59 pages • 1 hour read
Jamaica KincaidAnnie John
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1985A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Circling Hand”
Annie’s mother lets her sleep late when there is no school, but Annie’s father rises at seven every morning when the Anglican church bell rings. Anne hears her mother prepare her father’s bath and cook his breakfast while he shaves and dresses. Annie’s mother has visited the obeah woman—one who heals and casts spells as part of an African diasporic tradition. On the obeah woman’s advice, Annie’s mother puts oils and various herbs in the bathwater for herself and Annie because the obeah woman told Annie’s mother that one of the women with whom Annie’s father has children is trying to harm Annie and her mother. Next, Annie and her mother go shopping, and her mother carefully explains each purchase. This all makes Annie feel important. When Annie was very little, there were several times when her mother would snatch her up and move quickly past the home of a woman who was angry that Annie’s father married her mother because he had children with her and would not marry her.
At home, Annie’s mother cooks lunch with Annie at her heels, and she includes Annie in everything she does. At lunchtime, when her father returns home, Annie doesn’t look at him much, but she dotes on her mother’s beauty. She recounts how her mother left her own father’s home in Dominica at age 16 and moved to Antigua. The trunk she’d brought now houses all the things she saves for Annie, and Annie loves it when her mother airs out her old baby clothes and other items because she tells Annie a story about each one. This makes Annie feel that her life is of massive importance because her mother remembers every detail of it. She feels much luckier than her father, who was raised by his grandmother because his parents sailed for South America when he was small. His grandmother woke before him every day to prepare his bath and breakfast while he got ready for work, and then one day, she did not wake him because she had died. He found himself all alone at just 18.
When Annie’s father tells her this story, she cries out of sympathy for him and out of fear that the same thing might happen to her. However, her mother promises that Annie need not worry about her leaving. Annie wishes she had a mother to give to her father because although Annie’s mother loves him, it could never be the same as having the love of one’s own mother. Watching her mother attend to her daily responsibilities, Annie feels that she lives in a paradise.
In the summer after she turns 12, Annie notices that her clothes no longer fit, hair is growing under her arms, and her sweat smells strange and pungent. Her parents say nothing, and she assumes they don’t notice. Though Annie and her mother have always worn matching dresses, her mother now insists that Annie dress differently, stating that Annie cannot go around looking like a smaller version of her mother forever. The new non-matching dresses make Annie feel bitter. In addition, Annie’s mother tells her that she is becoming a “young lady” and needs things differently. One day, Annie asks if they can go through the trunk, but her mother dismisses the suggestion. Annie feels as though the ground under her feet has been swept away.
Instead of being allowed to spend all day basking in her mother’s attention, Annie is now sent away to learn manners. However, the teacher instructs Annie not to return because she is so disruptive. Annie tells her mother that the teacher sent her away because her manners are already perfect. Next, Annie is dismissed by her piano teacher because she won’t stop eating the woman’s plums. When the teacher tells Annie’s mother, her mother turns her back on Annie and refuses to smile at her. Annie begins to grow used to her mother’s disapproval. When her mother shows her how to fold the linens, she says that Annie can do as she wishes in her own home one day, but Annie fights back tears at the thought of living apart from her mother. At times, Annie and her mother forget the “new order” of their relationship and revert to the way they used to behave with one another, but it never lasts long.
Annie is to transfer to a new school, and she looks forward to starting fresh. One Sunday, she is rewarded for being the best student in her Bible study class, and she rushes home to show her mother the certificate and “reconquer” her, thereby earning her mother’s smiles again. However, when she arrives, she finds her parents in bed, and she sees her mother’s hand rubbing circles on her father’s back. The hand looks grotesque—white and bony—and the image is burned into Annie’s brain. She is sure that her mother sees her, but Annie’s presence is unacknowledged. Later, when Annie’s mother crossly asks if Annie plans to stand around doing nothing all day, Annie speaks to her disrespectfully for the first time, causing her speechless mother to turn and walk away. Annie’s father behaves the same as always.
The following Monday, Annie attends her new school. Her reputation for being smart precedes her. That day, she meets Gwen, and by the end of the day, Annie feels that she and Gwen are in love, so they walk home together. That evening, she tells her mother only the pleasing details of her day, leaving out her feelings for Gwen.
Chapter 2 Analysis
Annie’s idyllic childhood is full of her mother’s attention and affection, but everything changes when Annie reaches puberty, reflecting the ongoing theme of Misinterpreted Parental Love. The relative ease and closeness of her early childhood is contrasted with the social difficulties she encounters at age 12, as she describes her mother in terms of adulation and glories in the way her mother includes her in everything. However, when Annie confronts the awkward changes of puberty, she is confused by her new body hair and smells and assumes that her parents have failed to notice these shifts. Annie does not yet realize that her body is changing because she is going through puberty, nor does she realize that this process is normal. Annie’s belief that her parents are unaware of her shifting body invokes a sense of irony, as her parents most certainly do know why and how her body is changing, although Annie herself does not. This disparity of knowledge also injects tension and discomfort into a relationship that was previously based upon trust and closeness. Significantly, Annie first signs of entering puberty precipitate a seismic shift in her mother’s behavior, and Annie’s resistance to her mother’s new rules reflect her incomprehension of the deeper social significance of “becoming a young lady” (26). Additionally, when her mother makes the casual comment that Annie can act as she pleases when she has her “own house” (29), Annie sees this as a contradiction of her mother’s promise never to abandon her. As a result, Annie begins to believe that her mother has changed, becoming untrustworthy and deceitful.
As Annie’s mother sends her off to learn manners and music, it is clear that the protagonist has entered a new era in her education and that her mother is teaching her how to be a wife. When Annie finds her parents in bed, her mother is careful to ensure that all her attention is directed to her husband. In this way, Annie’s mother shows her, rather than telling her outright, that a woman’s most important relationship is with her husband. The implicit message that Annie’s mother attempts to drive home with her actions is that when a woman’s children are no longer babies, her attention returns to her husband. By extension, her daughter should become a young lady and learn the skills to care for her own future husband. It is significant that in this uncomfortable moment of implicit lessons, Annie fixates on her mother’s hand, which now seems distorted, “as if it had long been dead” (30). This detail implies that figuratively, the mother Annie experienced as a little girl is dead, as Annie no longer requires as much of her mother’s attention. It is also notable that the parents of Annie’s father once abandoned him, suggesting that his mother’s loyalty was also to his father rather than to him. Furthermore, although he has children with other women, Annie’s mother never mentions her unpleasant interactions with them or holds their hostility (or his philandering) against him. Despite the problematic aspects of her marriage, she sets the example of a dutiful and attentive wife for Annie.
As a child, Annie does not understand how difficult it is for her mother to implement these changes in their relationship, and as a result, her reactions reflect The Normalcy of Youthful Rebellion. In the midst of the disruptions she causes, Annie fails to see that her mother has not stopped loving her. In reality, Annie’s mother recognizes her responsibility to teach her daughter how to be a respectable woman and wife in the eyes of society, unlike the other women with whom her husband has fathered children. The difficulty of this behavioral shift is reflected when Annie admits that both she and her mother sometimes “forget the new order of things and […] slip into [their] old ways” (29). Annie’s mother adapts her parenting so that she can prepare Annie to meet society’s expectations of women, and this is why she must stop treating Annie like a child. Even so, it is easy for her mother to slip into her old manner because it is difficult for her to emotionally distance herself from her beloved daughter for the sake of socialization. Annie’s interpretation of this uncomfortable new order is clear in her desire to “reconquer” her mother with her Bible school award (30). One “reconquers” an enemy by whom one has been defeated, and this wording suggests a power imbalance that Annie wants to shift in order to regain the power she feels she has lost in their relationship. Such diction implies that she now thinks of her mother as a foe: as someone who tries to rule her.
In this chapter, Kincaid begins to introduce references to Antigua’s status as a colonized Caribbean island under the control of the British. For example, during Annie’s youth in the 1950s, she references the bell of the Anglican church that wakes her father each morning and describes her Sunday school classes; in addition, her new school is British and Anglican. These details hinting at The Dangerous Effects of Colonization are contrasted with descriptions of her mother’s visit to the obeah woman, who practices a kind of spirituality consistent with the Creole faith in the supernatural. Up until this point, Annie has not yet experienced much tension between herself—a young, Black Antiguan girl—and her British colonial society, other than her mother’s attempts to prepare her for adult life. However, the young Annie attributes this to a change in her mother’s character rather than to the long-term deleterious effects of being racially, sexually, and ethnically marginalized.
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By Jamaica Kincaid
