Annie John

Many novelist of the time have wrote their books based on the story of their life, where they lived and the effects it caused. Within the novel, Annie John, author, Jamaica Kincaid's use of the character of Annie John to reflect a young girl's development in the Caribbean society in the late 1950's. Kincaid's self reliance provides a basic foundation for the character of Annie John portrayed as Kincaid and her struggle to find individuality in a male privileged century. Annie seeks capability to separate from her mother; the male privileges occurring in her home and community of Antigua; and the progressions in herself. Annie, like Kincaid is living in the Caribbean islands of Antigua following a standard of male being the dominate, and females only being a domestic, and sexual mate. The beginnings of Annie's development are full her families happiness and safety, till she turns 12 she sees all not in favor of her. During the time the British colonized the Caribbean, Kincaid wrote a semi-autobiography on the place of Antigua, where she was growing up. The character of Annie represents Kincaid's hatred because the pain she was subjected through, but only helping her learn its time to her to leave Antigua, to find independence on her own.

Growing up Kincaid faced the problem of losing her mother's attention after her baby brother's birth, leading to her having great hatred throughout her developing years. The book is based upon a young girls life, and losing her mother, in which she has affection for to her father. Though in the beginning their connection is very close, for example, taking bathes together, "My mother and I often took a bath together. Sometimes it was just a plain bath, which did not take very long. Other times it was a special bath in which the barks and flowers of many different, together with all sorts of oils, were boiled in the same large cauldron" (Kincaid 14). This signifies the bond of mother