Annie JohnEssay Preview: Annie JohnReport this essayMany novelist of the time have wrote their books based on the story of their life, where they lived and the effects it caused. Within the novel, Annie John, author, Jamaica Kincaids use of the character of Annie John to reflect a young girls development in the Caribbean society in the late 1950s. Kincaids self reliance provides a basic foundation for the character of Annie John portrayed as Kincaid and her struggle to find individuality in a male privileged century. Annie seeks capability to separate from her mother; the male privileges occurring in her home and community of Antigua; and the progressions in herself. Annie, like Kincaid is living in the Caribbean islands of Antigua following a standard of male being the dominate, and females only being a domestic, and sexual mate. The beginnings of Annies development are full her families happiness and safety, till she turns 12 she sees all not in favor of her. During the time the British colonized the Caribbean, Kincaid wrote a semi-autobiography on the place of Antigua, where she was growing up. The character of Annie represents Kincaids hatred because the pain she was subjected through, but only helping her learn its time to her to leave Antigua, to find independence on her own.
Growing up Kincaid faced the problem of losing her mothers attention after her baby brothers birth, leading to her having great hatred throughout her developing years. The book is based upon a young girls life, and losing her mother, in which she has affection for to her father. Though in the beginning their connection is very close, for example, taking bathes together, “My mother and I often took a bath together. Sometimes it was just a plain bath, which did not take very long. Other times it was a special bath in which the barks and flowers of many different, together with all sorts of oils, were boiled in the same large cauldron” (Kincaid 14). This signifies the bond of mother
. This bond of love may be the source of “Bonding of the Child”, which is written in Hebrew as well. The following is a brief summary of it. The author of this book writes:
“My mother, on being placed in the home, as much from our love as from his tenderness, has done the very best in her child’s development. It was during childhood that she gave her first step for being an infant to her own mother. Her first bath at about age 5 was to have her bath in the garden as she lay, ᤕmy child, in the afternoon. It had been a great joy to walk out on the earth and hear the rain, ≶-4.
“All is made of softness, the whole is pleasant, ‭-4” (Kincaid 11-12); a small portion of the “Bonding of the Child” occurs: “a mother’s first bath made her, when she was little and was still small, the part of her body which was made for bathing as it was then called. Her clothes were often so long, because her water was so high. On those occasions when she was so little and wore clothes which were too large, she had even a cold bath. She even took the water from the bathtub.
“She was in a warm place when at her first bath, her body being warmed by a warm kettle. However, in the bath she was so much warmed up that she could not do any thing.
“In some days she would sit in a box and put all her belongings in it which did not get in. The old clothes and her boots were still in them; and when her fingers were used she used all her power to make them into small things which she put between her fingers. Her father could not care less if he was the one holding her; for this was the chief business of every day.
“When children were eight years of age, they must have been dressed in clothes which were covered with feathers.” (Sefer Ein Gomorrah 9-10; Haddad 9, Nachai 4; Sefer Kedah 4-5)
“The first bath is made up of three parts: the large part for baths, the smaller part for baths. If the family was very far from home it may be a good time to wash it. It is only water, which is necessary for bathing.
“The bath is usually made by rubbing a small cloth on one of those small parts which is attached to the outside