Disguised Subjugation as Education: Colonial and Maternal Pedagogy in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy

Hediye ÖZKAN

doi:https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2020-0025

Article Details

Disguised Subjugation as Education: Colonial and Maternal Pedagogy in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy

Authors:

Hediye ÖZKAN

Publisher:

Istanbul University

Main Topics:

Literature

Journal:

Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 2020 Vol.30 Issue 2, pp.325-342

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2020

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2000516303

Frequency:

Monthly

eISSN:

2602-2117

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2020-0025

Abstract:

 

Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy: A Novel, an autobiographical narrative as opposed to what the title suggests, examines the colonial and immigrant experience of an Antiguan girl,  who  grows  up  in  the  British  Caribbean  and  comes  to  the  U.S.  at  the  age  of  nineteen as an au pair. The colonial and maternal education along with the textual capture  and  erasure  in  her  childhood  controls  Lucy’s  choices  over  her  intellect,  voice,  body,  mobility,  and  sexuality,  while  leading  her  to  a  stage  where  she  seeks  the  new  definitions  of  womanhood,  female  re-embodiment,  and  personhood  in  the  New  Land.  This  paper  focuses  on  the  autobiographical  narrative  as  a  catharsis  for  Lucy,  who  confronts  the  constructed  reality  through  personal  reflections  on  colonial  education,  and  by  doing  so,  who  eases  the  predicament  of  colonisation  and  dualisms  due  to  the  coloniser  inside.  I  argue  that  the  systematic  colonial  and  maternal  pedagogy  depicted  in  the  narrative  is  employed  to  mythicise  reality,  obliterate the Caribbean self/culture, and disenfranchise colonial society. Referring to  “cultural  invasion,”  a  concept  developed  by  Brazilian  educational  philosopher  Paulo Freire to investigate disguised subjugation as education, this paper scrutinises Lucy’s retrospection both on her maternal and colonial tutelage that later becomes a leading force of her own decolonisation.

Article Details

Disguised Subjugation as Education: Colonial and Maternal Pedagogy in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy

Authors: Hediye ÖZKAN

Publisher: Istanbul University

Main Topics: Literature

Journal: Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 2020 Vol.30 Issue 2, pp.325-342

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 12/2020

Document Language: English

Document ID (Org No.): 2000516303

Frequency: Monthly

eISSN: 2602-2117

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2020-0025

Issues

Authors:

Hediye ÖZKAN

Publisher:

Istanbul University

Main Topics:

Literature

Journal:

Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 2020 Vol.30 Issue 2, pp.325-342

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2020

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2000516303

Frequency:

Monthly

eISSN:

2602-2117

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2020-0025