earticle

영어

This study aims to analyze Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy by drawing on Foucault’s concept of the aesthetics of existence, which views life as a self-constructed work of art. Lucy is a story about a black Caribbean woman of the same name, who spends a year in the US as an ‘au pair’. This paper examines Lucy’s journey of self-formation and her search for freedom based on Foucault’s concepts of self-care, conversion, and counter-conduct. Lucy is trapped in a state of subordination between her mother, who represents the colonial education and patriarchal values of her Caribbean homeland, and Mariah, Lucy’s employer and adoptive mother who represents second-wave feminism. However, Lucy demonstrates the aesthetics of existence in which she builds herself from a subordinate to an active subject through self-care.