A Small Place -- Use of the Second Person

"As for what we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestors held sway, documentation of complex civilizations is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you." 

(Kincaid 37)

In this passage, Kincaid is referring to the English imperials that came to her country, Antigua. Throughout the novella A Small Place, she uses the second person, naming the reader as both a tourist and an imperialist. Here Kincaid has cast the reader as an English imperialist, and in this role, the reader takes on the brunt of her anger. In this excerpt, Kincaid claims that because of the atrocities committed to her by the English imperialists, or the "you," she would rather not have met them at all and had her people go on living just as they were. By referring to the reader as the imperialist, the reader is put in an uncomfortable position, in which they are accused of horrendous crimes. By using the second person, the work calls into question "who is the intended audience?" Once thing to note: the work was written in English. As Antigua was colonized by the English, English was made the official language of the island. It is also know, based on the context, that Kincaid it talking about the English imperialists. The combination of the language choice and the contexts may lead you to believe that the intended audience is the English imperialists; however, it is much more complex that that.

The language choice itself is in some ways accusatory, as this language became the national language because of imperialism. This ties into Kincaid's passage, the self that she is now because of imperialism has also been affected linguistically. It is a historical element to the piece, as the very words she speaks comes from her conquerors. English itself is a remnant of the injustice that happened to Antigua. 

Kincaid also directly talks about history here, by mentioning that she cannot be comforted by any grand history that her ancestors had. Imperialism was often given the justification of "civilizing" the colonized. Kincaid counters that twisted justification with "even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you." She claims that this "civilizing" was not worth the damage. Again, the reader is still in the position of the English imperialists. Just as Kincaid calls back up her ancestry and still feels the damage of the past, the reader is in turn asked to look into the accountability based on their ancestry. Language comes into play again here, as the reader is reading the novella in English. Does the reader's knowledge of English imply some kind of ancestral accountability?