OPTION 3 (A/Prof Barbara Boswell): Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid Lucy,written by Jamaica Kincaid in 1990, is the story of Lucy, a West Indian teenager that leaves home to become an au pair in the United States of America. It follows Lucy as she toils with the relationship that she has with her mother and her adjustment to living in the United States and with Mariah. In this essay I will explore Lucy's relationship with Mariah and contrast that with her relationship with her own mother. I will then consider the places that Lucy finds herself in, both familiar and foreign, and I will then conclude by identifying the ways in which Lucy empowers and separates herself from these influences, either to her benefit or detriment. Jamaica Kincaid, a Caribbean export to the United States herself, is in a unique position to write a novel about the migration of women in the Caribbean to the United States in pursuit of independence and freedom. Through Lucy, we see inner turmoil and conflict contrasted with a longing and aspiration for a different outcome to the one she has been exposed to and promised from a young age. The themes of this book are varied but I believe the most pertinent one for understanding Lucy is dissonance. In the novel, we witness Lucy’s evolution from rebellious young lady to hardened woman. She changes as a result of being exposed to more disappointment than she expected and to placing pressure on herself to grow and become independent. This comes as a result of understanding that what she sees in her mother, the amenability and willingness to be compliant and upstanding is somewhat universal, or at the very least something that even a well-off woman like Mariah also seems to embody. Lucy cannot concede her desire for an alternative and refuses to acquiesce. She finds a way in which to cope with this realization, in spite of the resistance and reluctance that she is constantly aware of. In understanding dissonance, we are exposed to how people cope with it. People that experience dissonance are said to exist between at least two conflicting notions. These can be beliefs, feelings, values or ideas. How one resolves this
is to do one of two things; either rationalize, which is to undertake additional information in the hopes that greater insight will lead to understanding and less conflict between the contradictory notions, or to engage in confirmation bias, which is to avoid any information or circumstances that could exacerbate the dissonance. Mariah, Lucy’s employer and mother of four children, becomes a pivotal character and reference point for Lucy. Mariah represents traditional American norms for a woman that longs for a family or is seeking to find purpose in general. Throughout the novel, Mariah seeks to portray an air of stability and certainty, trying to create a safe and harmonious environment for her children, and eventually for Lucy too. She does so by engaging in reassuring physical acts of intimacy (Kincaid, 1990, p27) and seeking to introduce Lucy to new things of which Mariah is already familiar. She also takes an interest in Lucy’s history and the ways in which she has experienced her life, but more often than not, cannot relate to Lucy’s accounts and recollections. “But nothing could change the fact that where she saw beautiful flowers I saw sorrow and bitterness.” (Kincaid, 1990, p22) She does not relate to Lucy’s struggle nor could she comprehend the anguish and
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