Race, Class, and Gender in Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Problems of Race
Class Conflict
The Issues of Gender Identity
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The Autobiography of My Mother is a meditation on dysfunctional racial perception and gender identity crisis caused by early childhood trauma. The lack of love and all the consequence of it transcends the entire novel: “I did not love her. And she did not love me” (Kincaid 16). It appears that the main character hides her anger behind indifference. The girl demonstrates apathy to Eunice’s punishment and expresses cold cruelty to the three turtles that she adopted. Indeed, the girl seems to respond unusually to various situations because she hides her wounds without knowing that she was injured. She feels anger for her mother’s death and being neglected by her father. Although she wrote letters that were not supposed to be sent to her father, saying that she loves him, she was still full of rage about her unpleasant childhood experiences. The novel illustrates an emotional handicapping caused by the trauma that created a personality that could not accept her unique identity completely.

Problems of Race

Although race is not the central cause of the conflict, it still creates the main character’s sense of inferiority. Xuela’s mother was a beautiful Carib woman who married a man of mixed descent, Scottish and African. Although her father’s behavior displayed his pride in his Caucasian appearance, he did not have prejudices about other races because his first wife was the Caribbean and the second one was a black woman. However, the girl inherited her mother’s features; therefore, people used to treat her unkindly because “the Carib people had been defeated … thrown away like the weeds in a garden” (Kincaid 25). As the girl noticed, “defeat is not beautiful,” and many people do not like to observe things that do not please them visually (Kincaid 93). For example, when Xuela went to school, her teacher viewed the girl as evil because her mother “was of the Carib people,” as if such genetic mixture created a morally impure child (Kincaid 26). The girl did not seem to experience significant racial discrimination later in life. Still, she has always been hyperaware of skin color associated with social class in her mind.

Class Conflict

Class differences are very distinct in the novel because the main character observes and characterizes them uniquely. When the girl lived with Eunice Paul, the woman who did her father’s laundry, she described an extreme poverty level in this dirty house with only one plate. Xuela’s second home, where her father brought her, represented a higher class. It was big, clean, furnished, and allowed the girl to have her private space, which poor people could not afford. However, the cost of achieving this wealth was high because people were not loved in these houses. For example, the girl’s father married his second wife for money and connections, which benefited his financial situation but negatively impacted his children. Another example of an unhappy wealthy couple was Monsieur and Madame LaBatte. Lise LaBatte was rich but unhappy because her husband defeated her. On the other hand, her husband, Jack LaBatte, was satisfied with his affluent living because “he had not wasted his time marrying a poor Carib woman for love” (Kincaid 95). The main character’s brain seems to receive constant priming about the idea that wealth and love are incompatible.

The protagonist never viewed her father’s wealth positively because she associated it with a crime. Still, the girl did not like poverty because it hurt her in many ways early in life, but wealth was also a burden for Xuela. Her resistance to becoming someone’s property was extended and violent when she chose to do a hard job than being forced into a sexual relationship with Jack LaBatte or tolerate her stepmother’s hostility. Moreover, Xuela believed that her father’s wealth was sinful because it was acquired by robbing and deceiving: “He…did not believe that this would prevent him from entering the gates of … heaven” (Kincaid 283). She felt that work is equivalent to freedom that allowed her to escape from the hardship of the lower class and misery of the affluent class; therefore, she chose labor over passivity. However, the only choice for the girl who experienced poverty and hatred in early childhood was to marry a wealthy man whom she could not love. This option was not evident for the well-educated person with good critical thinking, but it was dictated by her subconscious fear of love and poverty.

Another sharp delineation between rich and poor was made by the author when describing the attitude of Philip’s wife. Being a lady was a status for this woman that only the higher class can achieve. Interestingly, unlike many other authors who view ladies as elegant and educated creatures, the author reveals their unpleasant side. Kincaid demonstrates their arrogant mindset: “A lady is a combination of elaborate fabrications…I was a woman and as that I had a brief definition: two breasts, a small opening between my legs, one womb” (Kincaid 218). Philip’s wife viewed women of the lower class as tools for satisfying men’s sexual desires and children incubators, devoid of other skills and sacred knowledge available only to ladies. The class difference seems to be more powerful than gender identity and female solidarity.

The Issues of Gender Identity

The central theme of this novel is problems with the gender identity that the main character had to face. The girl’s journey from rejection to acceptance of her womanhood was never complete. This incompleteness was not caused by her refusal to have children but because she was hypersensitive about female inferiority: “I did not have red hair, I was not a man” (Kincaid 246). Since her mother died during childbirth, Xuela never had a good mother figure who could instruct her about being feminine and obedient to fit a niche in that society. The girl was cruelly taught about hygiene by her stepmother; thus, she learned to like her unwashed body. She started to explore sexual pleasure during her early adolescence through masturbation. Indeed, Xuela admitted that sexual intercourse with men has always been enjoyable. Still, she could not tolerate the idea of becoming a mother, making her terminate all pregnancies that she ever had. One of the reasons was that her mother died and left her without this essential connection that was supposed to form the proper neural circuits in the girl’s brain for her to desire parenthood.

Since the main character was not taught how to be a woman, she learned it uniquely. She was not feminine but desirable for the opposite sex because she learned to accept the individuality of her body and mind. Moreover, although Xuela was the product of her parents’ love, she never truly experienced it, resulting in the lack of self-love early in life. Furthermore, it was one reason why the girl could not embrace her female identity for a long time, preferring to be genderless: “I did not look like a man, I did not look like a woman” (Kincaid 135). The author also illustrates the lack of self-love by introducing her name, Xuela Claudette Richardson, only in the middle of the story. Xuela hates her name, does not love herself, and cannot develop genuine attachment and affection to anyone. Although she claims to love Roland, she was not ready to sacrifice her freedom and body to form a proper family with him. Indeed, Xuela is the only representative of feminists in this novel which does not make her good or bad but unique.

Conclusion

To sum up, The Autobiography of My Mother is a novel that explores race, class conflict, and gender identity through the lens of the main character’s perception of herself and other people. The girl lost her mother and was abandoned by her father early in life; thus, she struggles to embrace her female identity fully and chooses not to depend on anyone. It appears that the author also projects her anger to the superior class of conquerors for the long-term torture of Caribbean Indians and black people. She unpleasantly portrays white men and women, trying to demonstrate historical injustice toward the native population and African people. Still, the central theme of this story is the girl who grew up without love and proper parenting that resulted in an emotionally wounded woman who was independent but selfish and intelligent but disorderly. Although the girl was aware of her problems, she did not want to change to please others because the only thing that the author suggests is important is self-acceptance.

Works Cited

Kincaid, Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. Macmillan, 1996.

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Race, Class, and Gender in Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother

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