Has a bright sunny day ever made you feel happy? Most people would say yes.
known fact that the majority of people would prefer a sunny day rather than a gray, rainy day. It is.
also a known fact that the image of light can have a great effect on someone's life. In Jamaica.
Kincaid's Lucy, images of positive light and negative light are used to show how the perception of.
a marriage causes Lucy to perceive her past and present in two different ways. .
Before Mariah's failed marriage with Lewis, the author uses negative light to portray.
Lucy's past. Whenever Lucy speaks of her mother and the place she came from references of light.
are used in a negative way. This causes the reader to feel Lucy's past is not something she likes to.
remember. In the beginning of the novel Lucy says, "It was not the sort of bright sun-yellow.
making everything curl at the edges, almost in fright, that I was used to . . ." (Kincaid 5). The.
light from the sun seems so strong that it is damaging. When Lucy speaks of where she was born.
and grew up she says, "It had only one season-sunny, drought ridden" (Kincaid 86). After she.
says this, she talks about the effect this climate and strong light had on her life. "I did not have a.
sunny disposition, and, as for actual happiness, I had been experiencing a long drought" (Kincaid.
86). Lucy's childhood seems sad and depressing and the author uses the image of strong light to.
show this. Another time Lucy is reminded of her old home is when she takes the children on a.
walk through the woods to the lake, which she hated to do. Lucy says, "It was gloomy and damp,.
for the sun could hardly shine through the tops of the trees" (Kincaid 53). This lack of light.
reminds her of her mother's unhappy stories about when she would have to walk to school.
through the rain forest. She goes on to say how a monkey threw a rock at her mother and almost.
killed her. This unhappy memory is triggered from the lack of light illuminated throughout the.