The Autobiography of My Mother

The Autobiography of My Mother is a novel by Antiguan-American author Jamaica Kincaid that was first published in 1996. It tells the story of Xuela Claudette Richardson, who lives on the island of Dominica. Half-Carib and half Scottish-African, she loses her mother to childbirth and is on her own from an early age. Following her journey from childhood, to school, to adulthood, the book follows her struggles, loves, and surroundings as she tries to find her way in a world without a mother. Exploring themes of fear, loss, and the forging of character, The Autobiography of My Mother was divisive for its unconventional narrative and lack of a traditional plot, but it was praised for its detailed character work and lush descriptions. It won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 1997.

The Autobiography of My Mother is a first-person retrospective account of Xuela Claudette Richardson’s struggle to cope with the early loss of her mother. She never knew her mother, who died in childbirth, and grew up as a Dominican girl in the early twentieth century. Xuela struggles to cultivate a positive sense of self in an environment hostile towards her because of her race and gender. After her mother’s death in childbirth, she is initially raised by a paid caretaker, Ma Eunice. Ma Eunice is the first person with whom Xuela interacts and the first person with whom she comes into conflict. This is because Xuela instinctively rejects Ma Eunice as someone who is not equipped to nurture her into an actualized woman. Ma Eunice is a laundress raising children of her own, and Xuela sees her not as a mother, but merely a paid caregiver. In addition, she realizes that Ma Eunice is a member of a social class she doesn’t wish to inhabit.

As Xuela reaches school age, her father takes her out of Ma Eunice’s care and sends her to school. Although this is a rare opportunity for a girl, Xuela experiences discrimination and hostility from her teacher. This is because Dominica is still under colonialist rule, and the teacher believes that colonized people of color are inherently inferior to their White colonizers. When Xuela displays intellectual aptitude, the teacher holds that as evidence that she must be cheating or otherwise dishonest. However, Xuela is undeterred and refuses to learn inferiority from either Ma Eunice or her teacher. She rejects colonial assessment of her people and dreams of her mother, who she imagines as a powerful and independent figure of the Carib Indian people. However, when her father finds out about her problems in school, he takes her out of school and moves her in with him and his new wife.



Her father Alfred’s home is no more hospitable a location, as her new stepmother attacks her both verbally and physically. In this culture, women are dependent on men for their financial survival, and Xuela is seen by her stepmother as a competitor for her own children’s economic stability. The conflict continues until Xuela turns fifteen years old, and her father sends her to live with some acquaintances, Jacques and Lise LaBatte. There, Xuela becomes aware of the dependent nature of male-female relationships by watching the LaBattes’ marriage. Although Mrs. LaBatte is economically secure and enjoys social privilege, she enjoys little independence or personal fulfillment. Mr. LaBatte seems to enjoy owning things, including women. Mr. LaBatte begins making passes at Xuela and pressures her into sex. She winds up pregnant, and not wanting to get entangled with Mr. LaBatte, she terminates the pregnancy and flees their home.

Now fully on her own for the first time, Xuela gets a job picking up rocks with a road crew, and attempts to forge an independent life for herself. She eventually is employed as a doctor’s assistant in the small city of Rosea, and it briefly seems that she’ll find the emotional and sexual fulfillment she’s been seeking when she falls for a stevedore named Roland. They’re roughly of an equal social class, which appeals to her. Roland, however, has grown up in a culture that believes in male superiority and female submission. He becomes frustrated by why Xuela won’t let him impregnate her, and sees this as her attempting to assert power over him. Their relationship eventually ends, and Xuela resigns herself to the idea that the kind of equitable relationship she’s looking for doesn’t exist. She decides to marry Phillip, a wealthy man she doesn’t actually love. However, their marriage gives Xuela the wealth, privilege, and social status that she’s been trying to attain all her life. The book ends with her imagining her parents’ courtship and finding happiness in that fantasy.

Jamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American author who is currently Professor of African and African-American Studies in Residence at Harvard University. The author of five novels, a short story collection, five nonfiction books, a children’s book, and an array of uncollected short stories and essays, she was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1994 and has been elected to both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.