Jamaica Kincaids On Seeing England for the First Time :: On Seeing England for the First Time

Imagine your culture being thrown aside and a new one was all that was taught to you? How would you react to it? In this story the author, Jamaica Kincaid, is talking about how she reacted to this and what happened to her. The author grows up in a place where England colonization had taken place. She grew up in Antigua, a small island in the Caribbean. She is taught all her life about England, a place she has never seen. At an early age she started to realize that the English had taken over her culture. After many years of hating this country she had to see the place that had taught her a different culture and ideas. When she arrives there the hate for the country tripled and she starts to pick apart the entire place and everywhere she goes. As she moves through the countryside her feelings of hate start to show them self’s in her thought and words. The feeling of deja vu, she has been there before, starts to come in after all of the years of maps and description of the foreig n land. Through the use of emotional arguments and social appeal the author, Kincaid, gets the feeling across that she was a victim of England. To get you to feel like the victim she uses lots of metaphors. In the first paragraph she uses the one, â€Å"England was a special jewel all right and only special people got to wear it†(p.61). It is right here that the author sets the tone of the essay. She gives you the idea that she was not special enough to put on this gem of England. In doing this she makes a social appeal to anyone looking for a view of colonization. In using descriptive language she make you feel sorry for her in the how she had to â€Å"Draw a map of England†(p.63), at the end of every test. Everything she had was â€Å"Made in England†(p.62). It is here that Kincaid is trying to appeal to your emotions. She is trying to get you to think that she had no choice in her life about what kind of cloths she could where. Think of everything you own and where it is from. In her life every possible thing she had was from England. Once again Kincaid is trying to make England look like the evil country that ruined her life.