Student Question
What makes a good conclusion for an essay about Kincaid's A Small Place?
Quick answer:
Although the conclusion for an essay on Kincaid's A Small Place will depend on the nature of and contentions in the essay, it might examine the future of Antigua and its people. Kincaid seems ambiguous on this point. She says that the descendants of masters and the descendants of slaves are now "just human beings," but at other points, she seems to regard modern-day tourists as perpetuating the exploitation.
The conclusion will depend to a great extent on the nature of your essay and, if it is argumentative, what your argument has been. Nonetheless, many of the best conclusions take the principal ideas of the essay in a new direction or apply them in a new way, so there are some conclusions which would fit a variety of essays. Several of these would consider the future of Antigua and its people.
Kincaid describes the slave owners as "human rubbish from Europe" and the slaves as "noble and exalted human beings from Africa." However, though she is suspicious of the descendants of slave owners and has solidarity with the descendants of slaves, she says that these categories no longer apply. The black people and white people now are "just human beings."
You might use the conclusion to consider whether this is a convincing peroration and whether it is supported by...
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the rest ofA Small Place. Elsewhere in the book, Kincaid does not seem to believe that the legacy of slavery can ever be erased and regards the modern-day tourists as exploiting the island and its people in a manner consistent with, if less horrific than, the depredations of their ancestors. What future do you see for Antigua? Can it involve tourism? Is there a non-exploitative way for outsiders to experience the island? Does Kincaid provide answers (perhaps conflicting answers) to these questions?
What is a good introduction for an essay on Kincaid's A Small Place?
Jamaica Kincaid introduces Antigua as a beautiful paradise for tourists at the beginning of A Small Place. It seems like an advertisement to draw visitors to the island, until some uncomfortable details (about local schools and hospitals, to begin with) signal that this is the reverse of the writer's intention. A good introduction might give some context to explain Kincaid's anger against the original colonists and the tourists who perpetuate their exploitation of Antigua.
Some contextual information is given in A Small Place, but this is a personal essay, not a history book, and the introduction to your essay is the perfect place for such informative and explanatory material. You could structure the introduction to begin with some historical information about colonization and slavery in the Caribbean and then contrast this with the way the area is often regarded as a luxurious and beautiful tourist destination in the twenty-first century.
Although people are no longer transported to the Caribbean to work on plantations, it is certainly true that there is a great deal of poverty in the area and that the influx of cruise ships does little to alleviate this. As with slavery, the immense wealth generated never finds its way into the hands of the poorest people, who are generally the descendants of slaves and who are still exploited. An introduction structured in this way complements both the organization and the message of A Small Place.