Lucy (A Fictional Story) by Jamaica Kincaid Story

In the fictional story Lucy, Kincaid attempted to cultivate a sense of detachment whereby she highlights issues of loss and anger while carefully disallowing easy resolutions (Kincaid, 1990). The main fictional character, Lucy, is also portrayed as breaking away from forces like patriarchal and colonial mores that eventually leads to the development of her maturity and hybrid identity. This struggle has been established through the apparent resistance of Lucy to the imposed constraints on her gender and race at home by the Eurocentric society and her mother. At the same time, she encounters the racist society in diaspora. Towards the end of the story, Lucy develops her own rite of passage especially towards independence through her courageous efforts to prevail over such confinements through whatever means necessary.

Lucy is a story that focuses on the concepts of altering or maintaining one’s identity or culture, especially when one involuntarily or voluntarily lives in a dissimilar culture. Furthermore, the maternal figure in the story as well as the relationship between Lucy and the mother is significant because it is closely linked with adherent development of her hybrid persona in diaspora. For instance, once the title character arrives in the US, a foreign land, she knows that she needs to let go of the matriarchal force from her mother if she is to create her personal identity.

The ending of Lucy indicates a sense of self-possession and the loneliness of separating oneself from others. This is because in the end, Lucy writes her name in a book and wishes that she could love someone to the point of dying for that love (Kincaid, 1990). This is the same for humanity because of how we always question what other can offer us and how they help in developing our identity and beliefs.

Reference

Kincaid, J. (1990). Lucy: A Novel. Macmillan.

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