本論文將安提瓜小說家牙買加•金凱德的三本以母女關係為主軸的半自傳體小說:《安妮•強的烈焰青春》、《露西》、《我母親的自傳》視為一個整體的書寫計劃。透過持續書寫,此計劃試圖在加勒比海地區複雜的殖民地文化遺緒中,重新建構加勒比海女性主體。借用莉葉•吉爾慕(Leigh Gilmore)的「連續自傳體」概念,我將此三個文本視為兩階段式的三部曲。首先,第一階段從《安妮•強的烈焰青春》到《露西》的書寫中,金凱德理解到,加勒比海地區常見的緊張母女關係,不僅在個人層次上限制當代女性自我的發展,更在集體層次上象徵父權--殖民體制對加勒比海母土的宰制。而第二階段,在《我母親的自傳》一書中,金凱德嘗試透過重寫母系歷史,重新解讀上述源於歷史的宰制。她提出異於官方版本的「反歷史」,書寫一位出生就喪母、成長後更選擇墮胎的女性生命敘事。此位「母親角色」雖在生理上不育,象徵殖民暴力的終結;在文化上,她卻具開創性,因而成為跨種族、地域與世代界限的母親形象。
My thesis reads Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid's three semi-autobiographical novels on mother-daughter relationship, Annie John, Lucy and The Autobiography of My Mother as three separate endeavors of a larger literary project that aims to re-construct a female Caribbean subjectivity against the confusing cultural heritages of the colonial Caribbean region. In light of Leigh Gilmore's concept of "serial autobiography," I argue that these three texts taken together form a trilogy in two stages. First, from Annie John to Lucy, Kincaid comes to realize the typically intensive Caribbean mother-daughter relationship that obstructs contemporary Caribbean women's subject development is emblematic of the patriarchal-colonial domination over the Caribbean motherland. Second, in The Autobiography of My Mother, Kincaid ventures to re-address the historical condition of domination by re-writing maternal history. With the life story of a motherless female protagonist who chooses to abort her child, Kincaid proposes a counterhistory to the official history, in which the mother is biologically unproductive, symbolizing the end of colonial violence, yet becomes culturally generative as a maternal figure across ethnic, geographical, and generational boundaries.