1) On page 96, Mariah says to Lucy,"You are a very angry person, aren't you?" and Lucy replies with, "Of course I am. What do you expect?" Why is Lucy such an angry person? Is she angry at the fact that she left the West Indies to come to North America and her immigrant experience has been hard, or is it something else?
2) Lucy forms her own opinion of Dinah and isn't very fond of her. But on page 105, Lucy was overcome with jealousy when Myrna tells her her story with Mr. Thomas. Lucy wishes she were in Myrna' s place. She thinks to herself, "Why had such an extraordinary thing happened to her and not me?" In what ways are Dinah and Lucy similar?
3) Peggy and Lucy always talk about men and look at the size of their hands a lot; and when Lucy meets Paul, Peggy warns her that he is a pervert. Lucy claims she likes Paul and thinks to herself that she wants to be alone in a room with him naked. What is a possible reason that this is one of the first things that comes to her mind? Earlier on in the book, Lucy has an encounter with Hugh, and speaks about Tanner and their relationship. Does Lucy feel love, lust, or both?
I think with Lucy, she is a young adult that's angry. She's still young and figuring out her emotions. In this particular moment of her life, anger has resided with her. Subconsciously, I think Lucy craves love and someone to understand and uplift her. She was the first born child in her family yet her brothers were put on pedestals and had preconceived notions of success before they were born. Lucy feels slighted by her parents because of this and that is one of the reasons why she doesn't answer her mom and escapes the idea of home.
ReplyDeleteLucy seems to use lust as momentary spurts of love or she might use sex as a ploy for love at this moment in her life. I think in the long run, she craves a stable love and relationships. Lucy is not a coming of age story but more of an exploration period of a young West Indies woman's life.
I believe that Lucy's anger is born from frustration and hurt. Frustration from her conflicting feelings of longing versus bitterness for her mother and homeland, frustration from her fumbling about trying to find and understand herself, frustration from the expectations expected of her, and frustration from her inability to love. Moreover, she is hurt for feeling undervalued and not givem much attention or care as much as her brothers had. Those feelings of frustration and hurt accumulate and create this bitterness and anger within her. She becomes angry at all of these things, perhaps as a way to deal with the overwhelming emotions and thoughts and experiences she is working through. The anger doesn't seem to have been a new occurrence, present after migrating to the United States, but rather she seems to have already been angry (& frustrated) prior to her immigration. With many factors affecting her perception of her life( the cheating, gender bias, colonization/ imperialism, search for self) it is understandable that she, a young woman, is angry. Although it may seem too much and too pessimistic, Lucy's anger is warranted and something that is definitely real and true to many who have similar experiences.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to her feeling love or lust, I would say that she mostly experiences lust. Love entails an emotional connection and commitments that Lucy is not able to demonstrate. However, although she doesn't feel love at those moments, it does not mean that she is not capable of love. She has the ability, especially since she has the desire to love and be loved. Perhaps she does feel love but she denies it or covers it through her lustful actions since she herself does not truly believe in her ability to love.
Lucy and Dinah are selfish women that compromise friendship with personal gain. Both characters show no regrets toward their actions. Lucy openly states she despises Dinah's attachment to her self beauty. Dinah plays devil’s advocate in Mariah and Lewis’ estranged marriage. Dinah lets Lewis’ tongue serve as her aphrodisiac, when he licks her neck and she receives pleasure from it. Her response to Lewis' body language suggests she willingly embraces the home wrecker role despite being closely acquainted with Mariah.
ReplyDeleteDinah and Lucy envy their female friends' relationships with men. The narrator tells the audience early on Dinah is: "a woman in love with another woman's life, not in a way that inspires imitation but in a way that inspires envy (58)." Dinah encounters physical interaction with Mariah's husband when she flirts with Lewis. Dinah likes Mariah's things, including her husband Lewis, better than her own. Dinah's choice to participate in sensuous foreplay with her friend’s husband violates her own marriage. It also shows how much she embraces Mariah's life more than life itself.
It's alway the thought that counts. Sometimes it shouldn't and that curiosity to know what it is is best left unknown. Lucy’s stream of consciousness reveals to the audience her ignorance toward Myrna being a victim of sexual assault. This scene plays off of Lucy’s infatuation with Mr. Thomas inserting his finger inside of her instead of in Myrna. Lucy shows she isn't sensitive to Myrna's sexual abuse trauma when she only imagines reversing fortune and being in Myrna's shoes.
Lucy's reception of Myrna's sexual assault account and her recount of Dinah's soft core affair with Lewis show Lucy’s overt sexual expression and observation as a result of her mother repressing sex when she was back home. The presence of a female heroine and denouncement of female non conformity to societal codes regarding sexuality are Gothic themes that are displayed in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy. The erotic behaviors expressed by both women also represent the larger framework within Lucy, which is Kincaid's cynical view on feminism.
1. I think she's angry because she's 19 and she is experiencing such upheaval/disquiet after a childhood of being made to feel "less-than." I think that maybe she anticipated coming to the US and not having that same reduced personage as she had at home, but she got here and it was just a different lessening of who she is as an individual. She also had all of those conflicting stories in her head as to what and who was doing what. She thought Mariah was one way--a happy and dutiful wife/mother, and it turns out she is just as complicated as everyone else in the long run. She's also not a really reliable narrator as far as I can tell, she's perhaps letting her jaded nature color her opinions of others--as we all are wont to do--and it comes through strongly in the narrative. I think the anger drives the narrative. It's a lens for her, but also a shield. If she can remain angry, she doesn't need to accept new things or open up.
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