Abdel Rahman Elsaka

professor Aisha Sidibe 

ENG 110

4 March 2019

Jamaica Kincaid primarily uses rhetorical strategies to describe her view of England. The author was brought up in Caribbean Island of Antigua, at a time when the land was a colony of England. She effectively describes her situation effectively to the audience. Her opinions are well presented in the essay and make appeals to the readers through the application of various Rhetoric strategies. The primary purpose of the essay is to present the negative impacts of imperialism and a high level of intolerance by England. The author describes and evaluates the oppression that they underwent through leading to loss of identity of the subjects as they had to live per the ways of their colonizers. The paper analyzes the rhetorical situation and the strategies applied by Kincaid such as ethos, pathos and vivid, dramatic description in describing his reservations and the resentment towards England that is held with high regard by the people across the world. 

The author effectively Pathos throughout the essay by appealing to the reader emotionally as it is easy to tell of the passion she had while writing the essay. Her hatred towards the situation regarding the colonization and the idolization of England is visible through her emotional description. She applies different emotional phrases to enhance the emotional appeals that enable her to describe her sentiments clearly. One of the primary phrases that indicate the emotional appeal is “Draw a map of England” by writing, “I did not know then that this statement was part of a process that would result in my erasure, not my physical erasure, but my erasure all the same. I did not know then that this statement was meant to make me feel in awe and small whenever I heard the word “England”: awe at its existence, small because I was not from it” (Para, 4). The repetition of the word “erasure” three times to describe her internal disagreement. The word is usually applied in data entry, but Kincaid uses to quantify her reservations. 

There is a clear description of the loss of identity and the adoption of England’s lifestyle that is visible through the description of the imposition of the colonial ideals to the people in the Caribbean Islands. She had to memorize the map of England, the lifestyle and also adore the country. She uses words such as ‘Awe’ to show how she was dissatisfied with the actions of the colonizers. Her writings also are indicative of the emptiness that she had experienced due to lack of freedom as she was growing up. The views on the titles that they had to give to people such as Kings as per England’s culture were a disappointment. According to the essay, the emphasis of the colonizers was on issues that were useless and subtler ones. The pathological appeal by the author is meant to describe her emotions on the seizure of their culture by England. She applies the emotional appeal to not only describe the anger on the oppression but the erosion of their culture. 

Ethos is also a strategy that is widely applied by the author while writing the essay. It is a style that primarily involves the description of the authority that an individual has towards the writing. In the introduction, Kincaid states that she sees England on a map for the first time while in school but states that she was aware of it. The description of her knowledge of England form other areas of life is a means to inform the writers that she was as aware of what she was writing. The reader can understand that the author is applying relevant facts in delivering the intended message of the degradation of their culture as they were colonized by England. From the introduction, it is visible that the author is aware of what she is writing as she applies the knowledge she has on England to criticize it later in the essay. The reader always seeks to get the information on the credibility given by the author while criticizing to ensure that their arguments are valid. 

The rhetorical strategy of listing is also applied effectively by Kincaid as she compares the ideals and the reality of England and that of Antigua. It is visible as she analyzes her knowledge on the kings of England. She indicates that she knew their wives, triumphs, children, disappointments and the people that annoyed them. The continuous unnecessary listing of the facts that she knew about the kings shows the great extent to which the English culture had been forced to them. She gets to the point of writing that she knew their dates of birth and also when they died. In addition to the listing, the author also uses the juxtaposition of ideas such as success and failure as a sign of the internal confliction she had experienced from the eradication of their culture. She was always on the constant struggle of whether following England’s ways as they insisted or following her own culture as it should. She uses the parenthetical facts to show how they had been forced to grasp English History. The primary emphasis is on the preservation of her culture rather than the one imposed by colonizers as a justification of her bitterness towards England. 

       Vivid tales of her childhood is also applied widely by the author to describe her memories as a means to express the disappointment in the conventional ways of England. One of the instances is when she had met an English friend in a store that had mixed reactions towards England. She states that the friend did not like her for not liking England. She also describes how she got angry when a sales clerk in a cloth store had suggested to her to get a set of ties that had the crest of the Prince of Wales. She states how she hates the awe towards England and gets even to demeanor the tone that was used by the clerk. The description of the tales vividly describes the anger that she has when a person favors England’s culture over theirs. They also indicate the willingness of the colonized people to blindly follow the culture of their colonizers without considering the detrimental effects it has on their culture. 

Kincaid main description in the essay is the idolization of the English culture, and yet it did not meet her expectations. Her feelings of emptiness due to lack of freedom is what triggered the resentments. Had her expectation towards England been met she would be less pessimistic. It was however not possible as it was described by the colonizers to be the ideal place and the loss of the Caribbean culture would be filled by a better one. The gap between the description they had received and the reality widened the dissatisfaction and increased the hatred towards England for destroying their culture.

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