In History

I think that Jamaica Kincaid takes history very literally. She doesn’t take about her family’s history at all, only the place where she grew up in. It seems very literally to me because the first part of the story is about Christopher Columbus. She says this is her history, “My history begins: 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World”(Kincaid 16). I would assume she would bring up her family’s history and where they come from and what about that has made her who she is today but, I was totally wrong as I kept reading. More people in history, or at least I think, were talked about. No signs about her grandmothers or her ancestors. With history, it seems like Kincaid thinks that anyone can tell anyone else’s history. It kind of seems like she thinks were all from the same ancestors and history. Anyone can tell history because as the piece goes one she begins to talk about men that seem like no relation to her or to Columbus who we first talked about.

In a way, the ideas of history, landscape and naming were all discussed throughout the story. This is probably one of the only things that I see that keeps the paper flowing and fluid. First, you examine history with Christopher Columbus. History references form the people and the things like the Dutch East India Company show up and keep the idea on history. Ideas that come from the history idea would be the landscape and naming as supporting pieces. “…to have knowledge of things, one must first give them a name”(Kincaid 17). This is the first place where naming comes into place. Columbus had the right to name everything he saw when he introduced us t the New World. Naming also brings us to the other half of the story because she tries to figure out why the plant is named a plant and if it has other names. The way Carl Linaenus, a person in the story, got his last name was from getting the idea from a tree. This leads us to the next point of landscape. Columbus finds a blank landscape that he calls the New World, that leads to the author describing her landscape as “a small lump of insignificance, green, green, green, and green again” ( Kincaid 19). As the story continues the landscapes have more plant life, which means a growing world.

CREATIVE CHALENGE

Besides random thoughts, it doesn’t really connect with her writings. The only thing partially similar is the idea of the world being round like Christopher Columbus. I have a pretty good idea that we grew up in different sides of the earth because my home town is far from being all green, mine is pretty much all concrete streets. The history aspect is also different. I think of my history being more of my little town and my family while she focuses on the much bigger picture. This could very well be because we are firm different cultures and her home may have less history then me, living in the states. If I had to rewrite my history for the world to read, I would start by asking family members questions about my history and looking for information on my lost ancestors. I would certainly not go to the history books and write about Columbus.