An Analysis Of Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy From The Perspective Of Diaspora Criticism

Jamaica Kincaid is one of the most distinguished Caribbean writers in contemporary American literature. Her works is a typical representative of diaspora writing which focused on "from edge to center, from poor countryside to metropolis" under the background of contemporary post-colonialism. Her works always reveal her strong expectation for the Caribbean people which they fail to live up to. On the one hand, the Caribbean people do not have the courage to fight against colonial rules. On the other hand, they fail to absorb the quintessence of the white. But their reminiscence for their hometown, their consciousness during the diaspora and their reconstruction of identity all reveal Caribbean people’s struggle to pursue their identity.After Lucy was published in 1990, it has soon become one of Kincaid’s most popular books. The book is about a black girl from Carib whose value is against the tradition value of the white. In order to get rid of the post-colonial rule, she goes on exile to America for the pursuit of identity. After one year’s experience in America, she has found that it is impossible to blend in the white’s culture. But during the process, she has formed her own cognitive pattern in a different culture. Finally she reconstructed her cultural identity.This thesis is based on literature theory of diaspora criticism under the post-colonial context, especially three famous post-colonial critics:Edward Said, Stuart Hall and Homi Bhabha. In the meantime, theories about identity are used to discuss Jamaica Kincaid’s novel Lucy. Under the background of globalization, immigration has become a common thing. With the rise of this phenomenon, immigrant writers’ creative writing forms the diaspora literature. Those modern post-colonial theorists’studies on diaspora provide us a new perception to analyze culture difference and also make it possible for diaspora to reconstruct their identity.This thesis will study the heroin Lucy’s memories of life in Carib and diaspora experience in America. By comparison of two different kinds of experiences, the heroin gains strong self-consciousness which paves way for her reconstruction of identity. By conceiving such a character, Kincaid tries to illustrate the difficulties of gaining identity in both worlds and cultures, so she chooses a third way that is "the Third Space". This novel also presents the heroine’s struggle to keep balance of two cultures, which makes it possible to construct identity for people in diaspora.By analyzing Lucy from the perspective of diaspora criticism, the writer tries to show us the specialty of Caribbean’s culture background. They come from different countries and then go to different countries again in order to construct their ethnic identity. Thus, this thesis is attempt to enlarge the study of Jamaica Kincaid and American ethnic literature, meanwhile to draw more people’s attention to the Caribbean community.