Annie John--Synopsis

"The Circling Hand"
'Columbus in Chains' from Annie John
"A Walk to the Jetty"

Annie John--Synopsis

Jamaica Kincaid beautifully delineates hatred and fear, because she knows they are often a step away from love and obsession. At the start of Annie John, her 10-year-old heroine is engulfed in family happiness and safety. Though Annie  loves her father, she is all eyes for her mother. When she is almost 12, however, the idyll ends and she falls into deep disfavor. This inexplicable loss mars both lives, as each grows adept at public falsity and silent betrayal. The pattern is set, and extended: "And now I started a new series of betrayals of people and things I would have sworn only minutes before to die for." In front of Annie's father and the world, "We were politeness and kindness and love and laughter." Alone they are linked in loathing. Annie tries to imagine herself as someone in a book--an orphan or a girl with a wicked stepmother.  The trouble is, she finds, those characters' lives always end happily. Luckily for us, though not perhaps for her alter ego, Kincaid is too truthful a writer to provide such a finale. (from Reviews and Commentary for Annie John, Amazon) 

• Annie John
• Annie's independence process
• Pre-occupation with death;
• Pre-Oedipal symbiosis with the mother
• Girl friends (Gwen, Red Girl)
• Resisting British education (Columbus in Chain)
•  Exploring her own sexuality
•  fascination for the father (112-13)
•  Illness; grandmother's (Ma Chess)  care-taking -- a substitute for the mother (pp. 125-26)
• Leaving Antigua
• "The Circling Hand"  'Columbus in Chains' "A Walk to the Jetty"

  "The Circling Hand"


1. The symbiotic state: (pp. 13-25)
Examples of the daughter's complete identification with the mother.  pp. 13- 19
•  What kind of gender model does the mother offer Annie?  What role does the father take in this part?   e.g. p. 13-14; 25
•  What's the significance of the trunk?  P. 20


 2. Separation: the changes

• in Annie's body p. 25; p. 27
• her dresses p. 26
• her schooling -- p. 29
• the mother's expectations of her: pp. 28-29


3. the primal scene

•  the importance of the circling hand?  P. 30
•  What role does the father take after this scene?

'Columbus in Chains' from Annie John
Remember "Dan in the Man in the Van" when reading this excerpt.  Here our discussion of colonial education and postcolonial resistance will continue:

1. How is the narrator related to the pupils (Ruth and Hilarene) and the teachers (esp. Ms. Edward)?
2. How do you characterize Ms. Edward's way of education?  e.g. pp. 400, 401 of our Reader.
3. Where do we see the narrator's postcolonial thinking?  Why is Columbus important?
4. Another interesting issue here is family relationships.  Why is Columbus related to the narrator's grandfather?  How is the narrator related to her own mother?

"A Walk to the Jetty"
 1. Contradictory signs of independence + signs of nostalgia in this chapter?

•  Name, address, her listing of what she "never wants to see"; joy at not having to see them.  pp. 130-132.; her attention at what's "hers" and what's on her p. 134-35.
• remembering a lot; the moment of getting out of bed 133
• contradictory feelings at the wharf: 144; 145, 147

2. Annie's views of her parents & marriage

• What kind of family does Annie have?  P. 132
• How do they look at her day of departure? pp. 134-36
• Their interaction: p. 136
• Gwen  137

3. Walking away from the past (memories, education and transitional objects)

• Ms. Dulcie the seamstress, p. 138
• first experience of buying things 139
• saving money
• interests that she has outgrown: glasses, porcelain dog,
• library
• Individuation through complete separation

Can you relate to her need to leave the place forever?  pp. 144-148
Are you sympathetic with her hatred of the mother?  Pp. 133