In her book "Naming is Owning", the author, Jamaica Kincaid, vilifies the possessive mentality that has captured the mind human for centuries. While denigrating this class of conquerors, Kincaid links human conquest to our dominant relationship over nature. She then acknowledges her participation in the course by recognizing herself as a garden owner. On a deeper level, she struggles with this identity. How does she negotiate between her intrinsic desire for property and the necessary respect for what she owns? How important is this negotiation? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay She begins her critique of this conquering class with an example of the human right to the environment, allowing us to understand the conquest in the context of gardening. Kincaid selects a passage from Henry James's Portrait of a Lady. Rich in diction, it describes a life of comfort through the environment. The “little parties” (114), the “splendid afternoons” (114), and the “floods of summer light” (114) communicate a sense of entitlement to the beauty and graces of nature. Kincaid later expands on this by describing the passage as something that "could only have been written by someone coming from a place where the wealth of the world is like skin, a natural part of the body..." (116). The excerpt continues to describe the extreme privilege of its author. The “beech trees [which] cast a shadow as dense as that of a velvet curtain” (115) and the forest which seemed to be “furnished… with upholstered seats, richly colored rugs, [and] with books and papers lying on the grass” (115) reflect not only an unusual level of comfort, but also a sense of ownership over the forest. Henry James's passage does not describe nature through its beauty, but rather evaluates nature strictly through its material value. Additionally, Kincaid's choice to include the aforementioned quotes from another source seems to imply that his position on the conquest is objective. By making his position appear objective and universal, Kincaid extends his philosophy with us. The passage also serves as a paradigm for the problem she addresses. The excerpt from The Portrait of a Lady convinces us that as a society we tend to take ownership of the environment around us. Kincaid then argues that, in order to cement our possession of this environment, we use the naming mechanism as a construct. She introduces us to the cocoxochitl, an Aztec flower recognized for its intrinsic value. In this case, the Aztecs did not name it to assert some sort of ownership over it, but rather, it "seems to have been valued and cultivated for its own sake and for its medicinal value" (118). The name itself refers to the flower's ability to treat urinary tract disorders. This relationship is pure and respectful, favoring a mutual existence with the environment rather than an oppressive existence. The author then juxtaposes this with the European practice of naming – a more possessive and territorial tool. After Europeans conquered the Aztecs, they renamed cocoxochitl dahlia. This effectively served as a “murder, an erasure” (122) of the history and value that the flower once held. This new name, dahlia, became a recognition of the conquerors who took the territory. The name comes from Andrew Dahl, a botanist who hybridized the plant. The dahlia has simply become “one of the details, a small detail, of something great and sinister: the conquest” (118). The flower has become an object other than its ownerscould possess. This example juxtaposes the naming customs of two civilizations to clarify the possessive nature of this construction. The author continues to vilify the possessive nature of humanity as we return to conquest in the context of gardening. Kincaid remembers a flower she saw in the mountains of her native country. She describes them in colorful, vivid words – as “tall stalks of red flame” (119). Yet these flowers reminded her of a weaker variant she had seen in North American gardens. She “can’t stand” (119) this duller and “dwarf” version (119). This anecdote supports Kincaid's stance against conquest and reinforces his apparent view that native flowers should not be exported to other places for the purpose of "just going out and taking for [oneself] someone's beauty." another” (119). Gardening has become an extension of human domination. Today, gardening has become a manifestation of humanity's toxic desire for conquest and power. Kincaid takes us back to the memory of a British-owned botanical garden in his home country, Antigua. The conquerors of Antigua used the garden to cultivate foreign plants without showing any interest in plants native to their country. She claims that this is the reason for her ignorance of Antiguan botany. The British Botanic Garden was but one manifestation of its scale and scope as an imperial titan. More importantly, these gardens “reinforced for [the author] the power of the people who had conquered it” (120). This proves that the conquest had achieved its goal with its conquerors; they had established themselves as an authority capable of building up and crushing their subjects at will. It is this conqueror-conquered dynamic that Kincaid laments, and it appears most often through human interaction with nature – most notably in our gardens. These scathing criticisms seem almost hypocritical since she has a garden herself. Fittingly, Kincaid reflects an element of disgust in her hobby as she pictures herself gardening. Describing herself as "covered in dirt, smelling of dung [and] speckled with white dust" (121), she recognizes that "in the place [from which she came], [she] would be a picture of shame" (121 ). . The images she creates show how others back home might treat her with contempt for her conquest of gardening in a style so similar to that of Imperial Britain. However, she then addresses her own views on her practices. She shows her personal approval of his conquest in gardening by describing “her body [as] a cauldron of odors that pleases him” (121). His approval of his own gardening seems strange and even hypocritical. Here she begins her time in this group, despite her condemnation of other historical conquerors. When the author finally reflects on her own experience of gardening, her tone and diction reflect a wonder and awe that seem to diminish her power as a conqueror. The image of her, "seated at a window that overlooked [her] own garden" (122) reflects a kind of fascination that is not only very different from the desire for power of a typical conqueror, but also reflects the genre of innocence and purity that defined the Aztecs' mutual relationship with nature. She delights in the fact that when you “put things (plants) together, you never really know how it will all work until they do something, like flower” (122). Kincaid reflects an organic curiosity about the beauty of nature and relinquishes his control over the plants in his garden. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get now..