A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid

When reading even the first handful of chapters, even pages to the novel, A Small Place, I became ashamed, disgusted, and ponderous. The novel began as a passive aggressive, rhetorical questioning, third eye opening experience. I wondered about what I as a native of Wisconsin, United States meant to a native from Antigua if I were to simply spend a vacation there, or anywhere neighboring, not acknowledging the history between both groups along with the customs and traditions. This product is a model of a multi perspective response to reading the book. Kincaid used her canvas to directly tell us, the reader, you suck. You should be guilty. The way I constructed my ‘poem’ is by writing in the perspective of native Antiguans versus Americans as travelers. The Antiguans are the family or pack that sticks together, knows each other, and is ‘loyal’ while a herd of animals, the Americans, come or take over unaccustomed to traditions, rituals, or culture essentially as Noah’s Ark. Although the story is twisted so when they around for the fews days to even month spent there, they use Antigua for power, personal pleasure, and to wash it out and make it better, like the flood. The setting is a combination of Kincaid in the time of the book initially in early chapters until the Mill Reef Club, expressing English and the relationship with and to Antigua(ns), but also how I would declare her thoughts on current America, hence “wear the great cap”. I began writing my initial reaction in stanza one and what I believe Kincaid would think then and now of English and America. Stanza two is a ramble about a tourist in Antigua, hence direct terms from the book. Stanza three begins with laws made by English, transitioning to the arrival of the tourists in the Ark, Antiguans questioning their power after the law reference, and an exorcist & flood reference. The final stanzas reflect the impact of the English to Antigua(ns) and the people reading the book now.

Such a pretty little place where i,

and they would love to go and stay

BARK! BARK! 

Argh, ahoy matey!

Every step in the sand, disappointing as the man, wearing the great cap.

The plan in the head of the wrong, ahead of the top of the chain. 

Head inside, Ashamed.

Fake display in their eyes as they try wearing a disguise.

Understand just one is no more and diversity is all over.

Too bad, airy weather, all good.

Bad roads, bank loans. Taxi driver go back, 

rolling over thumbtacks.

Reckless, expensive,

special lesson to live.

(Puppy eyes, see me feed me

Believe me!?)

If I growl a little bit deeper then I’ll probably get a beast

but if I pout a little bit more then I’ll probably be deceased.

Pack turned their heads

the herd comes taking over.

Am I a wolf 

or coyote?

Am I worthy a bone, or a home?

Oh the holy howl

although in dirty water.

Ow, oh my what a fine land of mine.

The shine

In my eyes is gone.

Broken

with a hole in it distraught, 

it’s all gone yet in fact it's not done.

Not our fault, but guilt falls hard.

 A Small Place | Part I

 A Small Place | Part II

After reading the book A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, my group decided to create a dance sequence. When given this assignment we were told to include three different elements: juxtaposition, slavery and nostalgia. In the first section of our dance we focused on slavery. We showed how the natives were stripped of their identity to serve someone else with no choice in the matter in their movements. We used juxtaposition many times in our movement piece, which is comparing two things side by side, specifically in this part. We compared everyday native Antiguan life to slavery. Then in the last part of our sequence we focused on nostalgia, using childlike movements. When thinking back to moments from your childhood, you will be left with a sense of comfort. In our dance, we compared a native living their normal life and slavery next to each other and in the end, the only thing that the slave had left was the nostalgic memory of their past. They were stripped of their identity and didn’t have anything left. Nostalgia is valuable, it helps them get through their experience in slavery. We used narrative to inform the choreography. We created movements that showed people doing their true native dances, and then being caught by the colonists they all leave the floor then and what happens next is up for interpretation. They then come back with movements, like spins and tip toes, that represent nostalgia. Showing that nostalgia and memories of the past is one of the few things that can help a slave through their struggles. We took experiences that we learned about from the book “A Small Place” including the daily life of a native Antiguan and an enslaved Antiguan to compare and contrast while inserting those feelings and experiences into dance movements.

 A Small Place | Part IV

In the book A Small Place one of the biggest themes was tourists ignoring the problems of natives. With that theme there were problems that came along with throughout the book; usually because of ignorance. Taking the smaller problems or themes from the book, a dance was created. 

 Starting with part four there were the themes of racism, how Antigua is a small island, it being beautiful and unreal, and how Antiguans are humans too. “It is just a little island. The unreal way in which it is beautiful now is the un-real way in which it was always beautiful” (80).  

A move done was a butterfly jump because we connected ballet or being tall to elegance and beauty. In part three we saw the themes were the library, the Mill Reef Club and how it’s missing the “old Antigua',” and the corrupt government. The library was shown with bringing the arms out and back in with the hands in a book-like position, and then crumpling. In part two the theme was England and its hold that it had on Antigua. In that part of the dance the two groups split up to express the two sides, England and Antigua. Finally, the theme in part one was tourists, and their ignorance. “(V. C.) Bird is the Prime Minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a Prime Minister would want an airport named after him—why not a school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument? You are a tourist and you have not yet seen a school in Antigua, you have not yet seen the hospital in Antigua, you have not yet seen a public monument in Antigua” (pg 1).This was set at the end of the dance, where dancers still in different groups, fell to the floor. 

The main theme of the dance is the pressure being put on the natives. In A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, the British took over the native’s territory and would criticize them. An example of this is the Mill Reef Club where the tourists made that vicinity exclusive to them and the only way natives could ‘get in’ would be through being a servant for them. “And then there is the Mill Reef Club. It was built by some people from North America who wanted to live in Antigua but who seemed not to like Antiguans at all, for the Mill Reef Club declared itself completely private, and the only Antiguans allowed to go there were servants” (27). That is the main mentality of the tourists; giving a ‘servant’ nameplate to the natives, basically making them do work as if the tourists were the ones in charge of the place. Another example is the British forcing native Antiguans to abide by their laws. “Since we were ruled by the English, we also had their laws. There was a law against using abusive language. Can you imagine such a law among people for whom making a spectacle of yourself through speech is everything?” (25). The overall theme of ‘pressure’ had that connection of the British and natives with the privacy and laws in the book, and in the real world as well with a project an individual would work on, and somebody could come along and destroy it.

The first movement involves everybody dancing in a circle, representing the freedom that the Antiguans used to have. The going ‘in and out’ represented them becoming a unison, and the outside showing them becoming distant due to the tourists. The next scene shows the native dancing alone and the British come stomping in staring at the native, representing the ‘viewpoints’ of the British. After that, the British huddle in a circle and shuffle showing the Mill Reef Club and the exclusivity that it has. The next step is two people in the middle standing straight representing the Great Wall which was given a sense of respect and no one dared to touch it. Then there is a native dancing on one side showing the separation and a British celebrating on the other side representing the Queen Victoria Holiday. The final step of the movement is the two ‘wall people’ crashing down on the native and the native leaves the stage showing that the natives no longer run the place, rather the British.

In the dance that was created under the work of group three, they all worked together to forge this dance from the coals of old Jamaica Kincaid’s book, A Small Place. After reading this book we decided to focus on the destruction of the Library as a symbol of Antiguan’s lost culture. Using the research of Caribbean and African American traditional dances we created a dance to capture the Antiguans losing their culture. The theme of the dance is personifying the Antiguans loss of culture, using the destruction of the library and lack of rebuilding of it to show the loss. Books hold history and when the earthquake happened in 1974 it broke the library and destroyed many books. Books are history and as time goes we lose oral history but written stays for much longer. Those who write are history and when the books were lost so was most of the history. 

As spoken about earlier the books were destroyed in the earthquake, in the dance a dancer gets upset and kicks the books. This represents two things, the British squashing Antiguans down and treating them poorly, their history poorly, and the ginormous loss of culture from them. The second thing it represents is more physical, it is the earthquake that happened in 1974. The earthquake destroyed countless amounts of books. The way kicking or throwing books damage them and if damaged enough gets destroyed. The movement where the dancer with a skirt called a Lappa is pleading with the other dancer that is standing over them. This shows how the Antiguans were desperate to have their culture back and were powerless to the English, for the English had superior technology. Being on the knees shows a distinct power dynamic with the stronger one tower over the weaker.

The theme of the dance is corruption this is shown through government in A Small place by Jamaica Kincaid. Some examples from the novel are the cars are newer models from Japan using leaded gasoline that were meant to use non-leaded gasoline; the people who sold these cars are part of the government. The doctors are referred to as “the three men” when the minister of health doesn't feel well he takes the first plane to New York. This is corruption because the three men aren't real doctors but the government does not care that they are working. You are supposed to see that there are a lot of problems in Antigua involving the government.

In my dance an important move is Keagan pushing Perrin; this shows that Keagan is supporting the whites more then their people. A second move we had is Perrin drinking dirty water this is corruption because the government doesn't have a place for waste to go so it goes back to the water. We also have a native join the Europeans to show the corruption that goes on. The music we chose was West African Drum Beat. We chose this to represent the natives culture being over taken.