“Not at Home in her Own Skin” Self-Invention through the...

â€Å"not at home in her own skin†: Self-Invention through the Resolution of Conflicts in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy Jamaica Kincaid’s novel Lucy is a Bildungsroman centering on the self-invention of the title-character, who is a young immigrant woman from Antigua. As part of this process, Lucy, as a character, struggles against the various forces of her mother, her past and her even her femininity at a very personal level, thereby setting up a series of conflicts seen throughout the novel. Lucy as a text, however, adds another layer to these conflicts. By grounding these widely different conflicts in Lucy’s overarching struggle to assert her individuality by differentiating herself from the masses, the text sets up these conflicts as a struggle†¦show more content†¦For example, when Maude Quick arrives with news of the death of Lucy’s father, and tells her that she reminds her of her mother, Lucy knows that this â€Å"careless sentence† (123) in fact â€Å"save[s] her life† (123), yet she counters this with an aggressive defense: â€Å"I am not like my mother. She and I are not alike† (123). Lucy’s internal acknowledgement of the fact that resembling her mother â€Å"saves† her, while outwardly expressing displeasure at this suggestion captures the contradictory and perplexing nature of the way the struggle against the blurring of the boundaries between her and her mother plays out in the novel. Another similar conflict that Lucy engages in involves Mariah, who, despite being Lucy’s employer, becomes a mother figure to her too. As in the case of her mother, Lucy’s feelings towards Mariah are seen to be of a contradictory nature. After the daffodil incident for example, Lucy feels a â€Å"triumph† at making Mariah feel â€Å"miserable, tormented† (41) and even refuses to hug her, yet goes on to say that â€Å"the anguish on [Mariah’s] face almost broke [her] heart†, describes her victory as â€Å"hollow† (41) and later asserts that she has â€Å"grown to love her so† (46). In their inconsistency, Lucy’s feelings for Mariah mirror those for her mother, and she even goes as far to claims, â€Å"the