A Small Place

Kincaid points to Antigua’s small size as having influence over how Antiguans perceive time and significant events. Kincaid explains that “in a small place” (52), events of all levels of significance become the same size: Small events become major and of everyday personal importance, and major events become small and of everyday insignificance. She uses the example of government corruption becoming an everyday, domestic topic and the comparative importance placed on trivial events, like two men who meet daily in the market to “shout insults at each other at the top of their lungs” (56). To Kincaid, Antiguans don’t actively interrogate “why they are the way they are, why they do the things they do, why they live the way they live and in the place they live” (56). A main consequence of this lack of inquisitiveness is the lack of questioning concerning the corrupt government, to the point that Kincaid sees Antiguans as becoming complacent about its continuance. This perspective also prevents Antiguans from looking beyond their small island and seeing their place in global systems of influence. Kincaid thinks Antiguans have thoroughly absorbed “the degradation and humiliation of their daily lives” (69) to the point that they speak about their destitution as if it were a “tourist attraction” (69) they can see only from a distance.

With this perspective as a framework, Kincaid discusses the various ways that power and wealth have corrupted Antiguan government officials into continuing to oppress the Antiguan people. She returns to the example of the Japanese car imports to show how ministers often start side businesses to earn profits. By monopolizing the imports on these commodities, the ministers guarantee themselves extra income and leave the Antiguans with no freedom of choice. The ministers bribe the government into allowing these unsavory practices by making “all government vehicles […] that particular brand of Japanese-made vehicle” (58). Kincaid explains that the ministers try to conceal their involvement in these businesses, silently acknowledging that they know it’s something worth hiding. Kincaid’s next examples involve the use of government funds to pay for private business infrastructure. The Prime Minister’s son uses the government’s money to repair the utility poles that his cable television wires destroy, “at no cost to the owner of the cable-television franchise” (58-59). The government built the infrastructure for an oil refinery for a foreign businessman, known as a man who “did the bad things in the Far East” (67). Instead of this refinery bringing money to Antiguan people as promised, the tanks have been left to rust as the man gets rich elsewhere “on a diplomatic passport issued to him by the government of Antigua” (67). Antiguans have even come to direct harm from the carelessness of ministers, like when the government approved ammunitions testing and the importing of radiation-contaminated meat. These and other examples in the text illustrate Kincaid’s earlier argument that what the Antiguan government learned from the English was how to rule their people as thieving tyrants, as the ministers seem to care more about keeping themselves in power than about bettering the lives of their citizens, much like the colonial rulers did in their time.

Although Kincaid explores the Antiguans relative complacency regarding their government’s corruption, she also illustrates how their complex view toward their Prime Minister complicates their desire to be rid of him. The Antiguan Prime Minister, VC Bird, was the island’s first leader after the English left, giving him a reputation like that of George Washington, a revered historical figure. On the other hand, Bird and his sons—who hold the next most important offices—live lavishly by embezzling government funds, giving them the dual reputation of being like the notorious Jackie Presser of the Teamsters. Bird can occasionally “spell out the predicament that average Antiguans found themselves in” (71), leading the citizens to believe he’s a good man “from time to time” (71) and has their best interest at heart. Kincaid and the Antiguans believe he and his sons won’t give up power easily and may even resort to force to restrict opposition. These polarizing feelings make the Antiguan peoples’ decision to vote for another candidate more difficult than simply getting rid of a tyrant.

Kincaid alludes to the Duvalier family in Haiti as a comparison for the personalities of the Prime Minister and his two sons. The Duvaliers were a corrupt family at the head of Haiti’s government who lived expensively while their country was in a state of deep poverty. Kincaid compares the PM’s two sons to the notorious “Baby Doc” and “Papa Doc” of this family. “Baby Doc” was a lavish spender but a weak leader, and “Papa Doc” was ruthless, killing and torturing those who opposed him. Although the Antiguan people fear that their country will become like Haiti with these sons in charge, Kincaid points out that it’s unlikely either will take over because one is mentally weak and the other is in poor health. As the Prime Minister is also sick, Kincaid thinks the Antiguan people are simply waiting for his term to end while hoping a revolutionary like Maurice Bishop will come along to save them. Maurice Bishop was a left-wing revolutionary who came to power in Grenada on a platform of bettering the lives of Grenadians; however, the CIA killed him for being connected to communism. Kincaid observes again that the Antiguans appear trapped in their way of life by the desire to wait out hard times.

In the final pages, Kincaid returns to the motif of Antigua’s natural beauty, which here distorts the Antiguans’ perspective of their own freedom. Kincaid uses extreme and heightened descriptors for the Antiguan elements, illustrating both the positives and negatives of such extremes:

No real sand on any real shore is that fine or that white (in some places) or that pink (in other places); no real flowers could be these shades of red, purple, yellow, orange, blue, white; no real lily would bloom only at night and perfume the air with sweetness so thick it makes you slightly sick; no real earth is that color brown; no real grass is that particular shade of dilapidated, run-down green (not enough rain); no real cows looking that poorly as they feed on the unreal-looking pasture, and no real cows look quite that miserable as some unreal-looking white egrets sit on their backs eating insects (78).

Although she describes many of these aspects with reverence, she later declares that these unreal features are all like “a prison, and as if everybody inside it were locked in” (79). Kincaid explains that Antiguans can’t see how little their lives have changed because their landscape is so unchanging, and this constancy influences their static understanding of themselves. She sees that despite gaining emancipation, Antiguans were freed only “in a kind of way” (80). Black Antiguans continue to be ruled by crooked powers and oppressed on their own lands by foreign economic systems. Thus, while surrounded by an unreal, unchanging landscape, Antiguans find it difficult to break from their confinement and truly be free.