“A Small Place”- A Reflection

Before traveling to a new place, I think that a tourist must learn a little about the culture, the tradition, the food, the political status, the language and history of the country where he is going to, in order to enjoy and appreciate everything that the country had to offer. This topic about the tourism and the lack of knowledge of the tourist is presented in the novel A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. In this short novel, Jamaica expresses her opinion about the Caribbean island of Antigua, how this little island passed from being a colony of the Great Britain and in the eighties got its independence and all the changes that comes with time.

The novel begins explaining step by step the experience of a tourist that is arriving at the airport of Antigua, a tropical island, to spend her holidays there. But the novel is not only a narration, is a critic, an analysis and the opinion of the author about different topics from different points of view related to tourism, politics, economy, colonialism, criminality and corruption. Also the author describes the beauty of the island, all the green, the sun and the ocean. When I read it, it was like she was describing Puerto Rico, but the physical similarities are not the only similarities between Puerto Rico and Antigua; Puerto Rico like Antigua was (or is) a colony, but Puerto Rico  doesn’t have yet its independency.

Jamaica Kincaid present two different characters in her novel: the tourist and the native Antiguan. The two characters perceive life from very different points of view. She describes herself has a native Antiguan, for that reason between the description of the journey she tells important facts of the history of Antigua. The white tourist (You) are described as North American o European that are passing there holydays in Antigua “to escape from the reality of their lives”, “where the sun always shine”. They only want to enjoy the paradise, feeling free and blessed, ignoring the problems and corruption in the island.  The other character is the native from Antigua, (I or They) who is described as a black worker who is very poor. This separation of characters shows us the notion of identity described by Peter Roberts. Roberts explain that the notion of identity is based on the perception of sameness/difference. The differences between the tourists and the natives make them treat each other differently creating barriers between them.

Jamaica shows us (like I said at the beginning) how the tourists are not prepare or don’t know the place where they are going to, for example, when she talks about the water, the library, the hospitals, the political status and the poor sewage-disposal system. The tourist are not prepare if something bad happened because they are ignorant about a lot of things in Antigua.  So, I think that in Antigua, like in Puerto Rico and in every county of the world we should encourage the tourist agencies and the education system to promote education of residents and tourists about the culture of the country.