Review Of Jamaica Kincaid's Novel 'Lucy'

Jamaica Kincaid’s novel “Lucy” is from the point of view of a girl who moves to America for a better life. The main characteristics that stuck out to me were how blunt and to the point she was while narrating, but when interacting with others, she felt out of place or did not care. If I were to direct a movie based on this book, I would cast Rosario Dawson as Lucy, but to recall these events. Through out the movie, Rosario Dawson would narrate what Lucy is really thinking while the camera shows a younger version of Rosario Dawson. I would pick Rosario Dawson because in her most recent roles on every Marvel series on Netflix, she plays a nurse with an attitude that reminds me of Lucy’s attitude in the book. Lucy is very to the pint when describing everything around her and can be blunt when talking about how she feels. When she first arrives in America, she describes how its very different than how she imagined it.
Now that I saw these places, they looked ordinary, dirty, worn down by so many people entering and leaving them in real life, and it occurred to me that I could not be the only person in the world for whom they were a fixed fantasy. It was not my first bout with disappointment of reality and it would not be my last. (4)
She is very to the point and does not leave us wondering what she could possibly mean. Not only is she to the point, but she uses simple language to describe this feeling of disappointment instead of dragging it on. At the end of the book, she is awesome seems harsh but blunt when describing how she suspected Peggy and Paul might be messing around with each other and she says, “I suspected it was with each other. I only hoped they would not get angry and disrupt my life when they realized I did not care” (163). Rosario Dawson’s character Claire Temple was first seen in Netflix’s Daredevil, but right away she presents herself in that same blunt manner that Lucy narrates in. When Rosario’s character speaks, she gets her point across by using simple terms and does not drag it on. Lucy also seems unsure when interacting with certain people or watching people interact.
Throughout the book she describes the interactions she sees between the married couple she works for, Mariah and Lewis. She witnesses the unraveling of their marriage but does not seem to know how to cope. When she does, she just leaves. Again, her reactions to those around her are very blunt and to the point, but are sometimes not appropriate or it’s her only way to react because she does not know how else to react. Rosario Dawson’s character on these Netflix Marvel series tries to offer advice to the superheroes she patches up or tells them to stop doing what they are doing because are going to get themselves killed. The problem is that she does not understand why they do what they do and her only advice is to just stop. She does not have superpowers herself, so she does not understand that they feel responsible if something bad happens, but her only way to cope is to try stopping them, much like Lucy’s only way of coping is ignoring the situation or just
leaving.