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imposed on women by the society, and sometimes, their own community and social group as well. In Girl, the theme of conflicts between a mother and her daughter and traditional and Western or modern values are portrayed by Kincaid’s effective illustration of her relationship with her mother. Jamaica Kincaid, a contemporary American Caribbean writer, illustrates in her work the dynamics of human relationships among immigrants trying to assimilate with the dominantly Westernized English society. Written in 1978, Kincaid details in her short narrative, Girl, issues that the protagonist (or Kincaid) experiences as she and her mother’s values clash against each other. In addition to exploring emotions of loss inherent in the mother-daughter bond, Kincaid also crafts her main characters as metaphors for the oppressive forces of colonization. Moira Ferguson comments in her critical analysis of Annie John, that Annie’s mother exists as an allegory to “an imperial presence,” an external force that “protects and indoctrinates” and inspires the girl’s rejection of colonial domination. The colonialist themes that run throughout Kincaid’s fiction infuse depth and political significance into her work. As Diane Simmons in World Literature Today states, “At heart, Jamaica Kincaid’s work is not about the charm of a Caribbean childhood, nor is it about colonialism. Nor, finally, is it about black and white in America. At heart, her work is about loss” (466). In other words, to read Annie John solely on a polemic level is to miss much of the artistic texture and universal themes that give life to her prose. For her work on Annie John, Kincaid was selected as one of three finalists for the 1985 international Ritz Paris Hemingway Award. In addition, Kincaid is a recipient of the Anifield-Wolf Book Award and The Lila-Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Award. Kincaid also received a nomination for the 1997 National Book Award for My Brother, a gripping chronicle of her relationship with her youngest brother, during his losing battle with AIDS. Despite the praise and numerous honors, there are those who condemn Kincaid’s work, specifically A Small Place, for its “ill-chosen rage.’ A Small Place, is “a short but powerful book that can best be described as an anti-travel narrative” (Dictionary of Literary Biography, 135). In this 81 page, slim volume of nonfiction, Kincaid examines the brutal effects of Antiguan colonial oppression and relentlessly indicts its white perpetrators. She writes accusatorily and directly to her white readers: “Have you ever wondered to yourself why it is that all people like me seem to have learn