In History

In the story “In History” by Jamaica Kincaid, she is describing what history is according to her. She says it is “the thing that happened to me and all who look like me” (16). Now, I am not entirely sure what she exactly meant by that, but I think she is referring to her ancestors and all that they went through. They could’ve struggled in America or in another country. That was her families past, therefore it is her history. We all have our own history, and she tries to tell us that in her story. She starts to tell us her story of her history. She mentions how Columbus “discovered the new world” (17). Although she doesn’t tell us much about her actually family history she does elaborate a little bit on where she is from, Antigua. She talks about the landscape. She says it is green. “Let me describe this landscape again: it is green, and unmistakably so; another person, who would have a more specific interest, a painter, might say, it is a green that often verges on blue, a green that often modified by reds and yellows and even other more intense or other shades of green” (19). She goes on and on a few more sentences about how green it is.

Kincaid also talks about Vermont, and how it is not the same place where she is from, Antigua. I find it a little bizarre how she is sort of speaking for Christopher Columbus. When she said that’s he never saw Vermont and he saw Antigua on a weekday, or a Sunday, and that he was exhausted.  She first thought of “what is history” when she realizes she was no longer living in the place that her ancestors, or those who looked like her, had lived. She is making a new appearance (21).  Kincaid also talks about naming different items. Items either have a proper name or a Latin name.

 Creative Challenge

When I was younger I learned about the New World and Christopher Columbus in school. I was very young. It was back in kindergarten, actually. We even had a feast for the pilgrims and Indians. I actually had to make a map of the world, or what I thought it looked like, when I was younger. I know my world was pretty much a few blobs on the paper. I knew, at that point. The world was round. We had a globe in the classroom. As I grew older I realized that my blobs actually took forms as countries. I learned more in detail about Columbus and his discoveries. What I was taught in school and at home is pretty much all I knew about history. I never really sat down and thought of it. When Kincaid mentions the landscape, it makes me think of my home town landscape and that of that world.