My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan and is the narrator of My Brother. She left her home when she was a teenage girl and gets forced to go back home after learning of her brother’s illness; he had HIV and AIDS. Her distance from her family and the Antiguan community gave her the freedom to comment about those people Kincaid left behind. It is evident that she disliked how her family and the Antiguan community acted, and that’s why she left for another place. She even distanced herself from her past in such a way that she could not understand the Antiguan language that her family spoke, and her family saw her pronunciation as inconceivable and funny. On her return, she came back as a successful writer in the united states, a wife to one husband, who she was happily married to, and they had a garden and two daughters. Her brother’s illness made her realize the affection she had towards him, and her brother replied that he loved Kincaid too. She described how her mother disliked her skill in remembering and compared it to her mother’s gardening skills. She was also bothered by the inadequate health facility at the Holberton Hospital where her brother Devon got admitted. She was also uncomfortable with how her brother got isolated from the other patients since he had AIDS. This paper will discuss Kincaid’s relationship with her family informed her identity, and how the intimacy shaped her attitude.
Kincaid was an observer. After coming back home after twenty years in another land, Kincaid wanted to know more about her brother. Kincaid’s relationship with her brother made her realize that she could discover the great potential that Devon, her brother had. Kincaid always saw her brother as a person with a big vision, brilliant, and would have contributed a lot to the world if only he knew how much potential he had (Miller Greg). Devon her brother could tell that her sister Kincaid expected more from him, some of which he could not understand. Kincaid saw her brother as an observer, a dreamer, and a person who has an annoying character, who never knew how much potential Devon had. Devon thought that he had been cured of AIDS when the symptoms were not severe like before, and he went back to having sex with multiple partners without protection. Kincaid was very observant of her brother, and she realized that her brother was homosexual, something that Devon would not admit to the people in Antigua and his family members.
Kincaid is a pleasant memory. She could remember almost everything that she went through especially the unpleasant memories. At her young age, Kincaid was her mother’s favorite daughter, but as she grew older, her mother became irritated of her remembering behavior (Miller Greg). She could remember almost everything that every family member did to her, and this made her irritating.
She feels her family, especially her mother, resents. “This is what my family, the people I grew up with, hate about me. I always say, Do you remember? ”
Initially, Kincaid’s memory made her mother proud, as she thought that her daughter was very clever, but as she grew older, her mother became irritated by her behavior as she was seen as a nagging and as a person who is always complaining to almost everything that her happens to her life. Kincaid could not take the comments anymore, and that’s why she opted to move away from her home, and start her life afresh where nobody knew about her.
Kincaid’s relationship with her family made her realized that she was angered by both small and big things that happened to her either brought by her family or Antigua, her place of birth. She could not explain the reason behind her anger, and all she knew was that she did not like what she was being told. There are several instances where her unreasonable anger gets manifested; when he brother Devon told her to take a walk with him, Kincaid was angered by the request since she thought that Devon wanted to ask something from her. She angrily declined the offer of taking a walk. Kincaid also got angered by Devon’s request of getting the khaki short that she had worn. Her reason behind the anger is that she did not want to give it out or to have it back, as she did not like the idea of giving out the khaki short in the first place. This shows that any interaction with her brother made Kincaid angry without a tangible explanation. The quarrelsome nature of her family made her angrily (Miller Greg).her mother also angered Kincaid, and whenever she was angry with her they would exchange bitter words with her mother, and in some instance, she even referred her mother as his mother. This means that if she was angry with her mother, Kincaid would not recognize her as mother, and only recognized her as s mother whenever they were in good terms. The family members would exchange bitter words, and after the quarrel was over they would realize that some of the words used shouldn’t have been said at all or that everything said was never meant to be said. The quarrelsome setup of her family angered her most of the times.
Kincaid’s relationship with her family members realized that she had a nurturing and gardening ability, she nurtured her daughter and garden. Kincaid compared her love to gardening to that Devon had towards his mother (Nikolas Akash 64). Kincaid took care of her garden with much compassion since she disliked the way her mother took care of their garden back at home. Kincaid compared her mother’s gardening to the nurturing she gave to Kincaid’s brother Devon that led to him contracting AIDS which is a fatal disease that was brought by irresponsible sexual behaviours. Kincaid learnt a lot of reasons from her mother’s nurturing and wanted to do it differently to her daughters and the garden she had. She wished to become her daughter’s best friend and share a lot with them something she did not enjoy with her mother. This proved that Kincaid had extemporary nurturing skills.
Kincaid interaction with her brother Devon made her identify her interest in learning about sexuality and sex. She could not comprehend why her brother was so reckless in having sex with multiple sexual partners without proper protection. She wondered why Devon and other men would not live without sex, and he even became homosexual having sex with both men and women (Nikolas Akash 66). The response to this was i=that if they went for long without having sex, they would start feeling funny. He realized that men who attended Dr. Ramsey’s lectures on AIDS would automatically go to prostitutes zones immediately after leaving the lectures. They said that they preferred to die to leaving the butter women alone. Kincaid’s was concerned in understanding about other people’s sexuality after discovering that her was homosexual after he died.
“On the whole I like to know whom people have sex with, and a description of it I find especially interesting. My own life, from a sexual standpoint, can be described as a monument to boring conventionality. And so perhaps because of this I have a great interest in other people’s personal lives.”
The intimacy between her family members made her to become more honest about the things she felt, and she would speak them out without any exaggerations. When she learned that her brother was very sick and he was suffering a lot, Kincaid said she wished that her brother would die and get rid of him instantly (Nikolas Akash 68). Bring a healer and a person with financial powers, she felt that taking care of her brother’s medication was a burden to her, and therefore, she wished he could just die. Even after going back to the United States, Kincaid states that she missed seeing her brother suffering, since she knew it was her brother’s reckless sexual behaviors made him contract the disease. She wished her brother dead because he was transmitting the disease to other women who were not aware of his AIDS status, and therefore, his presence alive only increased the suffering.
She was also very honest on how she felt about the people in Antigun and her mother. She explains that she felt that her mother and the people of Antigun did not understand her and that’s why she opted to move to other place and start her life afresh to find happiness and fulfill her purpose in life (Nikolas Akash 70). She was also honest on what she felt her mother thought of her. She explains that she felt that her mother felt irritated by her remembering characteristic, as she could remember all the bad things that every family member did to her. She is also honest on her aim of improving her nurturing skills than those that her mother had. She wanted to be close to her daughters and understand them better something that her mother never did.
Kincaid wanted to achieve the maximum happiness, and therefore, she moved away from the environments that made her unhappy. For instance she moved from Antigun and her family when she was a teenager, and only came back due to her brother’s serious illness, and after she had succeeded in her career as a writer. She also expressed her thoughts, and especially those that relate to her happiness, for instance, she said that she liked seeing her brother suffering. Therefore, happiness is a crucial aspect in life that everyone should strive to get despite the pressure from other people.
Works Cited
Miller, Greg. “Kincaid, Jamaica.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. 2017.
Nikolas, Akash. “Straight Growth and the Imperial Alternative: Queer-Reading Jamaica Kincaid.” African American Review 50.1 (2017): 59-73.