An eco critical reading of Jamaica Kincaid's novel Lucy

Abstract EN

This research explores Jamaica Kincaid’s Novel Lucy from an ecocritical point of view.

In so doing, the research highlights the active, reactive and interactive roles the ecological elements play in the novel pointing out that such are the elements that drive action forth in the novel.

This reading of the novel focuses mainly on how elements of the ecological world stood against Lucy throughout the year’s time she spent in America.

It shows how the ecological surroundings stood against Lucy and frowned at her.

Lucy abandoned her native Caribbean island of Antigua to emigrate to the United States.

She never thought the land she has often dreamt of will reject and dismiss her outright.

To her agony, everything around her, including the woods, the lakes, the sun, the sea, the sky, frowned at her.

She discovers that she has become one of a group of outcasts marginalised by the ecological world in the United States.

Disillusioned, she discovered that the land she hated, revolted against and abandoned is much treasured by all those who visited it, which makes her aware that what she lost is paradise and she herself is Satan-like.

The struggle of wills, i.

e.

that of the environment’s against Lucy’s own, keeps Lucy unsettled in America.

The novel ends with the conflict unresolved as Lucy oscillatcs between an environment calling her back, even though Lucy resists returning, and another rejecting and refusing her, regardless of her life dream of staying there.