History

Throughout the reading Kincaid tries to purvey the message that history to one person is different compared to another. Essentially, history is in the eyes of the beholder and certain events are depicted differently from person to person. It is also relevant who is telling the story. One person can tell a story very different compared to another. If Christopher Columbus was telling the story he would leave out most of the information about Vermont, where as to Kincaid Vermont is a very important place for her. She states “Christopher Columbus never saw Vermont at all; it never entered his imagination.”  When Kincaid goes into describing the place she is from she doesn’t go into such detail.  She uses very vague adjectives to describe the landscapes and scenes.  The use of broad terms allows the reader to form their own perception of what the land may have been like. She lets the reader picture the places and landscapes how they want to picture it. The broad description relates back to the meaning of history and stories, and how they both can mean different things to different people.  I think she also tries to say in her writing that each person can have more than one experience or perception of a story. When she states “I no longer live in the place where I and those who look like me first made an appearance, I live in another place”.  You can think about one place numerous times and get a different meaning or picture from it. Kincaid tells the reader history can start anywhere; it depends on who is telling the story and where the reader wants to begin. Just like any person today, we all have a story of some sort but where we start to tell our story may be different to where someone else would start their own.  If I told someone my story they could get a completely different meaning then the one I was trying to state.  This is why it is important to understand that history is all about the perception of the person who accounts the events that took place.