"Annie John" covers a young girl’s passage into adolescence. The narrative comes from the perspective of Annie John and her experiences through the age of 15. The main theme within this coming of age novel is expressed through the ever-evolving mother-daughter relationship between Annie and her mother. This theme sets the tone for the book and leads to many negative thoughts and feelings with a fairly depressing ending.
The mother-daughter relations throughout the book evolve towards the final separation at the end. At a young age, Annie’s relationship begins as very close and loving. Annie adored her mother so much that it came to the point where Annie felt abandoned every time she was not near her mother. At the time she hit puberty, the relationship abruptly changed. Annie was forced to be independent and learn what it meant to be a young lady growing up in Antigua. This sudden and unbearable separation of herself and her mother leads to an extreme love-hate relationship. Kincaid blatantly expresses this through Annie's perspective when she states, "I missed my mother more than I had ever imagined possible and wanted only to live somewhere quiet and beautiful with her alone, but also at that moment I wanted only to see her lying dead, all withered and in a coffin at my feet." (106) In an ongoing effort to please her mother yet be disobedient at the same time, Annie succeeds academically yet befriends many whom her mother does not approve. The love-hate relationship only leads to Annie's misjevious activities and an everlasting motive to undermine her mother. Annie does this by disobeying orders not to collect marbles, hang out with certain people and lying. All these actions against her mother only fire the hatred and negativity that Annie feels towards life and the world.
The hatred of life and the world expressed by Annie was horrid. A sense of pity, for Annie, was felt throughout much of the second half. Even with all this negativity, Kincaid ended the book on a positive and powerful note. Kincaid expressed how you have to make life what it is. Your perceptions in life determine the outcome. Annie's negative perceptions have a negative effect on her life, "how much I longed to be in a place where nobody knew a thing about me." (127) Even though Annie realizes all her misconceptions and overall love for her family, she has been told over and over again that she has to follow through with things that she starts. So, even though she realizes that she really needs, and is better off with, her family she must follow threw with the plans she has made to leave Antigua and begin her new life in Europe. This just leads to the never-ending separation of Annie from her family, not exactly a fairytale ending.
1 comment:
I agree that throughout the book i felt pity for Annie. Because I am older than her now and have experienced much of what she was experiencing, I wished that I could tell her things that I have already learned and she could use my advice to help her out. Obviously I could not do this, so I often felt bad for Annie, knowing that that phase in her life was something that most people go through, but of course she did not know this and she had no idea what would come out of her troubled adolescence.
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