On seeing england for the first time answers

Jamaica Kincaid's (1991) essay "On Seeing England for the First Time" describes both the emotional and psychological consequences of learning English as a subject of the British empire and her reaction to that upbringing as an adult living in America visiting England for the first time. While you might not identify with the same consequences she experienced, you too have been affected by English language rules, regulations, and policies (maybe up until now unknowingly).

Working from your Family Linguistic History writing assignment on Tuesday, write a 200-word post reflecting on any possible consequences you perceive yourself experiencing, describing any political, historical, economic forces shaping your use of English. This material may be prOb0~ !x copyright law. (Title 17, US Code) JAMAICA KINCAID On Seeing England for the First Time of the most sinister sides of imperialism is the way it pfomotes the ruling nation S culture and rejects the colony ‘s. The effect of this on an impressionable young person is vividly a2xribed in Jamaica Kincaid’s sensitive and angry autobiographical essay about growing up in Antigua with the dark shadow of England continually looming over her England and a reverence for things English invaded every aspect of her daily life and education. Yet it was not until adulthood that sheJinally journeyed to England and really saw it for theJirst time. “The space between the idea of something and its reality, ” Kincaid writes, “is always wide and deep and dark. ” The real England she finally sees is far different from the other England, whose maps and history she was made to memorize as a schoolgirl in Antigua. Kincaid is the author of At the Bottom of the River (z98?), Annie John (z985), A Small Place (z988), Lucy (z990), The Autobiography of My Mother (z996), and My Brother (1997). A staff writerfor The New Yorker, her stories and essays have also appeared in Rolling Stone, Paris Review, and other literary periodicals. She was born in Antigua and currently lives in Vermont. “On Seeing England for the First Time” originals a&&eared in Transition (~991) and was selected by Susan Sontagfor The Best American Essays 1992. When I saw England for the first time, I was a child in school sitting at a desk. The England I was looking at was laid out on a map gently, beautifully, delicately, a very special jewel; it lay on a bed of sky blue - the background of the map-its yellow form JAMAICA KINCAID 365 mysterious, because though it looked like a leg of mutton, it could not really look like anything so familiar as a leg of mutton because it was England -with shadings of pink and green, unlike any shadings of pink and green I had seen before, squiggly veins of red running in every direction. England was a special jewel all right, and only special people got to wear it. The people who got to wear England were English people. They wore it well and they wore it everywhere: in jungles, in deserts, on plains, on top of the highest mountains, on all the oceans, on all the seas, in places where they were not welcome, in places they should not have been. When my teacher had pinned this map up on the blackboard, she said, “This is England” -and she said it with authority, seriousness; and adoration, and we all sat up. It was as if she had said, “This is Jerusalem, the place you will go to when you die but only if you have been good.” We understood then -we were meant to understand then - that England was to be our source of myth and the source from which we got our sense of reality, our sense of what was meaningful, our sense of what was meaningless-and much about our own lives and much about the very idea of us headed that last list. At the time I was a child sitting at my desk seeing England for the first time, I was already very familiar with the greatness of it. Each morning before I left for school, I ate a breakfast of half a grapefruit, an egg, bread and butter and a slice of cheese, and a cup of cocoa; or half a grapefruit, a bowl of oat porridge, bread and butter and a slice of cheese, and a cup of cocoa. The can of cocoa was often left on the table in front of me. It had written on it the name of the company, the year the company was established, and the words “Made in England.” Those words, “Made in England,” were written on the box the oats came in too. They would also have been written on the box the shoes I was wearing came in; a bolt of gray linen cloth lying on the shelf of a store from which my mother had bought three yards to make the uniform that I was wearing had written along its edge those three words. The shoes I wore were made in England; so were my socks and cotton undergarments and the satin ribbons I wore tied at the end of two plaits of my hair. My father, who might have sat next to me at breakfast, was a carpenter and cabinet maker. The shoes he wore to work would have been made in England, as were On Seeing England for the First Time his khaki shirt and trousers,