Discussion Topic
Exploring the character development and journey of Annie John
Summary:
In Annie John, Annie's character development is marked by her transition from a dependent child to a self-assured adolescent. Initially, Annie adores her mother and their close bond, but as she grows, she seeks independence, resulting in tension and rebellion. Her journey is a complex navigation of identity, self-discovery, and the eventual acceptance of her individuality.
What is Annie's journey in the story Annie John?
Annie John is a coming-of-age novel by Jamaica Kincaid that takes place on the Caribbean island of Antigua and follows the life journey of a young girl named Annie from pre-adolescence through young adulthood. The author uses water-related images and symbols to foreshadow the changing courses of Annie's life. Annie is ten years old when the story begins, but we are told that as an infant, she had a baby bottle shaped like a boat.
Annie's journey is deeply affected by the tides of emotional change and growth. As the story opens, she is deeply attached to her mother, whom she resembles exactly. It comes as a shock to her when she finds out that when children grow up, they live in houses away from their parents. Annie's curiosity about life's journey deepens as she becomes obsessed with trying to understand what happens to people when they die. When she...
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sees her mother bathe the corpse of a grieving neighbor's child, Annie develops a fear of her mother's touch that lasts for months.
With the arrival of puberty, Annie's mother becomes distant and withdraws emotionally, which is confusing and painful for the girl. Annie's mother wants her to develop into a separate individual and not a copy of herself. Annie is sent to a new school, where she becomes very attached to classmates Gwen and the Red Girl, whom she eventually leaves behind emotionally as she is passed to a higher class.
Annie moves through the trials and discoveries of adolescence but eventually comes to an emotional place of darkness when she falls ill with an inexplicable fatigue and depression that keeps her bedridden for three months. Her grandmother, an expert in folk medicine, comes to care for her and brings her journey full circle with the return of a caring maternal figure.
When the rainy season ends, Annie's mysterious illness disappears, and she arises with renewed sense of energy, clarity, and purpose to take on the part of her journey foreshadowed by the boat-shaped baby bottle. She boards a ship to England, where she plans to begin a new chapter of her life as a student in nursing school.
Describe the character of Annie John.
Jamaica Kinkaid’s novel Annie John is a bildungsroman, a novel that tells the story of a protagonist’s development from childhood to adulthood. Consequently, its title character, Annie John, doesn’t always possess the same characteristics from start to finish. Like any young person, the “Annie John” of chapter one is very different from the “Annie John” of the last pages. She’s a dynamic character, an individual who develops and changes in response to the novel’s events.
However, some of Annie’s characteristics remain the same. Throughout the novel, she shows herself to be both intelligent and curious. At the beginning, her intelligence and curiosity lead to a fascination with death (and like many young children, she can’t quite wrap her mind around it). Later, they lead to success in school and the praise of her teachers. However, her teachers’ admiration sours when Annie’s intelligence leads her to question the school’s rules. In all of these instances, the reader sees how one characteristic, developed over time, pushes Annie toward experiences that further shape her identity.
Apart from her intelligence, Annie John forms attachments very quickly. As a young child, she worships her mother, but when her mother begins to grow distant, she becomes infatuated with different girls at school. Through there’s a small subtext of sexual attraction, these infatuations aren’t necessarily motivated by love or lust, but rather by Annie’s inability to be independent. A horrible fight with her mother and a period of deep depression finally jolt Annie from her dependence on others, and at the end of the novel, she’s an independent adult, armed only with her intelligence for the next step in her life’s journey, moving to England to study nursing.