Colonialism And Imperialism In Kincaid's Antigua

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Moreover, there is an orientalist paradigm each tourist carries and the narrator exposes this through how the tourist feels to be in Antigua, where the tourist feels ‘blessed’ and ‘free’ (Kincaid, 5). The feelings described are tied with an ironic tone that arriving in a place riddled with dilapidation from neglect should evoke these feelings, and these feeling are actually an expression of valorizing poverty and exoticizing the natural environment. The road is described as ‘in much need of repair’ but in the tourist’s perception they are seen as a ‘marvelous change’ (5) and within a sentence we are presented with the crux of the problem that the tourist arrives with. The tourist arrives with the need to temporarily vanquish the banality of their lives and this comes in the expense of turning a blind eye to poverty and exoticizing it as …show more content…
Imperialism is founded on the acts of oppression and exploitation that are carried through, in Kincaid’s text it is evident that the government has been portrayed as the same kind of evil as the European colonizers. In Kincaid’s travelogue, she has expertly weaved how international facets of colonialism are still prevalent to Antigua’s current situation, it is even ironic how she has situated this ‘small place’ as being so in touch with all these notions of globalization because of tourism. From the white tourists, to the Japanese cars and the French pastries – all endorsed by the government. In this case, the government is seen as the extension of European imperialism, different skin color but same atrocities. The landscape does the job of locating the root of these issues by starkly portraying neglect in human necessities and the opulence in

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