The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid

First published: 1996

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Feminist

Time of work: Early twentieth century

Locale: Dominica

Principal Characters:

• Xuela Claudette Richardson, the novel’s narrator
• Ma Eunice, who raises Xuela as a young child
• Jacques, and
• Lise LaBatte, a couple with whom Xuela boards as a teen
• Roland, a stevedore with whom Xuela falls in love
• Phillip Bailey, the European man whom Xuela marries
• Alfred Richardson, Xuela’s father, who is a wealthy, corrupt policeman
• Narrator’s Stepmother
• Narrator’s sister

The Novel

The Autobiography of My Motheroffers a first-person, retrospective account of Xuela Richardson’s struggle, over the course of her life, to reconcile with the early loss of her mother. As a Dominican girl in the early twentieth century, Xuela must also learn to cultivate her own positive sense of self in an environment that is hostile to her because of her race and gender. The novel begins with Xuela’s birth and her mother’s consequent death and describes her early life in the home of a paid caretaker, Ma Eunice, her experiences at school, her sexual maturation, the establishment of her independent adult life, and, finally, her marriage to a man she does not love.

Ma Eunice is the first person with whom Xuela comes into conflict. This conflict is the result of Xuela’s intuitive rejection of Ma Eunice as someone who is not equipped to provide the nurturing that she requires. As a laundress struggling to raise her children alone, Ma Eunice occupies a social position that the young Xuela instinctively resists.

When Xuela reaches school age, her father, Alfred, removes her from Ma Eunice’s home and sends her to school, an unusual opportunity for a girl in that day and age. Xuela, however, also has a difficult time in school, suffering verbal attacks from her teacher. The episode in the school constitutes an important part of the novel’s critique of colonialism’s legacy: The teacher is hostile toward Xuela because the teacher has internalized a belief that colonized peoples are culturally and intellectually inferior to their colonizers. Xuela demonstrates intellectual aptitude, making her teacher suspicious. Indeed, the teacher believes that Xuela’s ability must be the result of some kind of possession.

Xuela refuses to learn inferiority from either Ma Eunice or her teacher. She rejects the colonial assessment of non-Europeans and seeks solace in her mother, of whom she dreams frequently. Her mother’s descent from Carib Indians represents to Xuela a potential alternative source of identity. When her father learns of her difficulties, he takes her home to live with him and the wife he has recently married.

In Alfred’s home, Xuela has an even more difficult time as, in addition to subjecting Xuela to verbal attacks, her stepmother attacks her physically. In this section of the novel, the hostility that Xuela encounters derives primarily from her position as a female. Much of the section focuses on her struggle for sexual autonomy in a context in which women are often victims of their sexuality and are economically dependent on the men in their lives. Her stepmother’s attack on Xuela stems from her perception of Xuela as a competitor with her biological children for economic privilege within the family. As a result of an effort to resolve this conflict, when Xuela reaches fifteen years of age, she is sent to live with one of her father’s acquaintances and his wife, Jacques and Lise LaBatte.

At the LaBattes’ home, Xuela becomes aware of the dependent nature of male-female relationships through her observation of the LaBattes’ marriage. Though Mrs. LaBatte enjoys economic security and social sanction, she appears to have little sense of personal fulfillment. Mr. LaBatte, on the other hand, finds satisfaction in the ownership of things, including women. Not surprisingly, a sexual relationship between Xuela and Mr. LaBatte develops, and eventually Xuela becomes pregnant. She does not want to find herself in the same position as Mrs. LaBatte, so, after terminating the pregnancy, she flees their home.

On her own, Xuela finds employment picking up rocks with a road-building crew, and for the first time begins to attempt to forge an independent life. Eventually, Xuela becomes a doctor’s assistant in Roseau, a town a bit larger than her father’s village of Massacre. It seems, briefly, that Xuela will achieve the emotional and sexual connection that she has been seeking through a relationship with a stevedore named Roland. Her attraction to him rests largely on what she believes is their equal social status. Roland, however, has internalized a sense of male superiority and eventually grows frustrated by her refusal to be impregnated by him, an act that he understands as an assertion of power.

Her failed relationship with Roland is the last straw, and Xuela seems to resign herself to the idea that she will never find the kind of equitable relationship that she is looking for. This resignation results in her marriage to Phillip. The marriage confers upon Xuela the wealth, privilege, social esteem, and cultural assurance that she lacks, but to gain these benefits, she must marry a man she does not love.

The Characters

Xuela, as the novel’s primary narrative voice and interpretive filter, restricts readers’ access to the subjectivity of other characters. Her tendency to contradict herself and her obvious victimization raise questions about the veracity of her narration. These questions represent Kincaid’s concern with the lack of fixity and “truth” in the postcolonial context. In this regard, Xuela’s characterization contributes to the development of the theme of postcolonial identity.

Though her mother appears only as a partial vision in Xuela’s dreams, that presence provides an important counterbalance to Xuela’s father and that which he represents. Xuela perceives her mother’s Carib cultural heritage as a source of alternative identification and connection, whereas her father’s African and European heritage is closely associated with a hostile, patriarchal social order.

Alfred functions as an agent of Xuela’s alienation, especially in terms of her experience as a woman. He is associated with patriarchal authority through his occupation as a policeman and through his acceptance of a system of colonial hierarchy and corruption. Much attention is paid to his uniform as well as the fact that his wealth derives from extortion and exploitation of the poorer inhabitants of Dominica.

The other women in the text function primarily as types that help readers understand the social positions available to women in colonial cultures. Ma Eunice, for instance, symbolizes the costs that can be associated with female sexual autonomy in her struggle to raise several children as a laundress. Providing a sharp contrast to Ma Eunice is Mrs. LaBatte, whose gray appearance, lack of vitality, and physical barrenness reveal the self-alienation that can be associated with the more socially acceptable route of marriage.

Critical Context

Both feminist academics and the non-academic literary establishment have embraced Jamaica Kincaid’s work. The Autobiography of My Mother, her fourth novel, has been the subject of many scholarly articles, which see it as an important engagement with the intersection of the personal and the historical. Similarly, the novel was received by the popular press as a welcome expansion of the mother-daughter theme in the author’s work. Where her earlier works had been focused intensely on the relationship between two individuals, The Autobiography of My Mother was seen as engaging in a broader social construction of the relationship. Although some critics were given pause by the book’s rather hopeless ending, the novel is generally regarded as especially successful in its use of the lyrical prose style that has become Kincaid’s hallmark.

Bibliography

Alexander, Simone A. James. “I Am Me, I Am You: The Intricate Mother-Daughter Dyadic Relationship.” In Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001. Extended analyses of the mother-daughter relationships in Kincaid’s Annie John (1985) and The Autobiography of My Mother.

Brancato, Sabrina. Mother and Motherland in Jamaica Kincaid. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang, 2005. Offers an explanation of two functions of the images of motherhood that are deployed throughout Kincaid’s works.

Davies, Carol Boyce, and Elaine Savory Fido, eds. Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1990. The editors provide an overview of the history, themes, and writers central to Caribbean women’s literature.

Edwards, Justin D. Understanding Jamaica Kincaid. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007. Presents a biographical sketch of Kincaid’s life and clearly and lucidly discusses each of her works of fiction and nonfiction.

Kincaid, Jamaica. “Jamaica Kincaid and the Modernist Project: An Interview.” Interview by Selwyn Cudjoe. Callaloo 39 (Spring, 1989). Kincaid explains how she incorporates her personal experience into her work.