Annie John

Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John tells the story of a girl's painful growth into young womanhood. Jamaica Kincaid and Annie have a lot in common. The main character Annie John is much like Kincaid in her youth, she is a willful, intelligent 10-year old who grows increasingly confused and sarcastic throughout her teenage years. Like Jamaica Kincaid they were both born in Antigua. As an only child, Kincaid maintained a close relationship with her mother until the age of nine, when the first of her three brothers were born. Annie's relationship with her mother was much like Jamaica's.

Annie and her mom initially have a good mother daughter relationship as shown from many conversations that they shared, this changes quickly as the novel progresses. Jamaica Kincaid had to deal with growing up in Antigua under the pressures of poverty, colonialism, and an unsure mother. Much of Kincaid's writing in Annie John is closely inspired by some bitter tension she went through as a youth. Annie John, the narrator and protagonist, progresses from a wonderful childhood in Antigua, to a trying teenager filled with fierce maternal conflict, to her departure from Antigua for England at the age of seventeen. The emotional beginning of adolescence, as well as the firm control of a British colonial education system heightened Kincaid's sense of seclusion. At the age of 17, with a growing ambivalence for her family and a rising contempt for British who were ruling Antigua, Kincaid left Antigua. Annie john also left Antigua at the age of 17 to study abroad.