Hugh’s question made me think of two concepts: freedom and comfort. To be away from everything you have ever known and lose yourself there carries a level of freedom that can be very tempting. On a certain level, someone could reshape who they are as a person; they have the liberty to choose the parts of themselves they want to keep and the parts they want to work towards ridding themselves of. It is similar to the opportunity that comes with changing one’s name. The power of choice is gifted to the person who decides to be far away from their past. The cost of this liberty, however, is comfort. This comfort includes familiarity of home, of family, of who you are and where you come from, and of what has made you into the person you are today. All the “things you’re a part of” as Hugh puts it, are all the things that people often take solace in. To be so far away from your past as to not know yourself anymore can be an awfully lonely journey. So while I can understand the pull of freedom offered in Hugh’s claim, I hesitate at the loss that comes along with it.

Lucy reacts positively to this question because, at this point in the novel, Hugh is the first person she meets that seems to have a bit of an understanding to how she feels about leaving home. Unlike me, Lucy has no hesitation towards this freedom. In the podcast interview, Jamaica Kincaid says, “It’s not a bad thing to lose something in order to gain something else.” Clearly, Lucy reflects this sentiment, and colonization has played a crucial part in her attitude here. Lucy’s anger is founded on the feeling that she has had little to no control over her life, a result of colonizers. And while her past is something that is set in stone and cannot be fixed, she sees an opportunity in getting away from all she’s ever known, in completely cutting off all ties to her past. 

But just because Lucy is more than willing to lose in order to gain, that does not mean she is exempt from the sadness that can follow such a decision. In chapter five of Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy says, “I was alone in the world. It was not a small accomplishment. I thought I would die doing it. I was not happy, but that seemed too much to ask for” (161). Here Lucy sums up my point of freedom versus comfort. She defines being alone as an accomplishment, because she can acknowledge that she never wants to go back to her old life. This accomplishment is in no way small; while Lucy puts on a tough front when taking the steps to cut herself off from her family (the changing of address, the burning of the letters) we see how she still cares by sending all of her money home. So this distancing, while necessary in her mind, was definitely difficult. So difficult in fact that she thought she “would die doing it.” Lucy then acknowledges the loss of comfort when she says that happiness seemed too much to ask for. While she was far from happy in her past, finding happiness in a place that is still unfamiliar, still does not feel like home, is something that can only come with time. 

Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990.