The Ugly Tourist

The Ugly Tourist by Jamaica Kincaid. 

A tourist, Kincaid says, is an ugly person in the eyes of the native. Kincaid reveals a number of reasons for that. A tourist is despised firstly for his spending habit. When a tourist makes a visit to a certain place, he is willing to spend a considerable amount of money and for that reason, the native of that place might not like the tourist because they can't afford the luxury of travelling away from the boring routine of the island.  

To understand the context in which Kinkaid has A Small Place, we should step back in time and remember the atrocities that the British have committed in Antigua. Now a days those same people who treated the native people of the island very badly are back as tourist enjoying the beauty of nature that the Antigua has to offer. When I was reading the essay The Ugly Tourist, I felt that I was an accusatory, and like if I was targeted by Kincaid even though I never went to Antigua and I m not planning to go their soon. Jamaica Kincaid’s The Ugly Tourist strategically addresses the readers as “you” to strengthen her argument. In doing so, she builds a wall between herself and the readers, erasing any false sense of equality. The use of the pronoun "you" gives a special tone to the essay. The essay begins with a short, declarative ideas tied together in an attempt to define what “you” are: “You are not an ugly person all the time; you are not an ugly person ordinarily; you are not an ugly person day to day.  From day to day, you are a nice person.” This is a key sentence in understanding that the target audience of Kincaid is any tourist or future tourist.  

Finally, One thing that I've learned for sure from this essay is that next time I'm travelling I should think about being a better tourist than what Kincaid described in her essay as the ugly tourist. Some example of what can be done to improve the experience as tourist are  getting more involved with the natives. Find a spot in town where everyone seems to gather, like a town square or popular restaurant, and spend the day there. Strike up conversations with people of all ages. Ask questions about the local culture and talk about common interests.