The Ugly Tourist by Jamaica Kincaid

Delores Prescott
July,25,2014


Jamaica kincaid was born in Antiqua, WestIndies , she is writing about about an unfortunate time in history of slavery and the invention of the indentured servant in her island as the British and The Europeans came in and colonized her island and treating her people with inferiority and abuse .  This form of slavery continues to exists today .
Her purpose in this article is to show the injustice performed to her people from these same prepetrators and how this sense of exploitation can be changed with the American tourist coming to her island with a different view and expectation, by coming to aid a hand of help to these people , instead of the continued abuse as her ancestors endured.
Her main claim of this article is showing the american tourists leaving their habitat and their humdrum,   lonely life and coming to the island to be served and to be noticed in their sense of superiority and to scoff at the natives simple and poor lifestyle.
Her target audience is the affluent,  middle class americans who is able to travel out as they can finacially able to afford to do so.
    Kincaid is writing this article from an emotional appeal to arouse the human empathy and sympathy from her targeted audience and to educate her fellow Antiquans of their intended reasons
for them being there . She describes the loneliness of these to be tourists as they live in their own habitat , their need for acknowledgement and recognition .As a n ugly tourist  leaves all the nice things here in their world , the nice house , all the people they love and who loves them, to go to an island of low economic standard and knowingly, whose livelihood totally depends on them,
 being there as a tourist with their money and all it can buy .These tourists go into the island and stare at the
normal occurrences where they squat to have a bowel movement  as if it is something to "marvel at"  and sees it as a failure and backwardness of the island .
Kincaid goes on to state that there is no sense of affection between the natives and the tourists, as they really do not like each other . The natives see themselves as inferior and is there to serve and the tourists see themselves as receiving Rest and relaxation and being served . The tourists is achieving their need to escape their otherwise overwhelming boredom and depression from their every day lifestle, at the expense of these natives who also can benefit to get away from their daily drudge of service, but is unable to do so because of their state of poverty .

 Kincaid concludes that every native is a potential tourist and everyone will like to, from time to time go to another habitat and live like and be a tourist .To be served and to have that time to rest and relaxed . However , some of us like her fellow Antiquan's is unable to experience such a luxury due to a state of indigence . She continues to express , that because of this, the natives does not necessarily like the tourist because they are un able to have something  they long to have , which in most case, is taken for granted and abused through the sense of obliviousness and selfcentredness .