LUCY, By Jamaica Kincaid

In the passage from the novel LUCY, author Jamaica Kincaid dramatizes the forces of self and environment, through her character whose identity is challenged with a move. The new home provided all she needed, but it was all so many changes, she “didn’t want to take in anything else” (15-16). Her old “familiar and predictable past”(40) stayed behind her, and she now had to find who she was in her new life. Kincaid uses detail, metaphor, and tone in the passage to show her character’s internal struggle. The detail given in the passage helps the reader see and understand the character. To describe her appearance, she says, “the way I knew my skin was the color of a nut rubbed repeatedly with a soft cloth”(32-33). The audience now knows she is an African American. Race plays a big role in identity, giving people culture, history, and pride. Due to the fact she has just moved, her new environment holds a different culture that she must find where she fits in. While dressing, she puts on “a gay dress made out of madras cloth”(24) the same …show more content…

When she imagined leaving her old home, she expected it could be the same as leaving behind “an old garment never to be warn again”(67-68). Leaving behind something warn out and old would be easy, but the reality of leaving her home was difficult. Leaving behind an old garment also means it will eventually be replaced, and while her new home has many choices she has never been given before, they are too overwhelming, and she just wants the familiarity she could count on. She also describes her future as, “an overcast seascape on which rain was falling and no boats were in sight”(42-43). This alarming and scary situation describes how she feels. She cannot count on boats to save her, which could be her family and friends in her old home, and the rain could be all of the new