Narrator and point of view

Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place is written from the perspective of a first person narrator. This narrator is a persona of the author, as the text draws on Jamaica Kincaid’s experiences of growing up in Antigua. Even though the text is written in the first person, the narrator appears to be omniscient, combining insight into the tourists’ feelings with background information about Antigua: “In this mansion lives a woman sophisticated people in Antigua call Evita. She is a notorious woman. […] Oh, but by now you are tired of all this looking, and you want to reach your destination.” (p. 185, ll. 8-16)

Much of the text is written in the second person, directly addressing the readers as if they are Western tourists visiting Antigua: “You disembark from your...