Women, Coming-of-Age and Secrets in Jamaica Kincaid's 'Annie John'
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| Title: | Women, Coming-of-Age and Secrets in Jamaica Kincaid's 'Annie John' |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Chang, Hawk (ORCID |
| Source: | Children's Literature in Education. Mar 2023 54(1):1-16. |
| Availability: | Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/ |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 16 |
| Publication Date: | 2023 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Evaluative Opinion Papers |
| Descriptors: | Females, Self Concept, Novels, Fiction, Foreign Countries, World Views, Adolescent Development |
| Geographic Terms: | Jamaica |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10583-021-09461-w |
| ISSN: | 0045-6713 1573-1693 |
| Abstract: | The mysterious and unspoken secrets of life can be a source of fascination for young people. The bildungsroman quest for identity is often coupled with a protagonist's attempts to decode a range of secrets. Jamaica Kincaid's work of fiction, "Annie John" (1985), illustrates this journey. In this novel, the female protagonist's maturity and character development become possible only through her persistent efforts to decode the secrets of life. This paper discusses how, in a series of adventures, those secrets are embedded into Annie's story and how her coming-of-age mystery is ultimately resolved. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2023 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1364073 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwFHfL67Uqb0kYAWTugIejr_AAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDLKC7d-nF2DRBliiLAIBEICBm7_-L1pZ8SRNqWpUDj0jrf7cyoDBsHSiSHmbyRKsQ-wfC4HH4etBkWmen01VzXVZzVA925DsBriddCmtQthY1ui2zAS3CNIRiDfHAKjBrAEBPVC67E0n9r2dBBfkmLTeUhvW-KGJiADJBqNR-Jq0j0Tz9G5gVmeeB_tbZ-jzYnsT77wIOp1HZYW4Zb08X5wAp3nYi2zqKEwKCj_B Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0161550271;cle01mar.23;2023Jan31.03:52;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0161550271-1">Women, Coming-of-Age and Secrets in Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John </title> <p>The mysterious and unspoken secrets of life can be a source of fascination for young people. The bildungsroman quest for identity is often coupled with a protagonist's attempts to decode a range of secrets. Jamaica Kincaid's work of fiction, Annie John (1985), illustrates this journey. In this novel, the female protagonist's maturity and character development become possible only through her persistent efforts to decode the secrets of life. This paper discusses how, in a series of adventures, those secrets are embedded into Annie's story and how her coming-of-age mystery is ultimately resolved.</p> <p>Keywords: Women; Coming-of-age; Secrets; Jamaica Kincaid; Annie John</p> <p>Hawk Chang is Assistant Professor at the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong. His research has appeared in journals such as  Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, ANQ, Journal of English Studies, Neohelicon, Tamkang Review, Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, and  CLCWeb, among others. His monograph  Traditions and Difference in Contemporary Irish Short Fiction: Ireland Then and Now  was published by Springer in February, 2021.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-2">Introduction</hd> <p>From early childhood, most children are acculturated to the importance of honesty. They are strongly discouraged from telling lies, and their acts of deception are closely associated with immorality and failure (Mallan, pp. 93–94). However, despite these expectations, many tell lies as a matter of expediency. As illustrated in many coming-of-age stories, lie-telling enables young protagonists to avoid punishment by their parents or other authorities. In addition, it enables them to deviate from officially sanctioned modes of behavior in their attempts to decipher the unspoken secrets of life, particularly during the process of growing up. While trying to unravel the mysteries of different stages of their lives in their quest for identity, young characters often resort to treachery, deceit, or secrecy. Secrecy is not one-dimensional but multifaceted. Unknown mysteries are treated as a type of secret in the following discussion, even though no one is engaged in intentionally telling lies or concealing information. In spite of the difference, both mysteries and secrets contribute to facilitating young protagonists' awakening. In addition, while parents and teachers keep certain things confidential, children also make secrets, often coupled with lies and deception, to their advantage. According to John Daniel Stahl, secrecy plays a pivotal role in children's literature because it is "often the child's method of declaring and developing his or her individuality and independence" (<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref1">39</reflink>). This is particularly true of young protagonists in coming-of-age stories in their quest for individual identities.</p> <p>For children, the quest for identity through the bildungsroman is often coupled with a protagonist's attempts to decode a range of secrets. Jamaica Kincaid's ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref2">9</reflink>]) work of fiction, <emph>Annie John</emph>, illustrates this point. In this novel, the female protagonist's maturity and character development are made possible through her persistent endeavors to decode the secrets of life. These efforts are foreshadowed in the opening chapter by the young girl's unusual interest in discovering the secret of mortality. This is followed by Annie's endeavor to untangle her unintelligible relationship with her mother, her unconventional romances with Gwen and the Red Girl, and her refusal to be acculturated and assimilated by the British colonizer.</p> <p>Crucially, secrets are often embedded in dominant power relations. They serve as means of resistance for the underprivileged or the dominated as well as a mechanism of oppression for the powerful. This characteristic of secrets is illuminating when it is applied to the reading of <emph>Annie John</emph> because a range of power relations, including those involved in family, politics, sex, and education, are in operation in the fiction, so much so that Annie and the other subjugated characters have to concoct lies and keep secrets to confront oppression in different forms. Annie's struggles with these complex power relations render her a much more sophisticated character.</p> <p>Critics have looked at <emph>Annie John</emph> from various angles, ranging from Annie's evolution as a female (Brazilel, p. 112), mourning (Soto-Crespo, pp. 369–371), Annie's traumatic mother-daughter relationship in relation to Kincaid's personal experience (Bouson, pp. 38–40), intertextuality (Giles, pp. 210–211), bildungsroman and the mother-daughter relationship (Canton, p. 137), colonization (Penier, p. 183), narrative strategies (Valens, p. 123), mixed identity (Hodge, pp. 26–27) and a comparative study with Toni Morrison's <emph>The Bluest Eye</emph> (Vasquez, pp. 56–63), to abjection theory (Gething, p. 268). Few of them factor in the importance of Annie's secretive world in connection with her nurturing experience and the political situation of Antigua. This article, however, proposes to look at how Annie's lies and secrets help shed new light on the construction/deconstruction of oppressive mechanisms in the post-colonial context of Antigua.</p> <p>As David L. Russell argues, "[i]t is not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that most realistic novels read by young people (and a fair share of fantasies, we might add) are coming-of-age stories" (p. 222). In view of this popularity of bildungsroman in children's books, although <emph>Annie John</emph> was not published as a Young Adult fiction, it is open to a reading within that generic framework. This book relates the coming-of-age experience of Annie John, a girl living in Antigua, an island in the Caribbean. It features Annie's ambitions and frustrations in confronting the adult authorities amid her transition from childhood to adolescence and from innocence to experience. The story is dominated by the female protagonist's perplexities about the secrets of life amid her coming-of-age experiences, and by her attempts to come to grips with her identity through the use of secrecy. This paper discusses how, in a series of adventures, life's secrets are stitched into Annie's story and how the female coming-of-age mystery is finally unraveled. <emph>Annie John</emph> is a story of concealment and revelation. The encrypted secrets, which have been widely dismissed by critics (Ferguson, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref3">5</reflink>]; Hodge [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref4">8</reflink>]; Vásquez, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref5">20</reflink>]), betray a telling critique of the subjugation of Antiguan women. My argument is that the secrets in Annie's life are entangled with her ambivalence over growing up. On one hand, she craves first-hand contact with the world, but on the other, her insecurity and sense of loss, together with her immaturity, render her intimidated and self-conflicted most of the time.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-3">Life and Death: Secrets of Mortality</hd> <p>Coming-of-age stories have been widely explored in the bildungsroman, in which the protagonist, normally a young male, struggles towards maturity and develops a hard-won philosophy and confirmation of his identity. However, this story focuses on a female protagonist's problems in confronting the loss of her childhood identity and her lack of a re-formed, stable identity in the process of becoming more physically mature. This confusion in Annie's identity is conspicuous at the outset of the novel. The opening chapter, "Figures in the Distance," focuses on Annie's infatuation with the mystery of death. Annie's attitude toward death is ambivalent because, while fascinated by mortality to such a degree that she keeps track of any death occurring in her neighborhood, Annie acknowledges that, like many other people, she is afraid of death (p. 4). Unlike most traditional coming-of-age stories, which begin with "childhood years with growth situated in a harmonious and secure environment" (Dahl, p. 423), already in the opening chapter Annie is perplexed by the concept of death. On the one hand, death is inviting because, like the supernatural and the mysterious sagas that trigger her imagination and curiosity, it rescues people from their daily boredom and troubles. Annie remarks in the opening paragraphs, when recalling what she has seen in the house near the cemetery, that she could "see various small, sticklike figures, some dressed in black, some dressed in white, bobbing up and down in the distance" (p. 4). Things associated with death are so exciting that Annie, having discovered more about the cemetery, enjoys standing in the yard and waiting for the passing of funeral processions (p. 4). Later, she even attends a funeral, driven only by her strong curiosity (p. 9).</p> <p>However, despite its appeal, the idea of death simultaneously ignites Annie's fear. Many cases of death mentioned in Chapter 1 have something in common—they relate to a mother figure. A little girl called Nalda has a fever and dies in Annie's mother's arms on the way to the hospital (p. 5). Annie refuses to speak to her classmate Sonia, calling her a dunce only because Sonia's mother died suddenly, making her "such a shameful thing, a girl whose mother had died and left her alone in the world" (p. 8). Moreover, not long after Nalda dies, Miss Charlotte, their neighbor from across the street, collapses suddenly while conversing with Annie's mother and dies on the spot (p. 8). Finally, Annie speaks of a girl in her class who stopped sucking her thumb because her mother placed it in water in which a dead person had been bathed (p. 8). Annie's loathing of death as connected to her mother is most striking in Nalda's case:Nalda's mother wept so much that my mother had to take care of everything, and since children were never prepared by undertakers, my mother had to prepare the little girl to be buried. I then began to look at my mother's hands differently. They had stroked the dead girl's forehead.... For a while, though not very long, I could not bear to have my mother caress me or touch my food or help me with my bath. I especially couldn't bear the sight of her hands lying still in her lap. (p. 6)Evidently, Annie finds the dead body so repugnant that she develops a totally different perception of her mother's hands, which, for her, have now been contaminated by touching the forehead of the dead girl.</p> <p>The repeated association between death and the mother figure may at first appear strange, but it becomes understandable when the relationship between Annie and her mother is more fully appreciated. For the maturing protagonist, death, and the death of young girls in particular, may represent the demise of her previous identity. According to Lucy Melbourne, Annie's curiosity about death "foreshadows adolescent separation" (p. 15). By the same token, as Mary Ellen Snodgrass notes, "[c]orpses, viewing, and funerals dominate the speaker's thinking at a time when Annie must kill off her immature self and open her being to womanhood" (p. 42). In this period, before she can establish a solid self-image from her coming-of-age experiences, she feels insecure and intimidated. The immediate cause of this anxiety is attributed to Annie's mother, because it is she who is teaching Annie to become self-reliant and ladylike. As a result, both death and the mother figure become synonymous with fear and antipathy. Her mother's hands become repulsive to Annie because, while signifying death and impurity, they also connote manipulation and tyrannical control, as becomes evident in the later parts of the story.</p> <p>Despite her fascination with mortality, Annie is not well informed in this regard. This is evidenced by the first sentence in the book: "For a short while during the year I was ten, I thought only people I did not know died" (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref6">3</reflink>). Motivated by her curiosity, this simple-minded girl discovers many things previously unknown to her: "I did not know it was the cemetery.... I noticed, too, that.... Until then, I had not known that children died" (p. 4). The deaths are kept confidential because traditionally the issue of death is a taboo for children; Annie has to unravel the untold secrets of mortality on her own. Near the end of Chapter 1, intrigued by the mystery of mortality, Annie goes to a funeral instead of picking up fish on her way home, as she promised her mother earlier (pp. 10–12). She lies about this, conceals her attendance at the funeral, and is penalized by her mother: "That night, as a punishment, I ate my supper outside, alone, under the breadfruit tree" (p. 12). This episode showcases the disadvantaged position in which Annie is situated in her interactions with her mother. It also prefigures the strategic measures Annie needs to take, namely lying and secret-keeping, in her search for independence in the following chapters.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-4">Annie and Her Mother: Secrets of Mother–Daughter Relationship</hd> <p>According to P. Dahl, traditionally bildungsroman can be divided into three stages: harmony, wandering and searching, and harmonious reconciliation (p. 423). The change from a harmonious state to the young character's wandering, coupled with intense conflicts and struggles that are typical of the second stage of coming-of-age stories, is most obvious in the bond between Annie and her mother. In the beginning, Annie is umbilically connected to her mother. Pampered in the paradise-like environment as a young child, Annie often takes a bath with her mother (p. 14), follows her around and observes how she does everything during the holidays (p. 15), and sits at her mother's side and pays attention to her facial features when listening to her stories (p. 22). In addition, before Annie turns twelve, she and her mother have many dresses made from the same cloth (p. 25). The intimacy between mother and daughter is significantly epitomized in the trunk, which belongs to her mother and has been placed under Annie's bed, where Annie's personal belongings in her infancy and early childhood, ranging from her diapers, booties, christening outfit, dresses and shoes, to her certificates of merit, are kept (pp. 20–21). At their closest, Annie's mother tries to reassure her by taking Annie in her arms and kissing her, promising that she "needn't worry about such a thing as her sailing off or dying and leaving [Annie] all alone in the world" (p. 24).</p> <p>Nevertheless, this seeming harmony belies the fact that Annie's life is rife with conflict rather than comfort. Her ambivalence, evidenced by her perplexity about death, is further illustrated in the troubled relationship with her mother. As Annie turns twelve, their close relationship is challenged when Annie's mother refuses to share the same dress fabric with her. "Oh, no. You are getting too old for that. It's time you had your own clothes. You just cannot go around the rest of your life looking like a little me" (p. 26). To help her become a young lady, Annie is asked to attend different lessons. She feels enraged when her request to have a look through the trunk is rejected by her mother, who appears to be a stranger at the moment (p. 27). She just cannot bear the idea, proposed by her mother, that one day she may have her own house and live apart from her mother (pp. 28–29). Annie frets about the change that comes along with puberty: "I thought of begging my mother to ask my father if he could build for me a set of clamps into which I could screw myself at night before I went to sleep and which would surely cut back on my growing" (p. 27). In other words, for Annie, growing up is not coupled with "great expectations" but fear and anxiety. As a consequence, her mother's control does not work anymore. As Antonia MacDonald-Smythe argues, "Annie penetrates the mysteries of her mother's powers and learns that the folk world to which she belongs is already contaminated by outside values—values which cause the mother to substitute matriarchal power with a patriarchal ethos which limits her power to domestic servitude" (p. 46).</p> <p>Disappointed at and frustrated by the trouble caused by maturity, Annie resorts to secret-making and lie-telling to alleviate her sense of loss and anxiety in the face of her new identity. By inventing a story about her mother and her in an "autobiographical essay" written in class for Miss Nelson, her secondary school teacher, Annie expresses her innermost fear that, sometime in the future, her mother will be separated from her. "I turned back to look at my mother, but I could not see her .... A huge black space then opened up in front of me and I fell inside it" (p. 43). At the end of the essay, Annie recounts a recurring dream she has about failing to find her mother. In this account, on waking she is comforted by her mother, who promises that, whatever happens, she will never leave Annie alone (p. 44). But as Annie confesses later, she lies about the ending, because in fact, instead of trying to offer consolation, her mother demonstrated indifference to her worry.I didn't exactly tell a lie about the last part. This is just what would have happened in the old days. But actually the past year saw me launched into young-ladyness, and when I told my mother of my dream—my nightmare, really—I was greeted with a turned back and a warning against eating certain kinds of fruit in an unripe state just before going to bed.... But the real truth was that I couldn't bear to have anyone see how deep in disfavor I was with my mother. (p. 45)This episode makes clear Annie's discomfort in facing the reality that she is not the little girl she used to be, and that she will consequently have to learn to be independent. Unable or unwilling to accept this harsh reality, which befalls most adolescents, Annie resorts to her talent for concocting lies to conceal her disfavor with her mother. Overall, this event highlights a painful coming-of-age experience for Annie, so much so that she has to find substitutes for her mother as their relationship deteriorates step by step.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-5">Annie and Her Girls: Secrets of Homosexual Love</hd> <p>The lack of a mother's affection is compensated for by the friendship provided by Annie's peers, such as Gweneth Joseph, the Red Girl, and some other classmates. In opposition to the "lady business" schemed by her mother, Annie, as a rebellious teenager, does everything "exactly the opposite of whatever" (p. 61) her mother expects. Annie's disgust with her mother is intensified to such a degree that she even regards her as a "serpent" (p. 52) and a "crocodile" (p. 84). "These threatening images," suggests Lucy Melbourne, "reveal not only an adolescent's fear of change, but also her need to demonize her mother" (p. 16). Gwen and Annie meet secretly, go to school together, and soon become inseparable (p. 46). With Gwen's support, growing-up is no longer such a traumatic experience: "We'd set off for school side by side, our feet in step, not touching but feeling as if we were joined at the shoulder, hip, and ankle, not to mention heart" (p. 48). With Gwen's company, Annie savors the delight of growing up. The secretive relationship with Gwen offers Annie timely relief from pain when maternal separation troubles her. As Annie says:As we walked together, we told each other things we had judged most positive and secret: things we had overheard our parents say, dreams we had had the night before, the things we were really afraid of; but especially we told of our love for each other. (p. 48)These secrets shared by Annie and Gwen are characteristic of the fanciful life experiences common to teenagers. Not only do they provide both characters with excitement in the process of their maturation, but also bridge the gap between their individual backgrounds. In other words, their dreams, nightmares, and love for each other shelter them from the boring, monotonous, and threatening intrusion of adults: "I said that I could not wait for us to grow up so that we could live in a house of our own" (p. 51).</p> <p>In addition to Gwen's support, Annie gets spiritual assistance from her classmates, those who sit on the tombstones chatting and gossiping about their school lives and their physical changes during the recess. It is through this peer support that Annie can relieve herself of the troubles brought by maturity. This circle of friends provides a venue in which comradeship is formulated, which benefits all members in defending against the agony triggered by their fear of change as they grow up: "What perfection we found in each other.... We were sure that the much talked-about future that everybody was preparing us for would never come, for we had such a powerful feeling against it" (p. 50). Although Annie's mother gives her some advice on menstruation, a significant sign of her coming of age, she is not appreciative at all. Instead, Annie appreciates the mutual support offered by her classmates, none of whom has experienced menstruation.How nice they were, though, rallying to my side, offering shoulders on which to lean, laps in which to rest my weary, aching head, and kisses that really did sooth... how I wished that everything would fall away, so that suddenly we'd be sitting in some different atmosphere, with no future full of ridiculous demands, no need for any sustenance save our love for each other, with no hindrance to any of our desires, which would, of course, be simple desires—nothing, nothing, just sitting on our tombstone forever. (pp. 52-53)This serves as a stark contrast to many episodes in the first two chapters, when Annie is immersed in the intimacy with her mother. Now, the soothing comfort comes from her peers, and her mother poses a threat by giving ridiculous orders, telling her what to do and not do, so that she can conform and become a traditional woman. However, this relief can only be temporary because, as Annie confesses later, the "tolling of the school bell" (p. 53) pushes them back to reality. In brief, Annie's efforts to alleviate the sorrow of growing up by recourse to the mutual support of the other schoolgirls prove to be futile, because their soothing effects are only transitory. Similarly, although Annie and Gwen vow to love each other forever, as they grow older and more mature they are doomed to be separated, and their promise turns out to be "a hollow ring" (p. 53).</p> <p>In addition to Gwen and her female classmates, Annie's secretive life in adolescence has a great deal to do with yet another character, nicknamed the Red Girl. In many ways, Annie's close relationship with the Red Girl reiterates her discomfort with and resistance to her impending maturity. Annie's liaison with the Red Girl signposts her rebellion against her mother because this partner represents everything that her mother dislikes. The Red Girl, a tomboy characterized by her unruly hair and body odor, is good at climbing trees and playing marbles, atypical activities for girls. In opposition to the desire to pursue her own happiness, Annie is often "kept under the watchful gaze" of her mother (p. 62). To rid herself of maternal manipulation, Annie resorts to stealing books and money, and hiding marbles (pp. 54–55, 66). These acts of defiance are crucial because, as Moira Ferguson contends, "marbles resemble the stolen books Annie John conceals, treasures that signify rebellion against constraining gender roles, a personal power gained by outwitting authority" (<reflink idref="bib119" id="ref7">119</reflink>). Therefore, while Annie is constantly being forced by her mother to rehearse for the faraway day when she will be the mistress of her own house, she keeps meeting with the Red Girl, playing with marbles and hiding them, because these "secret pleasures" provide her with an alternative to her coming-of-age agony (p. 61). Annie takes to the Red Girl's pinches, which bring her great delight, both physically and spiritually: "She pinched hard, picking up pieces of my almost nonexistent flesh and twisting it around .... Oh, the sensation was delicious—the combination of pinches and kisses" (p. 63).</p> <p>However, just like the comfort offered by Gwen and the schoolgirls, Annie's secretive relationship with the Red Girl cannot last long. Her mother soon becomes suspicious of her playing and concealing marbles privately in the house, and ask her daughter to be honest with her. Annie's refusal to tell the truth results in a deadlock between mother and daughter, which gets ever more intense until Annie turns fifteen, when a discomfort in the shape of a "small black ball, all wrapped up in cobwebs" (p. 85) plunges her into an "inferno" (p. 87). According to Annie, the ball is only about the size of a "thimble," but it is tremendously heavy (p. 85). This thimble image, which symbolizes Annie's hatred of domestic service, traditionally provided by women, is also indicative of her being trapped within her personal interactions with others. Similar images of disquiet recur in the second half part of the story, highlighting Annie's coming-of-age unrest:Inside, however, the thimble that weighed worlds spun around and around.... I thought that I had better get home quickly, for I began to feel alternately too big and too small. First, I grew so big that I took up the whole street; then I grew so small that nobody could see me—not even if I cried out (p. 101)Annie's failure to consolidate her autonomy and self-definition via her interaction with her peers aggregates her love-hate emotions about her mother, so the mysterious thimble haunts her for a long time. Annie's distorted images of herself display not only her physical disorientation but her mental breakdown. Her fantasy of being too large alludes to her fear of growing, while her feeling of growing too small to be perceptible signifies her longing for recognition. Both fantasies showcase Annie's ambivalence over growing up as she is torn between her longing for autonomy and her fear of change and maturity.</p> <p>Annie's ambivalence about growing up is expressed on many other occasions. Her encounter with Mineu, a childhood playmate, reminds her of the idyllic innocence of her childhood: "For just remembering all the things that he and I used to do reminded me of how happy I had been and how much my mother and everyone else adored me and how, when looking at me, people used to say, 'What a beautiful child!'" (p. 99). In Chapter 7, when seeing her mother's trunk, which is filled with her personal items at different stages of her life, Annie misses her mother a great deal. However, at the same time, she "wanted to see her lying dead, all withered and in a coffin at my feet" (p. 106). This reflects Annie's conflicted feelings about maturity and the relationship with her mother. In that same chapter, when asked by her father what gift she would like to have, Annie claims determinedly that she wants a trunk of her own (as distinct from that of her mother), something that can mark her individuality and self-sufficiency (p. 106). Intriguingly, as she acknowledges, a "big and solid shadow" (p. 107) that looks like her mother haunts and frightens her: "For I could not be sure whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world" (p. 107). In other words, Annie's personal development has been constantly overshadowed by her mother amid her coming-of-age experiences, no matter how much she manages to be free of her mother's control. Blinded by her limited knowledge as a child, Annie cannot untangle the mythical bond between mother and daughter until the last chapter.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-6">Annie and Education: Secrets of (Post-)colonialism in Antigua</hd> <p>Undoubtedly, education plays an important role in helping the young transition from innocence to experience. In this sense, ideally education should be one of the most disinterested endeavors in the world, helping young people become civilized and enlightened. But in fact, this is not true, especially when education is conducted in the colonial context. Education in <emph>Annie John</emph> is not only about intellectual cultivation and enlightenment but is embedded with multiple lies and secrets about colonization and its influence on the colonized in Antigua. Many episodes in Chapter 5, "Columbus in Chains," suggest that the colonized resent their colonizers. Miss Moore, the British headmistress, is caricatured by Annie as "a prune left out of its jar a long time" and someone with an owl-like voice who smells like fish (p. 36). Annie's mother does not like English people because they "didn't often wash, or wash properly when they finally did" (p. 36). Another teacher, Miss Nelson, is said to be reading Shakespeare's <emph>The Tempest</emph> intently earlier in the story (p. 39), a canonical text that from a post-colonial reading features the violence of the colonizer and subordination of the colonized. Notably, when rewarded for her work in a history lesson, Annie is given a copy of a book called <emph>Roman Britain</emph> to consolidate her understanding of the colonizer's history, though this is ironic given Britain's status as a colony during that period (p. 73). In short, although only implied, varied traces of colonization are implanted in the everyday life of Antigua.</p> <p>When questions such as "When did Christopher Columbus discover Dominica?" from the textbook, <emph>A History of the West Indies</emph>, are presented, the Antiguan students are inculcated and re-educated in the dominant discourse fabricated by their colonizers. Knowing that Ruth, one of Annie's white classmates, cannot answer when Columbus discovered Dominica, Annie scoffs at her and relishes her ignorance: "Her ancestors had been the masters, while ours had been the slaves. She had such a lot to be ashamed of, and by being with us every day she was always being reminded" (p. 76). For Annie, Ruth deserves the penalty because she as well as her ancestors who colonized Antigua should feel guilty for colonization, while the natives and their "ancestors had done nothing wrong except just sit somewhere, defenseless" (p. 76). Furthermore, as Annie comments later:Of course, sometimes, what with our teachers and our books, it was hard for us to tell on which side we really belonged—with the masters or the slaves—for it was all history, it was all in the past, and everybody behaved differently now; all of us celebrated Queen Victoria's birthday, even though she had been dead a long time. But we, the descendants of the slaves, knew quite well what had really happened, and I was sure that if the tables had been turned we would have acted differently. (p. 76)Annie's confused sense of belonging betrays identity problems typical of many Antiguans. They know their ancestors were the victims of colonization, but they were too vulnerable to resist the encroachment of the colonizers. The influence of education in Antigua through teachers and books helps justify the legitimacy of colonial history, substantiating the stereotypical master/slave dichotomy and thus jeopardizing the individuality of the colonized. Annie is aware of the absurdity of having to commemorate Queen Victoria's birthday decades after her death, but colonial legacies silence and subordinate the natives.</p> <p>The colonial discourse constructed and dominated by colonizers is not to be challenged, unless one is ready to be penalized. Annie is removed from her position as prefect for writing the sacrilegious words "The Great Man Can No Longer Just Get Up and Go" under the portrait of Columbus, a reputable pioneer in white-dominated colonial history (p. 78). In addition, she is punished by Miss Moore, the headmistress; she must copy the first two Books from John Milton's <emph>Paradise Lost</emph>, whose main focus is Lucifer, the fallen angel who dares to challenge Almighty God's authority. The analogy of Annie and Lucifer, together with that of Columbus and God, reaffirms the hierarchical oppositions of center and margin, master and slave, the colonizer and the colonized. This is not the only time Annie is compared to Lucifer. In Chapter 6, "Somewhere, Belgium," a similar analogy is suggested. At that moment, Annie cannot recognize herself because the reflection in the mirror looks so strange: "My whole head was so big, and my eyes .... My skin was black .... Altogether, I looked old and miserable" (p. 94). Annie's failure to identify with her own reflection underlines the difficulty adolescents face in the process of their maturation. She cannot adjust to the change of her bodily features and thus feels dejected. This hopeless depression reminds her of a painting entitled The Young Lucifer, in which the freshly ousted fallen angel Satan is "standing on a black rock all alone and naked" (p. 94). Annie is taken aback by the similarity between her gloom and Satan's loneliness and misery: "I was standing there surprised at this change in myself" (p. 95).</p> <p>Annie's dejection over her maturity makes good sense when the triple subordination imposed on her is taken into consideration. Women of color often suffer because they are subjugated not only racially (when compared with the white) but sexually (in comparison with their male counterparts) in colonial society. Apart from the colonial manipulation discussed earlier, the ineffable effects of colonial control can be traced in Annie's recollection of being a member of the Brownies, in particular her pledge of allegiance in their meetings: "We began our meetings... our eyes following the Union Jack as it was raised up; then we swore allegiance to our country, by which we meant England" (p. 115). Although Antiguan women's sexual subordination is made secretive in <emph>Annie John</emph>, traces of these embedded secrets are evident in different parts of the story. First, the former lovers of Annie's father, those who harass and try to do harm to Annie and her mother, are demonized (pp. 16–17). With their ill-intentioned magic that is used for revenge, these indigenous women are not made visible, but their hidden identities make them simultaneously more mysterious and more evil. They are imagined as witch-like characters who deserve to be cursed. In addition, the interaction between Annie's parents demonstrates a telling message about their sexual inequality. Obviously, the father (nearly thirty years senior to the mother) tends to have an advantage over the mother in their everyday life. For instance, in Chapter 7, "The Long Rain," following her father's instruction, Annie's mother has to rearrange the shelf, placing "Dr. Stephens's prescriptions in the front and Ma Jolie's prescriptions in the back" (p. 118). In a similar vein, Ma Chess, Annie's grandmother, has to obey her husband's decision to send for a doctor when her son is sick, though she, as an obeah, prefers to rely on spiritual folk medicine (p. 125).</p> <p>Annie suffers from still another disempowerment in the coming-of-age context—the subjugation of children in the presence of domineering adults, including her mother, father, and teachers. Accordingly, Annie keeps recounting her and her girl classmates' disgust at the plans made by adults. The burden caused by her various subordinations increases to a degree that Annie can no longer shoulder, and she collapses, falling ill for several months during the long rain (p. 103). The awful nightmare that has been haunting and troubling her for years deteriorates alongside her illness in Chapter 7: "Inside me, the black thing that was lodged in my head grew even more laden" (p. 114). Eventually, Annie is overwhelmed by this indiscernible disturbance.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-7">Secrets Uncovered and Identity Consolidated</hd> <p>The last significant secret hinges on Annie's illness at the age of fifteen, an incident which is ostensibly mysterious but closely relevant to her confounded identity while she is growing up. When Annie is taken ill, her parents are baffled as to the real cause of the illness, speculating that it relates to her hard work at school (p. 109). In the wake of their helplessness, Ma Jolie, an obeah woman from Dominica, and Dr. Stephens from England are invited to diagnose Annie's condition, though neither proves to be helpful (pp. 109–111). The mystery of Annie's sickness further intensifies alongside the enigma of an unusual three-and-a-half-month-long rain lingering in the area. As Annie reflects later, "just as mysteriously as my sickness came, so it left. At the same time, just as mysteriously as the rain came, so it left" (p. 126). The coming and leaving of Ma Chess, Annie's grandmother, who is conversant in local religion and folk therapy, is also shrouded in riddles. As Annie says, "Ma Chess left, and in the way she came, too: with no announcement and on a day when the steamer was not due in port" (p. 127). These mysteries embedded in Annie's sickness, the long rain, and Ma Chess's dis/appearance are indicative of her problem with her identity, which is metaphorically turned into "a black thing" lying in Annie's mind and haunting her during her sickness (pp. 111–114). These are not secrets deliberately guarded for protection or deception, but the inscrutable ways of fate, which pose a threat to Annie's personal development while she is still frustrated by the abortive relationships with her mother, peers, and teachers.</p> <p>Annie's collapse into illness seems to be inevitable; it signals the tremendous pressure imposed on the young protagonist in her confrontations with dominant forces deriving from race, gender, and family. This physical challenge alludes to a significant difference that characterizes Annie's vulnerability as the protagonist of a female bildungsroman. As Esther Kleinbord Labovitz notes in her study of female bildungsroman, while in traditional bildungsroman male protagonists normally begin with a strong sense of self, heroines usually start with a search for a self that has been lost early in their childhood (p. 248). This peculiar coming-of-age experience explicates the complicated image of Annie. Despite her sanguine relationship with her mother in the earlier years—as is common in traditional bildungsroman—Annie's bewilderment about identity and her attempt to find herself are evidenced by her fascination with death-related events. Annie's quest for identity not only commences with a lost self but is coupled with a disease, an episode very uncommon in the traditional, male-dominated bildungsroman. In other words, her bodily fragility, in conjunction with her indecision about her identity, marks the difficulties of being a female, let alone a female adolescent living in a colony, who manages to challenge multiple stereotypical hierarchies working against her.</p> <p>Taken together, these complexities in Annie's development are embodied in her being constantly torn between innocence and experience. Like many other children, she is innocent while trying to unscramble the mystery of life. However, due to her peculiar role under the burden of triple subordination in terms of sex, race, and family, Annie appears to be more precocious than most of her peers. In addition, she is torn between her obsession with security in her childhood and her impulse to challenge stereotypical images inflicted on her by the authorities. Deception turns out to be a necessary evil to achieve this goal.</p> <p>With the passing of Annie's mysterious illness, her identity problem is addressed. The uncertainty and lack of consciousness during her illness may be unbearable, but they are requisite to pave the way for Annie's survival and revival, which is illustrated in the opening paragraph of Chapter 8."My name is Annie John." These were the first words that came onto my mind as I woke up on the morning of the last day I spent in Antigua.... I did not want to go to England, I did not want to be a nurse, but I would have chosen going off to lie in a cavern and keeping house for seven unruly men rather than go on with my life as it stood.... I especially never wanted to lie in my bed and hear my mother gargling again. (pp. 130-131)This is manifestly Annie's proclamation of her identity and her declaration of independence. This is the first time Annie is able to identify herself by articulating her name, an entity given by her parents in the past but now a tool of identification under her full control. Annie's quest for identity is worth noting because, as Labovitz argues, the question of whether women can have their own identities is a pivotal issue in the discussion of female bildungsroman (p. 7).</p> <p>Unlike her former, immature self, Annie is now capable of making compromises with her parents. Despite her reluctance to go to England, she agrees, partly because she knows refusal is futile and partly because she hopes to get away from her parents (pp. 130–131). Her desire for self-identification is further stressed later in Chapter 8: "My name is Annie John. I was born on the fifteenth of September, 17 years ago, at Holberton Hospital, at five o'clock in the morning" (p. 132). A striking contrast between Annie in the past and Annie in the present is highlighted in the final chapter. Dichotomizing her parents as old-fashioned and herself as reformed, Annie reiterates her difference now, saying "I don't see them now the way I used to, and I don't love them now the way I used to. The bitter thing about it is that they are just the same and it is I who have changed" (p. 133).</p> <p>In addition to her distinction from her parents, Annie expresses her severance from her past by accentuating her difference from her friends. This is illustrated in her meeting Gwen, a confidante in former days, whom Annie now despises because of her engagement in a romance and her silly fancy about getting married to "Mr. Right" soon. Annie cannot help feeling disgusted by this former lover's superficiality: "We parted, and when I turned away I didn't look back" (p. 137). Annie's renunciation of marriage, signaling her determination to deviate from conventions, is significant. According to Labovitz, traditionally women have been excluded from featuring as the protagonists of bildungsroman because, instead of being self-autonomous risk-takers, they are more likely to either entertain or be entertained, and their life journey often culminates in marriage (p. 4). Annie's disdain for marriage demonstrates her peculiar role as a female heroine confronting the bildungsroman tradition and the stereotyped image of women. Annie's excitement about her new-found freedom is also evidenced by her attitude towards things familiar to her in her hometown, including Miss Dulcie's house, the road to school, the church where she was christened, the shoe store, and the library. Notwithstanding a few sweet memories associated with them, Annie feels no regret over her departure. As she remarks, "my heart swelled with a great gladness as the words 'I shall never see this again' spilled out inside me" (p. 145). In fact, this echoes her feeling earlier in the same chapter: "But as I was lying there my heart could have burst open with a joy at the thought of never having to see any of it again" (p. 132).</p> <p>After the long rain Annie has become much more independent and confident about her individuality. In contrast to the immature youth who refuses to disconnect from her mother, this more sophisticated "young lady," as her mother calls her, even feels disgusted at her mother's intimacy not long before her departure in the last chapter: "We looked at each other for a long time with smiles on our faces, but I know the opposite of that was in my heart" (p. 147). Annie just cannot wait to leave everything behind in Antigua and get initiated into a brand-new life in England, chanting time and again, "'I shall never see this again'" with elation and expectation (<reflink idref="bib145" id="ref8">145</reflink>). As the mysteries of growing up unfold, simultaneously Annie's confused identity is unlocked. Secrets turn out to be an integral part of one's personal development, alongside one's fumbling at his/her connection with life, death, family, friends, and the outside world.</p> <p>Underneath the range of lies and secrets stands Annie's advanced understanding of human development. This initiation into the heart of her maturity and personal development is made possible through a dialectical debate between life and death. It is through loss that Annie gains; it is through death that Annie perceives the meaning of life. Annie's fascination with death in the opening chapter ushers her into precious life experiences. In the following chapters, the demise of her relationships with her mother, her friends, and her white teachers enlightens her on the transitory nature of her identity and the ever-evolving reality of one's life. Death visits her or looms over her life in different forms, as evidenced by the recurring dream of losing her mother in Chapter 3 and her meeting with friends in the cemetery in the same chapter (pp. 44, 50). Instead of bringing her to annihilation, death initiates her in the way of the world. In a similar fashion, Annie's near-death experience in Chapter 6 and the salvation after the rain in Chapter 7 embody a life-saving miracle through death. Paradoxically, Annie's illness and her close-to-death experience pave the way for her awakening to her identity and tackling the difficulty of growing up in the end. It is worth noting that Annie's maturation and self-realization are revived through varied forms of death. This notion of life via death agrees with Jacques Derrida's theory of death in his book <emph>The Gift of Death</emph> (1996). In his discussion of Patocka's characterization of death, Derrida argues that "(eternal) life is born from this event of looking death in the face, from the triumph (premozeni) over death" (p. 16). According to Derrida, no one can die for others. Even if you sacrifice your life and save a person this time, you cannot have the once-and-for-all experience of dying for a person, for that person will surely die sometime in the future. In other words, death alerts people to their singularity, their irreplaceability and their responsibility (p. 41). This deconstructive understanding of life through death—a gift of death for Derrida—helps explicate the underlying theme in Kincaid's <emph>Annie John</emph>. The varied forms of death and loss Annie experiences set the stage for her life or rebirth. If the close-to-death experiences are challenges for Annie, they are indispensable for this caterpillar to turn into a butterfly. These encounters educate the young protagonist in the quest for her female identity.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-8">Conclusion</hd> <p>Ostensibly, Kincaid's <emph>Annie John</emph> is a bildungsroman which delineates the title character's psychological struggle between attachment to her mother and longing for independence. To alleviate her anxiety in the process of her maturation, Annie needs to resort to lying and concealment. These deceptive attempts also enable her to challenge normative discourses in gender, race, family, and colonialism. Intriguingly, Annie stops lying and secret-making in Chapter 7 because she is physically incapable, due to her illness. However, in the last chapter this sadder and wiser protagonist, who has outgrown her over-reliance on her mother, continues making pretenses to her benefit.</p> <p>Lying and concealment play a pivotal role in unravelling the underlying hierarchies in Antigua, which are intricately entangled with Annie's maturing experience. In the meantime, alongside Annie's personal disillusionment and enlightenment in her life struggle comes her advanced understanding of various patterns of oppression and ways of resistance. Consequently, secrets and lying in Kincaid's <emph>Annie John</emph> not only demarcate oppressions but entail rebellion and resistance. They are morally incorrect but practically indispensable, particularly for the subordinated and the unspeakable in confrontation with their dominant counterparts. This is another lesson we can learn from Annie's story.</p> <hd id="AN0161550271-9">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0161550271-10"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Braziel Jana Evans. Caribbean Genesis: Jamaica Kincaid and the Writing of New Worlds. 2009: Albany; State University of New York Press</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Bouson J. Brooks. Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory, Writing Back to the Mother. 2005: Albany; State University of New York Press</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref6" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Dahl PBenoit-Dusausoy Annick, Fontaine Guy. The 'Bildungsroman'. History of European Literature. 2000: Trans. Michael Wooff. London; Routledge: 422-426</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Derrida Jacques. The Gift of Death. 1996: Chicago; Trans. David Wills. Chicago: Chicago University Press</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref3" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Ferguson Moira. Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to Jamaica Kincaid. 1993: New York; Columbia University Press. 10.7312/ferg90684</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> Gething AnnaPauline Dodgson, Katiyo, Gina Wisker. Menstrual Metamorphosis and the 'Foreign Country of Femaleness': Kate Grenville and Jamaica Kincaid. Rites of Passage in Postcolonial Women's Writing. 2010: Amsterdam; Ropodi: 267-282</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> Giles Paul. Transnationalism in Practice: Essays on American Studies, Literature and Religion. 2010: Edinburgh; Edinburgh University Press. 10.1515/9781474468480</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" idref="ref4" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Hodge MerleKincaid Jamaica. Caribbean Writers and Caribbean Language: A Study of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John. Harold Bloom. 2008: New York; Bloom's Literary Criticism: 23-30</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" idref="ref2" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Kincaid Jamaica. Annie John. 1985; Vintage</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Labovitz Esther Kleinbord. The Myth of the Heroine: the Female Bildungsroman in the Twentieth Century: Dorothy Richardson, Simone De Beauvoir, Doris Lessing, Christa Wolf. 1988: New York; Peter Lang</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> MacDonald-Smythe Antonia. Making Homes in the West/indies: Constructions of Subjectivity in the Writings of Michelle Cliff and Jamaica Kincaid. 2001: New York; Routledge</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Mallan Kerry. Secrets, Lies and Children's Fiction. 2013: Basingstoke; Palgrave Macmillan. 10.1057/9781137274663</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Melbourne LucyFisher Jerilyn, Silber Ellen. 'Young Lady' or 'slut': Identity and Voice in Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John (1983). Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender. 2003: Westport; Greenwood Press: 15-17</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Penier Izabella. Postcolonial, Feminist and Transatlantic Studies—A Confluence of Ideas in Jamaica Kincaid's Fiction. Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny. 2008; 55: 181-196</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Russell David L. Literature for Children: A Short Introduction. 20127: Boston; Pearson</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Snodgrass Mary Ellen. Jamaica Kincaid: A Literary Companion. 2008: Jefferson; McFarland</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Soto-Crespo Ramon E. Death and the Diaspora Writer: Hybridity and Mourning in the Work of Jamaica Kincaid. Contemporary Literature. 2002; 43; 2: 343-376. 10.2307/1209076</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Stahl John DanielEgoff Sheila, Stubbs Gordon, Ashley Ralph, Sutton Wendy. The Imaginative Uses of Secrecy in Children's Literature. Only Connect: Readings on Children's Literature. 19963: Toronto; Oxford University Press: 39-47</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Valens Keja. Obvious and Ordinary: Desire between Girls in Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John. Frontiers. 2004; 25; 2: 123-149. 10.1353/fro.2004.0056</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Vásquez Sam. In Her Own Image: Literary and Visual Representations of Girlhood in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. 2014; 12; 1: 58-87. 10.2979/meridians.12.1.58</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Hawk Chang</p> <p>Reported by Author</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib119" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib145" firstref="ref8"></nolink> |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Women, Coming-of-Age and Secrets in Jamaica Kincaid's 'Annie John' – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Chang%2C+Hawk%22">Chang, Hawk</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1495-3761">0000-0003-1495-3761</externalLink>) – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Children's+Literature+in+Education%22"><i>Children's Literature in Education</i></searchLink>. Mar 2023 54(1):1-16. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/ – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 16 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2023 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative<br />Opinion Papers – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Females%22">Females</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Self+Concept%22">Self Concept</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Novels%22">Novels</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Fiction%22">Fiction</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22World+Views%22">World Views</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Adolescent+Development%22">Adolescent Development</searchLink> – Name: Subject Label: Geographic Terms Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Jamaica%22">Jamaica</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1007/s10583-021-09461-w – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0045-6713<br />1573-1693 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: The mysterious and unspoken secrets of life can be a source of fascination for young people. The bildungsroman quest for identity is often coupled with a protagonist's attempts to decode a range of secrets. Jamaica Kincaid's work of fiction, "Annie John" (1985), illustrates this journey. In this novel, the female protagonist's maturity and character development become possible only through her persistent efforts to decode the secrets of life. This paper discusses how, in a series of adventures, those secrets are embedded into Annie's story and how her coming-of-age mystery is ultimately resolved. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2023 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1364073 |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1007/s10583-021-09461-w Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 16 StartPage: 1 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Females Type: general – SubjectFull: Self Concept Type: general – SubjectFull: Novels Type: general – SubjectFull: Fiction Type: general – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries Type: general – SubjectFull: World Views Type: general – SubjectFull: Adolescent Development Type: general – SubjectFull: Jamaica Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Women, Coming-of-Age and Secrets in Jamaica Kincaid's 'Annie John' Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Chang, Hawk IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 03 Type: published Y: 2023 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0045-6713 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1573-1693 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 54 – Type: issue Value: 1 Titles: – TitleFull: Children's Literature in Education Type: main |
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