the airport and the reason why it is named after the prime minister. “You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a Prime Minister would want an airport named after him-why not a school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument?” (Kincaid 3). Kincaid goes on to explain why this is true; tourists are not there to see schools or hospitals, the airport is the first thing a tourist will see. In further explanation of the fact she explains how no one who is a resident of the island, even the Prime Minister, will go to the hospital to receive care there because the three doctors that are employed there are not to be trusted. Kincaid goes on to talk about several other that the visiting tourist does not see during the length of their stay. One that stays with the reader through the duration of the essay is the state of the island, both physically and economically. One
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