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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Walk to the Jetty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender and Autonomy
Coming of Age
Colonialism and Culture
Mother-Daughter Relationships
Summary
Analysis
Seventeen-year-old Annie John wakes up in her family’s home in Antigua. In a few hours, she will board a ship to Barbados, which will take her to another ship bound for England, where she will study to become a nurse. Although Annie does not actually want to live in England or be a nurse, she is eager to leave her current life behind and to never again hear the sounds of her mother getting ready in the morning. Annie notes that her room, which she has lived in for 13 years, is full of familiar belongings and memories that once brought her happiness, but she hopes to never return.
Annie John’s age and upcoming move from Antigua to England clue the reader in to the importance of this moment in Annie’s life. No longer a child but not quite a woman, Annie is on the verge of experiencing significant life changes as she navigates the transition into early adulthood. It is important to note that Annie’s cynical view of her current life and her readiness to leave Antigua come from a sense of restriction and confinement. Although Annie’s emotions may initially read as teenage angst, her willingness to move across the world and pursue a career she doesn’t fully want (as long as she can leave Antigua) points to more complicated inner turmoil.
Active
Themes
Annie reflects on her parents’ relationship and vows to never marry. Annie’s mother, Mrs. Annie John, is 35 years younger than her husband, Alexander, whom she now takes care of from morning to night. Alexander has grown sickly in his old age yet prefers drinking concoctions of boiled herbs and bark to taking medicine. Annie thinks of how her parents have made everything in their family home—and gave her life, as well. However, she cannot help but view herself as separate from her parents. Annie believes that while she has changed and grown, her parents have remained “just the same,” and she no longer sees or loves them as she once did. Her mother, in particular, strikes Annie as a hypocrite because she swore she could not live without her daughter but arranged Annie’s move to England.
Mrs. Annie John’s dynamic with her husband Alexander represents a traditionally patriarchal relationship in Antiguan society. While Mrs. Annie’s dedication to looking after her sick husband conveys her love for him, Annie—and the reader—cannot ignore that Mrs. Annie’s life now revolves around what is best for her husband, causing her to deprioritize her own desires. As a teenage girl, Annie looks to her mother as an example of womanhood but finds that her mother’s familial values do not align with her own. Altogether, the disconnect and frustration that Annie feels toward her mother makes her feel isolated in her own home—and as though she must move away to experience freedom and explore alternate versions of womanhood.
Active
Themes
After a church bell strikes seven, Annie rises to prepare for her big day. She notices that her underclothes emit a strange odor because her mother sent them, along with her jewelry, to an obeah woman who has cast some sort of enchantment to protect her from evil spirits and misfortune. Annie dresses herself in clothes her mother has ironed, and a woman named Miss Cornelia assists Annie with flattening her hair so that her hat will properly fit.
Active
Themes
Annie shares a big “Sunday breakfast” with her parents, complete with “special Sunday bread” from their baker. Mrs. Annie and Alexander speak to Annie excitedly, but Annie cannot help but focus on the horse- and donkey-like noises her parents make as they chew. Mrs. Annie tells her daughter that they won’t be surprised if she soon writes home with plans for marriage, and Annie accidentally exclaims, “How absurd!” Although Annie’s parents momentarily stop eating, they do not respond to her comment.
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Mrs. Annie’s friends stop by to say goodbye to Annie and offer blessings. Although Annie responds politely and with outward joy, her body “ache[s]” at acting with such falseness. As Annie says goodbye to her former friend Gwen, with whom she is no longer close, she finds Gwen embarrassing and like a giggly “schoolgirl” and forces herself not to ask Gwen why she behaves “like such a monkey.” Gwen reveals that she expects to soon marry a boy to whom she is “more or less” engaged, and Annie sarcastically wishes her well, though Gwen does not pick up on her tone.
At 10 o’clock, Annie and her parents set off for the jetty. As they walk through town, they pass a seamstress’s home, the road to church and school, the doll store, the library, and other places Annie frequented in her youth. She remembers the first time her mother sent her alone to the shop to buy senna and eucalyptus leaves and camphor. She remembers the time her mother ended her friendship with a girl after discovering that she and Annie played together when the girl had mumps. As Annie reminisces on old memories, she begins to feel as if she is “in a dream” and cannot feel her body.
Active
Themes
When Annie and her parents arrive at the jetty, Annie feels overcome by an old fear of “slipping between the boards of the jetty” and drowning in the water, where eels live. Realizing that she is about to leave behind everything she knows, Annie finds that she does not know whether to feel happy or sad and feels only trapped. As Annie’s parents accompany her in a line of people waiting to board the ship, Annie cannot help but lament that she will never see these familiar sights again or smell the familiar scents of her hometown.
The captain of the ship asks Annie and her parents to say their goodbyes quickly. Alexander kisses Annie goodbye and looks as though he is about to say something but ultimately doesn’t. Mrs. Annie begins to cry, and Annie finds herself crying, too. When Mrs. Annie hugs her daughter, Annie feels trapped and becomes suddenly suspicious of her mother, but Mrs. Annie reminds her that she will “‘always be [her] mother and [Antigua] will always be [her] home.’” They part from one another, and Annie waves a final goodbye after spotting her mother in the crowd of people watching the ship. Upon going to her cabin, she listens to the sound of waves against the ship.
