Xuela’s Character in Jamaica Kincaids Autobiography of My Mother Essay

Many critics of The register of my Mother have remarked on the unrealistic facets of Xuelas extremist character. Her lack of remorse, her wound up detachment, her love of the dirty and impure, and her consuming need for total control every beam everyone and everything around her give her an well-nigh mythic quality. A more comfortably-rounded, humanitarian character would have doubts and failings that Xuela does not seem to possess. In light of Xuelas constituted resentment of authority, stubborn love of the degraded and unacceptable, intense rejection of the master-slave relationship, and--most pointedly--her hatred of the British and British culture, many critics have embraced the idea that Xuela is highly symbolic of the conquered, annex races whose blood makes up her own. There are many complex parallels in the midst of Xuelas character and the collective psyche and pagan beliefs of Dominicas conquered races. Yet, instead of sinking in despair, Xuela refuses to gracefull y accept her lot in support. Early on, she rejects the imposed cultural perception of herself as inferior. Her description of her elementary schoolteacher is prescient a woman of the African people, that I could see, and she found in this a reference of humiliation and self-loathing, and she wore despair want an article of clothing, like a mantle, or a staff on which she leaned constantly, a birthright which she would pass on to us (15). Xuela then explains the distinction between Africans and Caribs in her Dominica. My mother was a Carib woman, and when they (the class) looked at me this is what they saw. The Carib people had been defeated and then exterminated, thrown away like the weeds in a garden the African people had been defeated but had survived. When... ...den. She understands it, although she does not share it. Xuela also possesses a deeply grow need for control over her personal realm, possibly brought on by her hatred of the control exerted by the British over Dom inica, as well as by her unhappy childhood. Above all, Xuela makes it her project in life to love herself, and, as one reviewer remarks, she does so with a scarce dedication (Mead 52). Her own body becomes a temple to her, a place in which to feel safe and loved. Xuela says that she loves herself out of necessity, for the world she lives in is fierce and has little love to give her. Xuelas character is hard to take, from any standpoint. She is almost inhumanly resilient, and her hatred of all that is Western and white is all-consuming. For these reasons Xuela is sometimes seen as an abstraction, a symbol of an entire peoples suffering.