The Seasons
As Lucy experiences her first year abroad, she shows a keen awareness
of the changing seasons, which often parallel her emotional states.
Beginning and ending with Lucy’s lonely winters, Kincaid shows Lucy moving
from renewal in springtime to contentment in summer and disillusionment in
the fall. The link between Lucy’s journey and the seasons promotes the
notion that human existence follows a cyclical, rather than linear, path.
The seasons also highlight differences between Lucy’s old equatorial
surroundings and her new northern climate. Lucy has an attitude toward the
seasons that mirrors her mixed feelings about her native country. Though she
appreciates the variety of weather and finds the summers less oppressive
than at home, in the colder months, she misses the warm sun and vibrant
colors of the island. The seasons, then, highlight both Lucy’s inner and
outer conditions and grant them larger meaning by connecting them to a
natural phenomenon experienced by many.
Letters
Lucy’s letters from home illuminate her difficult relationship with
her mother. As Lucy takes to piling her mother’s unopened letters on her
dresser, she shows a defiance that also betrays her daughterly attachment:
she doesn’t discard them and fears the longing she’d feel if she glimpsed
her mother’s words. When Lucy finally reads the letter detailing her
father’s death and her mother’s misfortune, she comes to her mother’s
financial aid but also releases her fury in a letter home, once again
demonstrating her mixed feelings. After burning the letters she’s saved,
Lucy finds herself able to move forward. She prepares to leave Lewis and
Mariah’s apartment and sends a letter home, expressing compassion for her
mother but also breaking with her by giving a false address. Throughout the
novel, letters serve as markers of Lucy’s struggle to make a new life for
herself by escaping her past.
Food
Food appears in the novel as a source of comfort and, occasionally,
dissension. Lucy’s best memories of home often involve detailed descriptions
of dishes, such as the mullet and figs cooked by her grandmother, the cow’s
tongue in lemon juice evoked by her thoughts of Tanner, or the exquisitely
fried fish she pictures eating by a vibrantly blue sea. Lucy’s attention to
the food of her homeland illustrates that despite her bitterness about her
past, her country has sustained her physically and emotionally. But food
also elicits painful emotions. The food she remembers in the throes of
homesickness may provide comfort, but it also taunts her with its absence.
Mariah’s baked fish reminds Lucy yet again of the distance between Mariah
and herself and how far she is from home. And Lucy’s mother ridicules her
when she inquires about the preparation of fish in a Bible story that Lucy
wishes more accurately reflected her island surroundings. For Lucy, food
represents the finest moments of her upbringing but also recalls all she’s
lost.
