A Small Place Themes

Although Antigua is a small place, throughout its history, the country's been ruled by all sorts of corrupt leaders—think: racist colonists, wealthy businesspeople, and corrupt tyrants. Ugh. In A...

Ah, the life of a tourist… There's nothing better than exploring an exotic locale, right? But have you ever thought about what it feels like to be on the other side of the equation? In A Small Pl...

Some people think that racism isn't a big deal these days, but they're as wrong as a ridiculously unprepared Miss Teen USA candidate. Just look at A Small Place, for example. The novel outlines the...

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it—or repeat a few history classes in college, at the very least. A Small Place offers up a lesson in the cyclical nature of the past, revealing long...

The shadow of slavery hangs heavy over the events of A Small Place. Although the Antiguan people have been emancipated for generations, their past still weighs heavily on their present. Many Antigu...

Visions of Antigua? At some points in A Small Place, they seem more like hallucinations. The novel takes readers on a tour of the small Caribbean island, giving us no-good tourists an up-close-and-...

As with so many things, Wu-Tang says it best: "cash rules everything around me." In fact, you might as well consider that the unofficial subtitle of A Small Place. The small island of Antigua is ho...

You can't blame Kincaid for being obsessed with the power of language. She is a writer, after all. Over the course of A Small Place, we learn how language can be used for good and for evil, to help...