The Oriental Other (Jew, Muslim, Christian) in Jamaica Kincaid's Mr. Potter

Abstract:In Mr. Potter (2002), Jamaica Kincaid brilliantly shows the invisibility of the Jews in the multiethnic fabric of Creole society. Kincaid, who converted to Judaism in 1993, painstakingly makes clear that not only does the Afro-Caribbean majority ignore the "strangers" in their midst, but that the exiled post-Shoah migrants in these communities have difficulties making themselves feel at home in their new environments. While Mr. Potter has been read as an autobiographical text about Kincaid's own father, the eponymous Mr. Potter, two characters may have Jewish origins. First, and quite obviously, Dr. Weizenger, a physician who migrated from Czechoslovakia; second, Mr. Shoul, a man whose parents came from Damascus. I read behind Shoul the Mizrahi (Arab Jew) or the Oriental Jew (in line with the "Calypso Jews" of Sarah Phillips Casteel's 2016 book). The latter are designated in the French Antilles as "Syrians," which is a misnomer for people whose Jewish (or Christian, or Muslim) origins have possibly been erased over time. Through Kincaid's novel, I question not only the invisible links between the Afro-Caribbean and Jewish victims of genocidal violence, but also the disinterest of prominent French Caribbean intellectuals who fail to think beyond the camps. By "camp thinking," as used in his 2004 book Between Camps, Gilroy means the racial, national, cultural, and religious camps in which we live, suggesting we should move out of these camps.