On Seeing England for the First Time
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JAMAICA KINCAID
JAMAICA
KINCAID
365
On Seeing England for the First Time
of the most sinister sides of imperialism is the way it pfomotes the ruling nation S culture and rejects the colony ‘s. The effect of this on an impressionable young person is vividly a2xribed in Jamaica Kincaid’s sensitive and angry autobiographical essay about growing up in Antigua with the dark shadow of England continually looming over her England and a reverence for things English invaded every aspect of her daily life and education. Yet it was not until adulthood that sheJinally journeyed to England and really saw it for theJirst time. “The space between the idea of something and its reality, ” Kincaid writes, “is always wide and deep and dark. ” The real England she finally sees is far different from the other England, whose maps and history she was made to memorize as a schoolgirl in Antigua. Kincaid is the author of At the Bottom of the River (z98?), Annie John (z985), A Small Place (z988), Lucy (z990), The Autobiography of My Mother (z996), and My Brother (1997). A staff writerfor The New Yorker, her stories and essays have also appeared in Rolling Stone, Paris Review, and other literary periodicals. She was born in Antigua and currently lives in Vermont. “On Seeing England for the First Time” originals a&&eared in Transition (~991) and was selected by Susan Sontagfor The Best American Essays 1992. When I saw England for the first time, I was a child in school sitting at a desk. The England I was looking at was laid out on a map gently, beautifully, delicately, a very special jewel; it lay on a bed of sky blue - the background of the map-its yellow form
mysterious, because though it looked like a leg of mutton, it could not really look like anything so familiar as a leg of mutton because it was England -with shadings of pink and green, unlike any shadings of pink and green I had seen before, squiggly
JAMAICA KINCAID
JAMAICA
KINCAID
365
On Seeing England for the First Time
of the most sinister sides of imperialism is the way it pfomotes the ruling nation S culture and rejects the colony ‘s. The effect of this on an impressionable young person is vividly a2xribed in Jamaica Kincaid’s sensitive and angry autobiographical essay about growing up in Antigua with the dark shadow of England continually looming over her England and a reverence for things English invaded every aspect of her daily life and education. Yet it was not until adulthood that sheJinally journeyed to England and really saw it for theJirst time. “The space between the idea of something and its reality, ” Kincaid writes, “is always wide and deep and dark. ” The real England she finally sees is far different from the other England, whose maps and history she was made to memorize as a schoolgirl in Antigua. Kincaid is the author of At the Bottom of the River (z98?), Annie John (z985), A Small Place (z988), Lucy (z990), The Autobiography of My Mother (z996), and My Brother (1997). A staff writerfor The New Yorker, her stories and essays have also appeared in Rolling Stone, Paris Review, and other literary periodicals. She was born in Antigua and currently lives in Vermont. “On Seeing England for the First Time” originals a&&eared in Transition (~991) and was selected by Susan Sontagfor The Best American Essays 1992. When I saw England for the first time, I was a child in school sitting at a desk. The England I was looking at was laid out on a map gently, beautifully, delicately, a very special jewel; it lay on a bed of sky blue - the background of the map-its yellow form
mysterious, because though it looked like a leg of mutton, it could not really look like anything so familiar as a leg of mutton because it was England -with shadings of pink and green, unlike any shadings of pink and green I had seen before, squiggly