What I Have Been Doing Lately By Jamaica Kincaid – What I’ve been doing lately is a short story by Antiguan-born writer Jamaica Kincaid (born 1949). Kincaid’s first published book after first appearing in the Paris Review in 1981,
This story is told by another person, possibly a young girl, who recounts her dream-like experience of leaving home at night, going on a hike, crossing water, falling into a hole, and meeting a strange woman who asked her. What is he doing lately.
What I Have Been Doing Lately By Jamaica Kincaid
You can read ‘What I’ve Been Doing Lately’ here before continuing with my summary and analysis of Kincaid’s story below. It takes about 5 minutes to read the story.
Affordable Senior Housing Project Heads To Jamaica, Queens
The title of the story also creates initials. The first person narrator recounts what he has been up to recently. One night he was lying in bed when there was a knock at the door. But when he ran downstairs and opened the door, no one was there. He went outside and walked barefoot towards the north, describing what he saw.
He reached a wide shore, but he could not cross the water because he had no boat and could not even swim. But as the years went by, he was rowing on the water in a boat. It was noon, and he came to the other side of the water, and went out on his way. He did not tell the distance he traveled.
When he looked back the way he had come, the landscape had changed and was full of hills. When he looked forward again, he saw a hole in the ground. He kept falling into the hole, wondering what was in it. Inside the hole he could see writing, but it was written in an unknown language. But as he fell, he realized he didn’t like that feeling and he missed the people he left behind. He said the hole could be closed and it was.
He walked day and night without pain. He saw someone coming towards him and he was sure it was his mother. But as the figure approached, he realized that it was not his mother but another woman. When the narrator approached, the mysterious woman asked him what he had been up to lately.
Glencoe Literature Ser.: Glencoe Literature
The narrator discards the few answers he might give, and instead begins to tell the woman everything she has just told us so far that makes up the story. However, some details are the same and some are different than before. The story ends where it began. The narrator is lying in bed when the bell rings.
The abstract narrative structure and ‘What I’ve been doing lately’ style can remind us of a dreamland, and it’s tempting to read the story as a dream text: a late 20th century genre where the narrator often leaves home. About the concept of medium dreams where you meet different archetypes and experience strange things along the way.
Kincaid’s story seems to use a number of images and archetypes, which evoke many possible interpretations, like figures and images in dreams. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, called this condensation (or at least that’s how this word is translated into English) because many meanings are compressed into one symbol.
In ‘What I Did Lately’, the holes are filled with many possible interpretations. A hole can be analyzed as a symbol of ignorance. Note the writing he sees as his narrator falls into the pit, written in a language he does not understand. loss of innocence.
At The Bottom Of The River By Jamaica Kincaid First Edition
So, does the hole represent some kind of symbolic ‘fall’ like the fall of man in the biblical story of Adam and Eve? What information has the narrator come to that shows his loss of innocence?
It may be so, but if we read it this way, we must also consider the fact that the speaker clearly has the ability.
This information even ordered him to come back out of the hole and close it. It’s like there were no holes. Another way to interpret this is to see this confrontation with the pit as the narrator takes steps towards knowledge before being pulled back into a place of innocence as the narrator feels he is not yet ready to fall.
Of course it is said that at some point we will be told that the years have passed. Another thing that suggests that you look at the story like a dream, in fact a long time passes in a very short time.
Murda She Wrote: November 2022
(Woman?) Does the narrator gradually grow into a woman? Then we can see a woman coming to him like him, an old man slowly coming. After all, he initially mistakes his mother’s number – he is ‘sure’ it’s his mother – only for this earlier test to be proven wrong. Many girls will grow up to resemble their mothers in looks and not in other ways. So the idea that this strange woman is the narrator (the old one) is certainly supported.
But, of course, ultimately any analysis or interpretation of Kincaid’s story must keep in mind the cyclical nature of its structure. ‘What are you up to these days’ begins and ends in the same way as the narrator is lying in bed and the bell rings. This may indicate that if the dream is a dream, it is a recurring dream.
But it also means that for all the ‘coming of age’ or ‘the path to knowledge’ the story of surreal dreamscapes can suggest, it is not a sudden or finite process, but one that accumulates over time, with many obstacles, false starts, and returns. shows that it is a process. If ‘What Are You Up To These Days’ can be read as a coming-of-age story, it’s not something to pass by, but a series of long-haired experiences that will stay with us as long as we live. But for now, I’m back in bed and ready to start the process again.
Unless, of course, the last image of the narrator lying in bed is wishful thinking. Can we really return home once we’ve left home and started carving our way out into the big wide world? Kincaid’s story is very powerful about growing up. The reason is that the complex story covers the chaos and confusion of the process. In the process, we change, but we feel or want to feel the safety and familiarity of the home we left behind. Really, forever. And maybe someone who approached the narrator
Hurricane Ian Forecast Track Florida
After all, her mother – but she, the narrator, has also changed, she is no longer visible to him. Written and narrated by Jamaica Kincaid, the story of What I’m Doing Now reflects all of her ideas, thoughts, and experiences. The author gave no information about the character’s age, name, gender, or race, but it was clear that he was referring to a woman or himself. Perhaps the best evidence that the character is female is the author’s description of her small shadow. However, the lack of explanation of the main character’s name leaves many interpretations to the reader.
Basically, the artist used a style or narrative style that can be associated with the endless flow of the river because his thoughts and ideas were never cut off. There was no outside interference in the story, only his pure thoughts. Moreover, he conveyed his message without discussion or observation. All his associations of words, feelings, possible experiences and memories are combined into one seamless narrative.
Repetition of real events in a story can be associated with variation. At first, the story from the reader’s point of view actually begins after the author gets out of bed and answers the doorbell a second time. This may mean that the author repeats the events of the story. But the fact that he returns to the bed twice, even at the beginning of the story, shows that he is trying to repeat the event to create something real or imaginary. Repetition also conveys that the writer can come up with all the pieces he has, or examine all the details.
What have you been doing lately meaning, why have i been so tired lately, why have i been so sad lately, why have i been crying so much lately, what have you been doing, lucy by jamaica kincaid, what i have been doing lately, why have i been so angry lately, a small place by jamaica kincaid, how have you been lately, why have i been so depressed lately, books by jamaica kincaid