Most teenagers go through a period where they believe their parents are too overbearing and strict with them. While this is a normal feeling to occasionally experience growing up, the novel Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid reveals the intense plight of an overbearing parent. Through the novel, we follow the protagonist's escape from this difficult situation and the miserable life she is living. Lucy decides to start a new life in America, away from her family and friends, and we read the cyclical tale of her experience in her new home. Lucy's ambition to create a new, independent life in America stems from her need to overcome her melancholy past growing up, yet this desire affects her ability to form bonds with the people she meets. Lucy's toxic relationship with her mother is one of the main reasons she needed to create such an independent life for herself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Although it is clear that Lucy knew that her mother loved her, she saw this love as a burden. When Lucy describes her mother's love she says, “I had come to feel that my mother's love for me was designed solely to turn me into an echo of her; and I didn't know why, but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just someone's echo. (Kincaid 40). He then follows this statement by saying, “Thoughts like these had led me to sit on the shore of a Great Lake with a woman who wanted to show me her world” (Kincaid 40). Through these quotes we see that Lucy hated the fact that her mother wanted her to be just like her. She also hated that her mother couldn't understand why Lucy didn't want to be exactly like her, and that was what drove her away. Of course we can see through the novel that Lucy never hated her mother, in fact, deep down she truly loved her. This can be seen when Lucy says: “I heard sounds in our house that made me certain that my mother had died and that the undertaker had come to take her body away. Every morning, when I saw his face again, I trembled inside with joy." (Kincaid 102). Although we can see that Lucy loved her mother, she believed that admitting it to herself would lead to her turning into her mother altogether, and she would never be the independent woman she longed to be. As you can see, during Lucy's upbringing, her mother was very domineering. This causes Lucy to want to live an extremely independent life, which leads her to become emotionally detached from all other people. On the other hand, Lucy does not allow herself to become emotionally attached to the men she meets due to her need to be independent. This idea can be seen in her relationship with Hugh. She repeatedly says that she is not in love with Hugh and that being in love would "complicate her life". She states conspicuously, “I was only free for six months from some nearly indestructible bonds, and it was not in my heart to create new ones.” (Kincaid 76). Here she clearly states that she has no desire to create new bonds with others because she is finally free from the old ones. Lucy's desire for independence is what has prevented her from forming an emotional rather than purely sexual relationship. We can also see this need for autonomy in her relationship with Paul. Describing a photo Paul gave her, she says: “I was naked from the waist up; a piece of cloth, wrapped around me, covered me from the waist down. That was the moment he got the idea of ​​possessing me in a certain way, and that was the moment I got tired of him” (Kincaid 169). Once again. 1990.