"Caribbean literatures can claim a unique identity: they are one yet made of many, escaping easy categorization. But, to return to Kincaid, there is a way in which the Caribbean, in academic discourse, has become part of a larger picture which Caribbean inhabitants may not claim or recognize. At issue here is the extent to which academic discourse answers to the people of the region or ignores them." (author)
"[Thomas] Sutpen launches his design with that obliviousness that is American innocence. Once on Haiti, Sutpen disregards the manifest evidence of impending 'slave' revolt and hybrid racial ancestries. Sutpen's famously preserved innocence amounts to the habit of looking without seeing." (author)