Re-constructing Female Caribbean Subjectivity in Jamaica Kincaid’s Mother-Daughter Trilogy: Annie John, Lucy, and The Autobiography of My Mother

• Main Authors: Lu-chi Yang, 楊璐綺
• Other Authors: Chi-she Li
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/71794480315037711718

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 101 === My thesis reads Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid''s three semi-autobiographical novels on mother-daughter relationship, Annie John, Lucy and The Autobiography of My Mother as three separate endeavors of a larger literary project that aims to re-construct a female Caribbean subjectivity against the confusing cultural heritages of the colonial Caribbean region. In light of Leigh Gilmore''s concept of "serial autobiography," I argue that these three texts taken together form a trilogy in two stages. First, from Annie John to Lucy, Kincaid comes to realize the typically intensive Caribbean mother-daughter relationship that obstructs contemporary Caribbean women''s subject development is emblematic of the patriarchal-colonial domination over the Caribbean motherland. Second, in The Autobiography of My Mother, Kincaid ventures to re-address the historical condition of domination by re-writing maternal history. With the life story of a motherless female protagonist who chooses to abort her child, Kincaid proposes a counterhistory to the official history, in which the mother is biologically unproductive, symbolizing the end of colonial violence, yet becomes culturally generative as a maternal figure across ethnic, geographical, and generational boundaries.