A Small Place

by

Jamaica Kincaid

Library Symbol Icon

The library in the Antiguan capital of St. John’s symbolizes Jamaica Kincaid’s ambivalent feelings about colonialism in her native land of Antigua. The old, colonial library was a grand, peaceful, and beautiful place which nurtured Kincaid’s love of reading when she was a child. In this way, the library seems to suggest her respect for the British or a belief in the superiority of their culture. This is especially true in comparison to the current library which, under the auspices of the independent Antiguan government, sits in an ugly warehouse and doesn’t take proper care of its books. Yet, while Kincaid on one level seems to yearn for the order and culture of the colonial government, she traces the current disregard for the library and the educational and cultural values it suggests to the lessons that native Antiguans learned from their colonial overlords. Thus, the library both allows Kincaid to acknowledge the culture that shaped her while also giving her the critical distance necessary to analyze the negative effects of colonialism on herself, the Antiguan people, and other formerly enslaved and colonized people around the world.

Library Quotes in A Small Place

The A Small Place quotes below all refer to the symbol of Library. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Slavery, Colonialism, and Independence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1  Quotes

You have brought your own books with you, and among them is one of those new books about economic history […]explaining how the West […] got rich: the West got rich not from the free (free—in this case meaning got-for-nothing) and then undervalued labour, for generations, of the people like me you see walking around you in Antigua but from the ingenuity of small shopkeepers in Sheffield and Yorkshire and Lancashire, or wherever; and what a great part the invention of the wristwatch played in it […] (isn’t that the last straw; for not only did we have to suffer the unspeakableness of slavery, but the satisfaction to be had from “We made you bastards rich” is taken away too, and so you needn’t let that slightly funny feeling you have from time to time about exploitation, oppression, domination develop into full-fledged unease, discomfort; you could ruin your holiday.

Related Characters: Jamaica Kincaid (speaker), The Tourist
Related Symbols: Library
Page Number: 9-10
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3  Quotes

But if you saw the old library, situated as it was, in a big, old wooden building painted a shade of yellow that is beautiful to people like me, with its wide verandah, its big, always open windows, its rows and rows of shelves filled with books, its beautiful wooden tables and chairs for sitting and reading, […] the beauty of us sitting there like communicants at an altar, taking in, again and again, the fairy tale of how we met you, your right to do the things you did, how beautiful you were, are, and always will be; if you could see all of that in just one glimpse, you would see why my heart would break at the dung heap that now passes for a library in Antigua.

Related Characters: Jamaica Kincaid (speaker), The Tourist
Related Symbols: Antigua, Library, Mill Reef Club
Page Number: 42-43
Explanation and Analysis:

(In Antigua today, most young people seem almost illiterate. On the airwaves where they work as news personalities, they speak English as if it were their sixth language. Once, I attended an event at carnival time called a “Teenage Pageant.” In this event, teenagers […] paraded around on a stadium stage singing pop songs […], reciting poems they had written about slavery […], and generally making asses of themselves. What surprised me most about them was […] how stupid they seemed, how unable they were to answer in a straightforward way, and in their native tongue of English, simple questions about themselves. In my generation, they would not have been allowed on the school stage, much less before an audience in a stadium.)

Related Characters: Jamaica Kincaid (speaker), The Tourist
Related Symbols: Antigua, Library
Page Number: 43-44
Explanation and Analysis:

I then went to see a woman whose family had helped to establish the Mill Reef Club […] who was very active in getting the old library restored […] After I mentioned the library to her, the first thing she told me was that she always encouraged her girls and her girls’ children to use the library, and by her girls she meant grownup Antiguan women (not unlike me) who work in her gift shop as seamstresses and saleswomen. She said to me then what everybody in Antigua says sooner or later: The government is for sale; anybody from anywhere can come to Antigua and for a sum of money can get what he wants […] I could see the pleasure she took in pointing out to me the gutter into which a self-governing—black—Antigua had placed itself.

Related Characters: Jamaica Kincaid (speaker), The Tourist
Related Symbols: Antigua, Library, Mill Reef Club
Page Number: 47
Explanation and Analysis:
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Library Symbol Timeline in A Small Place

The timeline below shows where the symbol Library appears in A Small Place. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1 
Racism and White Supremacy Theme Icon
Tourism and Empathy  Theme Icon
Rot and Corruption  Theme Icon
...native Antiguans including Jamaica Kincaid as “The Earthquake”—hit in 1974, destroying the splendid, graceful, colonial library that used to grace the Antiguan capital. Soon afterward, someone put up a sign promising... (full context)
Slavery, Colonialism, and Independence Theme Icon
Racism and White Supremacy Theme Icon
Tourism and Empathy  Theme Icon
The Local and The Global Theme Icon
Rot and Corruption  Theme Icon
...blessing. But you, the tourist, should not worry about this irony or the permanently damaged library. You have your own books to read, including an economic history describing how the West... (full context)
Chapter 2
High Street housed the library, treasury, post office, the court where local magistrates applied British Law, and Barclays Bank. The... (full context)
Chapter 3 
Slavery, Colonialism, and Independence Theme Icon
Racism and White Supremacy Theme Icon
Tourism and Empathy  Theme Icon
The Local and The Global Theme Icon
Rot and Corruption  Theme Icon
...question indicates the situation’s direness: the government is corrupt, and its ministers are thieves. The library crystalizes this question for her, because after years, the government has not repaired or replaced... (full context)
Slavery, Colonialism, and Independence Theme Icon
Rot and Corruption  Theme Icon
The librarians in the new library often can’t locate the books patrons want, either because inadequate storage space forces them to... (full context)
Slavery, Colonialism, and Independence Theme Icon
Racism and White Supremacy Theme Icon
Tourism and Empathy  Theme Icon
Rot and Corruption  Theme Icon
Like the library itself, the head librarian has changed over the years. Kincaid remembers her as “imperious and... (full context)
Slavery, Colonialism, and Independence Theme Icon
Racism and White Supremacy Theme Icon
Rot and Corruption  Theme Icon
Kincaid remembers spending time at the library. She would go on Saturday afternoons to sit, read, and to feel sorry for herself... (full context)
Slavery, Colonialism, and Independence Theme Icon
Racism and White Supremacy Theme Icon
Rot and Corruption  Theme Icon
...the Mill Reef Club’s founder. This woman has a vested interest in restoring the old library—but also a reputation for disliking Antiguans who aren’t her servants or employees. She tells Kincaid... (full context)