Mother and Daughter Relationship in "Lucy"

Mother-Daughter Relationships in “Lucy” Relationships are a prominent and frequent theme throughout many of Jamaica Kincaid 's novels. One example of this can be seen in “Annie John,” which deals with relationships the protagonist has throughout her childhood, particularly, the relationship between mother and daughter. This paper however will explore the mother-daughter relationship that can be found in “Lucy” and how it affects the protagonist’s relationships with the people around her. “Lucy” tells the story of a young woman who escapes a West Indian island and reaches North America to work as an au pair for Mariah and Lewis, a married couple, and their four girls. As in her other books, Kincaid uses the mother-daughter relationship as a means to expose some of her underlying themes. And this is clear within the plot of “Lucy.” Lucy has an ambivalent relationship with her mother; one that has moved from a very intimate and loving one to one full of deception and contempt. Lucy does not like her mother, but she does love her. The reader can see evidence of her mixed feelings toward her mother when Lucy quickly walks away from her mother after criticizing her mother’s traditional Christmas Eve viewing of a Bing Crosby movie. She states that her “thirteen-year-old heart couldn’t bear to see her face . . ., but I just couldn’t help myself” (Kincaid, 1991). Lucy’s mother tries to impose her way of life on her daughter, being puzzled about how someone from inside her would want to be different from her (Barwick, 1990. ”I had come to feel that my mother’s love for me was designed solely to make me into an echo of her; and I didn’t know why but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just an echo of someone” (Kinkaid, 1991). Despite her physical absence, however, Lucy 's mother continually occupies Lucy 's thoughts, inspiring feelings of anger, contempt, longing, and regret. This is put side by side with the various aspects of

Cited: Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. New York: Plume, 1991. http://bookshare.org/. Barwick, Jessica. "Stranger in your own Skin.” 1990. VG: Voices from the Gaps: Women Artists and Writers of Color, University of Minnesota. 15 November 2009. http://voices.cla.umn.edu/essays/fiction/lucy.html.