First Impressions A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

Reactions to Section 1 “I Feel…”

Critical Reading Focus The book as a post-modern work: Calls into question how reality or “the norm” has been constructed – Whose reality has been assumed as “correct” or “true”? – Whose reality has been left out? Minority voice responds with a subjective “truth”– how she sees the world

Critical Reading Focus The book’s LANGUAGE: How do literary devices of diction, imagery, figurative language, etc., build the narrator’s tone and attitude? The book’s RHETORIC: What is the essay trying to make us see or understand? Persuade us of? (audience, purpose, scope)

As you ACTIVELY read and re-read, consider… How does Kincaid construct the images of tourists? Natives? What are your reactions to these constructions, and why? Through a post-colonial lens, what does the text seem to be saying about the colonizers and the colonized? The after-effects of colonization?

Section I: Hypothetical Tourist Experience (and “insider” native knowledge) 1.How does Kincaid describe… – Schools? (7) – Hospitals? (8) – Perceptions of time? (9) 2.Why is England rich? (10) 3.What is capital imperialism? (11) 4.How does Kincaid characterize the tourist’s voice and perspective with the phrase, “You see yourself”? (13) 5.Why is a tourist an “ugly thing”? (15-18) 6.“Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour”(18). Significance of this line?