Annie John

Nancy Zhao
Ms. Fletcher/ Ms. Dunitz
March 21, 2014
E1FC Pd 10
Can’t Stay Anymore
In the novel, Annie John, by Jamaica Kincaid, Annie has an identity crisis. As she enters her adolescence stage, she builds relationships with others based off her need for love. The love that she gets from her mother is slowly diminishing and Annie doesn’t like that. Her feelings for her mother start from confusion and later turns into hatred. Although Annie struggles to find her identity separate from her mother, she’s unable to escape her connection with her mother, revealing that
At first, Annie doesn't want her own identity because her mother and her were inseparable. Annie becomes jealous of her mother’s overflowing affection for her father.
Jealousy is the first step in her separation from her mother. She takes her mother’s kisses and hugs for granted until that attention is diverted to her father. When she catches her parents having sex, her mother is the only thing she sees. She says, “It doesn’t interest me what they were doing­ only that my mother’s hand was on the small of my father’s back...” (30), which shows that she feels back stabbed.
That small of anyone’s back is intimate, and shows that a person cares deeply for another. Annie feels like her mother betrays her because she is no longer the receiver of the warm and welcome hand. Later on in the book, Annie is punished for defacing her history textbook and she receives a punishment for it.
Instead of feeling sorrow and remorse, she “couldn’t wait to get home and the comfort of my mother’s kisses and arms. Nothing to worry about there yet...” (82­83), which shows that she believes her mother will comfort her of her wrongdoings. Instead, when she arrived home, her mother and her father were already in a deep conversation. Her mother doesn’t notice and she thinks that her mother likes her father better than her. Annie John is no longer the center of attention to her mother.

 Due to lack of motherly attention during her adolescence, Annie finds replacement to show that she doesn’t need her mom. Her lack of motherly attention starts with the piano dress. Her mother says, “Oh, no... You just cannot go around the rest of your life looking like a little me” (26). This is where Annie realizes that her mother is no longer joking about Annie growing up. There is no laughter or small kiss that accompanies it and that is what scares Annie the most. The first day of school, she meets a friend, Gwen. Annie says, “My own happiness was, of course, with Gwen,” (50), which means all her affection that used to be for her mother is for Gwen. They tell each secrets and they share kisses.
In addition for her newly developed relationship with Gwen, Annie forms a new relationship with a polar opposite: clean; dirty, educated; uneducated. The Red Girl is everything Annie isn’t; she is a foil. She highlights the characteristics that makes Annie who she is. Her mother often tells her not to play with marbles, and the Red Girl gives them to her. With Annie being secretive about the Red Girl, she gains negative attention from her mother. Even though the attention isn’t love, Annie is has still something.
However, Annie projects her care for her mother to her relationships with her friends, not really escaping her mother. Without her mother’s love, Annie finds new people to love and ways to upset her mother with the new relationships, to gain attention.
Water is a symbol of Annie and her mother’s connection. The period of long rain changes Annie, by allowing herself to accept that she is an individual. The long period of her sickness is her emotional and physical breakdown Annie has after the fight with her mother. The sickness was brought on by her mother. After she tells her mother, “Like father like son. Like mother like daughter” (102), she receives the worst news ever: her mother no longer loves her. She becomes weak and is sick for three months. Through those months, she is constantly describing the rain. The rain is holding her down, making her unable to do anything. It is a symbol of disconnectedness between her

mother and her. Earlier, she tells a story of how she went with her to the ocean, and they suddenly got separated showing of a time where her mother and her were physically separated by water. Water in this content shows that the physical space between them only made them want to be together.
However, the rain is the opposite. Annie and her mother are physically close together, residing in the same house, but Annie wants to detach herself from her mother’s side. The disconnectedness brought on by the rain allows her to “take a break” from her mother. The water cleanses her and allows her to start over. After Annie gets better, she decides to go to England, to study nursing. On the way to the jetty, she is confronted with water again which represents her old life in Antigua. She says, “My old fear of slipping between the boards of the jetty and falling into the dark­ green water...” (143). This shows that she doesn't want to be sucked back into the island again. The large body of water is another separation between Annie and her mom. She does leave and her attitude towards her parents change.
Annie finally gains her mother’s attention by leaving. Her recovery period changes her attitude towards her mother. Even though she’s not as close as she was, she is still friendly. Annie does not want to leave home, but she knows she has to leave her past behind in order to move forward in life.
Otherwise she’ll become the same person she was before; there would be tension with her mom.
Water holds too many memories: the ocean swim with her mother, the walk with her father and etc. For
Annie to let go off the memories, she has to leave it behind. Leaving is a huge leap to becoming a different person. Water has a lot of contractionary meanings in the novel. It was a barrier between
Annie and her mother, but at the same time, it brought them together to a truce. It allowed Annie to filter herself. The mother and daughter relationship turned from a close companionship to bickering enemies.
Annie leaves behind her life to become her own person.