A small place by Jamaica Kincaid

Small Place

The Meaning of "A Small Place"

There are many different potential meanings for the title "A Small Place," which Jamaica Kincaid selected for her memoirs of growing up in Antigua in the latter half of the twentieth century. This island country was long a part -- a very small part, it should be stressed -- of the British Empire, with the native and former slave population as well as the natural resources of the island placed under colonial rule and exploitation for generations. Jamaica herself was quite small in many ways during her time growing up on the island as a woman, a person of color, a person of non-English heritage, coming from a poorer family, etc. All of these factors have an impact on the potential interpretations of the memoir's title and the intended meanings of Kincaid's life story, revealing quite a lot of complex detail and commentary contained in a very brief and deceptive, seemingly simple label.

The most basic and concrete meaning of the word "small" refers to size, and even in this there is a great deal of applicable meaning to be found in Kincaid's title. The island of Antigua is quite small, as islands go and certainly when compared to other landmasses. It is also a very small part of the former British Empire, which has implications for deeper meanings and implications of the title discussed below. Jamaica is small as a girl, and though she is of course not a "place" one can read this work as an exploration not only of the island but also of the author, as though she is returning to herself as a destination. In this way, the author herself might be the physically "small place" that the book centers around, and this, too, has many different potentials for influencing the interpretation for the book and the title.

As a symbolic extension of the physical meaning of the word "small," the word can refer to something that is insignificant or of little importance, and this has many applications in the book. Antigua is seen as a "small place" by many in that it is of no real importance to the British or even to the other tourists that flock to the island. To these people, it is simply a quaint and picturesque place to visit, but if it disappeared the next day it wouldn't really affect them. Jamaica and the other poor, native inhabitants of the island are equally forgotten or ignored, and made to feel quite small in their lives, and all of these are possible meanings of the title -- the island and/or its people are the "small place" upon which the book focuses. Alternatively, as the book comments on the beauty and the greatness that is inherent to the island and its way of life if only it could be left in the hands of those that truly love it, the title could be seen as the target of a plea being made by the author: if the world would just leave the people of Antigua this small place, without trampling on it