A Small Place Literary Elements

Memoir

Antigua in the mid-to-late 20th Century

The narrator is author Jamaica Kincaid, recounting her own life experiences and observations. It is written from a first-person perspective, but the narrator speaks directly to "you," with "you" being the middle class, white North American and European tourists who often visit Antigua.

Throughout much of the book, Kincaid's tone is accusatory, disdainful, and full of regret about what Antigua has become.

Kincaid, along with other Antiguan locals, are the primary protagonists. There are many different institutional antagonists, including tourism, colonialism, slavery, and corruption.

The major conflict in this book is Antigua's troubled present situation, with a corrupt government, rampant poverty, an exploitative tourist industry, and racism towards local black Antiguans. Much of this conflict stems from Antigua's past, plagued by centuries of British colonial rule.

N/A - this book is a memoir presented as an extended essay, and therefore does not follow a typical narrative arc.

At the beginning of the book's first section, Kincaid speaks directly to "you," a North American or European tourist visiting Antigua. As she details the various things you would see as you arrive in Antigua, such as the library, she foreshadows longer discussions that will come in later sections.

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Imagery is discussed in detail in the separate "Imagery" section of this study guide.

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Kincaid points out that the corruption, imprisonment, and violence rampant in Antiguan society today parallels the way the British governed poorly and abused local Antiguans during colonial rule. She insists that Antiguans today learned these behaviors from their captors.

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