Question

the major characters of seeing england for the first time

Answer 1

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Answer 2

Answer:

Jamaica Kincaid in On Seeing England for the First Time reflects on a variety of themes with respect to England. Kincaid beautifully structures her work to bring about an array of different problems and questions, and draws the reader into a ‘personal journey of reflection and realization’. Although many questions are addressed by the writer, I believe the central problem relates to her sense of having lost an identity at a young age, and wrongly replaced with another that was drilled into her mind during the time of British colonization.

Kincaid draws the reader into her piece and engages them on a personal journey through the use of sarcasm, sentence construction and metaphorical language that support her pessimistic portrayal of England. Her secret growing hatred towards England is clearly showcased throughout the piece, comparing the nation to a ‘jail’ or a ‘leg of mutton’. The first paragraph, though, powerfully introduces the gradual hostility she feels towards the northern European country. Kincaid’s aesthetic approach of lengthy, deep sentences allows her to depict England in the same pessimistic manner she now sees it. She doesn’t want to detach the reader through long phrases, but does desire to make him or her feel bitter towards England the same way she feels the country deserves. This bitterness is perceived throughout the piece as she finally can visit the country where “the sun shone with what sometimes seemed to be a deliberate cruelty”. Moreover, her use of sarcasm “England was a special jewel all right, and only special people got to wear it” not only shows her disregard towards the ‘jewel’ that is England, but evokes a world in which England is not the country it portrays itself to be, or the country little school boys and girls in English colonies depict it to be. In Kincaid’s world, England is far from that, and she references the small things that support her viewing in order to draw the reader into her world and take them on a journey through it.