Annie John

Kincaid continues to illustrate the tension between colonizer and colonized in her depiction of the familial relations in the Chess and John families, and this dynamic is most clearly illustrated through various family members’ conflicting beliefs about how best to treat an illness. Annie’s father and grandfather believe in the power of what some would call “modern” medicine, while Annie’s mother and grandmother have more faith in obeah. Significantly, neither the doctor who attended Johnnie nor the one who now treats Annie can determine what ails their patients, and neither can adequately cure them. Given that Johnnie was never treated by an obeah woman and died despite a doctor’s care, the narrative suggests that “modern” medicine brought by the English is often ineffective. This implication is further strengthened when Annie finally recovers with Ma Chess’s help, as the chapter indicates that folk medicine offers cures that English medicine cannot even acknowledge. The tension between these two paradigms is also displayed in the understated tension between Annie’s parents after the obeah woman’s visit. When Annie’s mother puts the obeah medicine next to the doctor’s, according it a position of equal authority and efficacy, Annie’s father pointedly places the doctor’s medicines in a place of prominence, and this action reflects the broader tension that exists between the colonized Antiguans and their English colonizers. Annie’s father represents those who have completely accepted the values and standards of the colonizers. For example, the Anglican church bell is his alarm, and in the photograph in Annie’s room, he is dressed all in white: the customary color worn by the English when playing cricket, an English sport that he now plays. Thus, Annie’s father has adopted English customs and medicine, and he also supports the English colonialization of Antigua despite the English history of enslavement and their continued oppression of Antiguans and other people of color. The strain between Ma and Pa Chess and between Ma Chess and Annie’s father also intensifies this symbolism.

Likewise, Annie’s Brownie oath to England and the symbolism of her delirious washing of the photographs adds to this tension between two distinct cultures. Annie says that, at the beginning of each troop meeting, “[they] swore allegiance to [their] country, by which was meant England” (115). Having refused indoctrination into the idolatry of England and all things European, Annie’s speech makes an important distinction; she feels the need to clarify that “their” country refers to England and not Antigua. If she were more like her father, she would uncritically embrace English culture and would not feel the need to clarify this point. Annie’s need to specify which country is meant shows that she does not see England as her country. The allegiance-swearing portions of the meetings are also the only details she provides; the other 90 minutes, she says, are spent doing “Brownie things.” As the most significant parts of the meetings, then, these oaths are designed to further indoctrinate Antiguan youths and compel them to accept English colonization by obliging them to swear allegiance to the crown even during their leisure activities, thus emphasizing The Dangerous Effects of Oppression.

Within this context, it is significant that Annie is initially compelled to wash the photographs because she perceives them to have an awful odor that is similar to the smell she and her mother believe to be characteristic of the English. Thus, Annie’s delirious attempts to wash the photographs represent her spiritual rebellion against patriarchal control and English cultural authority. In her own mind, she is trying “to straighten out the creases in Aunt Mary’s veil” and “to remove the dirt from the front of [her] father’s trousers” (120), apparently endeavoring to fulfill her social and familial duty as a woman and maintain the orderliness of clothing and cleanliness of the home. However, her misguided attempts to do what she has been taught effectively destroy the photos, and this dynamic is symbolic of an Antiguan identity that is effaced by an English one. Therefore, the scene stands as one of Kincaid’s most vivid explorations into The Dangerous Effects of Oppression in Antiguan society. Moreover, Annie’s sense that these pictures of her family carry an odor equally offensive as that of the English suggests her belief that her family members have attempted to approximate English identities, thereby participating in the erasure of Caribbean history. In her aunt’s wedding picture, for example, Annie scrubs off everyone’s face except her own, suggesting that she is the only one in the family who has not relinquished her cultural and sexual identity. For the wife, a wedding means making a commitment to a life of virtue and duty to her husband. In this context, Annie’s erasure of her aunt’s face mirrors the self-effacement that her aunt and other such women undertook upon sacrificing their identities in various ways.

This focus on individuality is also reflected with the picture of Annie wearing her white Communion dress, as she has scrubbed out everything except her shoes with the decorative cutouts. At the time, her mother felt that the shoes were “not fit for a young lady and not fit for wearing on being received into church” (119). The shoes, then, symbolize Annie’s individuality, her refusal to conform, and the strength of her convictions even as she erases the white dress that is meant to depict her innocence and virtue within the Anglican church. In the picture of her parents, her father dressed for cricket and clinging to her mother’s waist, Annie’s washing blurs everything from the waist down, notably obscuring the area where their reproductive organs would be, suggesting that the sexual oppression of women is every bit as upsetting to her as the cultural and racial oppression of Antiguans. The scene therefore represents Annie’s unconscious attempts to rid herself and her space of her community’s expectations of her.

When Annie recovers, it is therefore only logical that she begins to actively resist these expectations in novel ways. For example, she wears a skirt too long to be fashionable and a hat too large to be attractive, and she adopts an attitude too brusque to be pleasant. She also refuses to be polite, and she adopts an odd walk and an accent that repel others. While the rain has soaked the land, washing away gardens and foundations, it has also washed away any remnants of Annie’s desire to belong to this community. In addition, the fact that she is now much taller than her mother suggests that she has emotionally and mentally outgrown her family and her home. This chapter therefore presents the novel’s climax, the turning point at which Annie irrevocably and decisively changes. From this point on, her life in Antigua will never be the same. In fact, the next two years, which take place in the gap between this chapter and the next, are completely elided by the text. Kincaid skips over them as if to suggest that the version of Annie that recovers from illness—one who no longer conforms to her community’s racist and sexist attitudes—is so consistent that there is nothing of any great significance to narrate.