Kincaid Essay
Question: What is the tourism business really promoting?
Kristi Leslie
Professor Barry
English 112
3 October 2013
Kincaid Essay “A tourist is an ugly human being”(115) Kincaid announces to her readers as she pours her anger out.. “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid slams the tourism in her native country, Antigua . Through her fiery tone and strong evidence, Kincaid provides a substantial argument regarding the negative effects of tourism. Due to a tourists’ ignorance, the lacking development of the country, and from my own personal experiences, I recognize that tourism does have positives, yet they are outweighed by the negatives. While on vacation, any tourist just wants to relax and forget all the stress and problems in their lives. To see the beauty of the country. Who doesn’t do that? Yet this fantasy of what a vacation should be like in Jamaica causes tourists to be consumed by ignorance. Throughout “A Small Place” Kincaid speaks directly to an imaginary tourist in Jamaica. She draws the scene of the tourist excitedly taking a taxi to their hotel, telling them that “you will be surprised, then, to see that most likely the person driving this brand-new car filled with the wrong gas lives in a house that, in comparison, is far beneath the status of the car...”(112). This statement can also be used to describe Jamaica as a whole. The hotels and tourist destinations are like the brand-new car. Shiny and manicured. Yet the rest of the island equates to the living status of the taxi driver. Worn down and poverty ridden. An island, like Jamaica, with a high rate of tourism, resembles an oyster. Most of the oyster is rough and ugly, yet a very small part of the oyster is pure beauty: the pearl. Sadly, a tourist does not see the reality of what issues are plaguing Jamaica. They are too blinded by the imaginary “ideal vacation.” A tourist can say they visited Jamaica, but what have they really seen? The attractive hotels? The pristine beaches? This is the reason
Kristi Leslie
Professor Barry
English 112
3 October 2013
Kincaid Essay “A tourist is an ugly human being”(115) Kincaid announces to her readers as she pours her anger out.. “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid slams the tourism in her native country, Antigua . Through her fiery tone and strong evidence, Kincaid provides a substantial argument regarding the negative effects of tourism. Due to a tourists’ ignorance, the lacking development of the country, and from my own personal experiences, I recognize that tourism does have positives, yet they are outweighed by the negatives. While on vacation, any tourist just wants to relax and forget all the stress and problems in their lives. To see the beauty of the country. Who doesn’t do that? Yet this fantasy of what a vacation should be like in Jamaica causes tourists to be consumed by ignorance. Throughout “A Small Place” Kincaid speaks directly to an imaginary tourist in Jamaica. She draws the scene of the tourist excitedly taking a taxi to their hotel, telling them that “you will be surprised, then, to see that most likely the person driving this brand-new car filled with the wrong gas lives in a house that, in comparison, is far beneath the status of the car...”(112). This statement can also be used to describe Jamaica as a whole. The hotels and tourist destinations are like the brand-new car. Shiny and manicured. Yet the rest of the island equates to the living status of the taxi driver. Worn down and poverty ridden. An island, like Jamaica, with a high rate of tourism, resembles an oyster. Most of the oyster is rough and ugly, yet a very small part of the oyster is pure beauty: the pearl. Sadly, a tourist does not see the reality of what issues are plaguing Jamaica. They are too blinded by the imaginary “ideal vacation.” A tourist can say they visited Jamaica, but what have they really seen? The attractive hotels? The pristine beaches? This is the reason