A Comprehensive Analysis of Jamaica Kincaid's Novel: Lucy

This essay offers an in-depth analysis of Jamaica Kincaid's novel, Lucy, focusing on the protagonist's journey from the West Indies to America. The analysis examines the themes of identity formation, mother-daughter relationships, and the impact of cultural displacement on Lucy. It explores how Lucy's experiences with her mother, her employers, and her romantic relationships shape her character and her quest for independence. The essay delves into the novel's exploration of love, control, and the search for self, highlighting Lucy's attempts to define herself apart from her mother's influence. Through a causal analysis, the essay illustrates how Lucy's decisions and actions are driven by her desire to escape her mother's control and establish her own identity. The analysis considers the novel's autobiographical elements and its portrayal of the complexities of human relationships and the challenges of navigating new cultural environments, supported by references to academic sources.

Running head: LUCY: AN ANALYSIS
LUCY: AN ANALYSIS
Name of the Student:
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Author Note:

1LUCY: AN ANALYSIS
Lucy is a short novel by Jamaica Kincaid, that was published in 1990. Upon publication
it faced serious allegations of being “angry”. Though it may seem like a normal thing today,
when venting out and expressing anger is easier and more accepted and the set of
circumstantiality that attribute to these reactions are given care and tried to be understood, in the
time of this book’s publication the social norms were quite different (Martin). Critics argued that
in the vortex of anger, love was missing, and the veil that was supposed to depict the
protagonist’s quest for love came out as mislead and even misplaced.
The novel begins with the arrival of a teenage Lucy, from her native home in the West
Indies, to America, where she dreams to lead a good life and hopes for a fresh new beginning
(Leaman). While she expects to live a life without the fuss she had to face in home, the situations
that she would be facing while seeking and finding a job, leads to a lot a complexities and even
seems to be melodramatic at some points. However, this is in fact a trademark of Kincaid, whose
writing style is more about angry outbursts and fits of rage, rather than just expressions of love or
gushing about emotions (Holmes). The novel, like many of Kincaid’s works, have some
autobiographical aspect to it. Lucy shares the birthday with her creator, and just like Kincaid,
Lucy also leaves her home in the Caribbean to come to America to be a house assistant.
The novel is a unique tell tale of cause and effect. The very plot of the novel rests on the
point that if Lucy did not feel trapped in her own home because of her mother and decided that
leaving her home is the only way she could be normal and not be controlled. Indeed, the very
push that gave the novel a start is part of the causality analysis that is the area of focus in this
current paper.
The entire flow of events resembles this causality effect throughout the book. What Lucy
faces in her new home, in the new country, where she is employed by a wealthy couple, makes

2LUCY: AN ANALYSIS
her realize that her problems did not stop when she left her home. Instead, they followed her
there. She finds startling resemblances between her mother and Mariah (Purk). She also could
easily relate to the fact that Lewis cheated on his wife, simply because she was used to this back
home (Kincaid). Her exposure to the shallow nature of the people she knew makes her think
about the credibility of love and whether it truly means anything (Mtenje). She seems cold and
her suitors are all sent back empty handed in the aspect of love. Even though she is not afraid to
explore her carnal desires and absolutely enjoys physical encounters with men, she makes a
barrier around herself where does not let anyone pass. This makes her look rather cold and
emotionless, but in effect, it is driven by her exposure to a display of love that has shown its true
form to her, devoid of anything that is fancy or true. She looks at love as something inane and
meaningless. Lucy still tries to conform to the socially established idea of love and tries to evoke
it within herself, but neither Hugh nor Paul are able to instill that emotion in her (Leaman).
Lucy finds resemblance between her own mother and her employer Mariah, who tries to
control her in ways, both good and bad, reminding her of her mother. The fact that Lucy left
home in the first place to get away from her mother becomes the reason for her not making a
sustainable bond with Mariah. Lucy’s dissatisfactory relationship with her mother motivates her
to flee home and make something out of her own accord (Mtenje). The fact that her mother was
devoted to Lucy’s father, despite him having children with multiple other women, made Lucy
become sceptic about the whole ordeal rotating around the notion of love. Perhaps that is why
has multiple partners and sexual encounters herself: to make sure that she is not a replica of her
mother.
In a way, Lucy’s thinking and her actions, which are reflected through leaving home, not
being shocked by the behavior of those around her, establishing sexual relationship with multiple

3LUCY: AN ANALYSIS
men, would seem like her journey to find her own identity. The situation where she casually gets
involved in a physical encounter with the camera salesman would further establish the fact that
Lucy tried her best to establish herself as a unique individual (Dasi).
In retrospect, it would look like the entire novel is based on the fact that Lucy wanted to
get away from her mother. Sending her mother money after the news of her father’s death and
then burning all the letters of her mother would seem like the final act on Lucy’s part to severe
the connection she had with her mother (Mtenje). When she discovers the similarities between
her mother and Mariah, it only pushes Lucy away from Mariah. Lucy’s need to get away from
her mother and coming out of her shadow has made her entire life a struggle to achieve the
distance and the influence her mother had on Lucy. Exploring her own sexuality and not being
subjugated to be trapped inside a simple domestic life are the two key drivers of Lucy’s
character.
If the entire novel is to be given a simplistic structure, it can be argued in favor of a
push/pull theme. Whatever Lucy does, are done because of something makes her do it: the key
driver here has been her mother. Lucy’s every action is a definitive display of an effort to come
out as someone who is not like her mother. The fact that she found similarities between Mariah
and her mother, only made her want to go on and have a life of her own, without any motherly
character near her. Even the goodness that Mariah showed her failed to make a good impression
on Lucy, maybe that is why she left and got a place of herself with her frien . The novel has a
definite push to it and the actions of Lucy are all just results of the same.

4LUCY: AN ANALYSIS
References
Dasi, Eleanor Anneh. "Home and Away': Reconstructing Identity in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy."
(2014).
Holmes, Sierra. "Contextualizing Subjectivity: Speaking (Back to) Colonialism in Jamaica
Kincaid’s Annie John, Lucy, and A Small Place." (2014).
Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy: A Novel. Macmillan, 1990.
Leaman, Nathan Reber. Building a subject position in American literature. Diss. San Diego State
University, 2016.
Martin, Janelle. Wandering Bodies: The Disruption of Identities in Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and
Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones. Diss. Wake Forest University, 2015.
Mtenje, Asante Lucy. "PATRIARCHY AND SOCIALIZATION IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI
ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS AND JAMAICA KINCAID’S LUCY." Marang: Journal of
Language and Literature 27 (2016): 63-78.
Purk, Antonia. "Multiplying Perspectives through Text and Time: Jamaica Kincaid's Writing of
the Collective." Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 15.1 (2014).