Poem Analysis: Lucy By Jamaica Kincaid

Within the excerpt from the novel, Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator is conflicted between two opposing forces, the longing for her identity and her familiar childhood, against the unfamiliar new environment she believed she would love. The new environment is too new and unfamiliar to adapt to, “but at first it was all so new that I had to smile with my mouth turned down at the corners” (Line 11). The narrator also wants to preserve her old self from her new surroundings which complicates her situation,”I slept soundly because I didn’t want to take in anything else” (Line 13-15). Within the body of the excerpt, the narrator describes a “pale-yellow sun” (Line 20), a metaphor and detail, to describe a different, bland aspect of her new