What Ive Been Doing Lately, By Jamaica Kincaid

Have you ever questioned the thin line blocking the fantasy world from reality? Picture a world where fantasies and dreams intertwine with reality, flickering between the lines of whats real and whats not, as if being caught in a never ending cycle of solving a puzzle, trying to decipher whether youre in a dream or the real world, almost as if you're lost. In "what ive been doing lately," Jamaica Kincaid creates a lost mood by using figurative language and setting skillfully.

The setting of the story is a crucial part of establishing the feeling of detachment or feeling lost from the world around you throughout the narrative. The way Kincaid presents the narrator's environments should have the narrator confused or disoriented, however, instead the narrator simply acts as if this is a daily occurrence. For example, when the narrator is presented with a monkey on a leaveless tree, she feigns excitement and thrill. Or when the narrator watches an excited and happy boy playing with his ball that then shifts to towering trees in front of her, none of it phases her. Kincaids scrupulous way of describing and making the world around the narrator seem surreal and the narrators detachment from it contributes to the readers understanding of the narrators mental/emotional state.
I turned around to see what I had left behind, but nothing was familiar. Instead of the straight path, I saw hills. Instead of the boy with his ball, I saw tall flowering trees. I looked up and the sky was without clouds and seemed near, as if it were the ceiling in my house and, if I stood on a chair, I could touch it with the tips of my fingers." This is evidence that supports the surreal idea of the way the story plays out. The narrator finds herself in familiar and unfamiliar settings throughout the story, sometimes familiar sights being replaced by unexpected sights and