Sexually speaking, the character in “Autobiogrphy of My Mother”, Xuela, seems D.D. to me – developmentally disabled. Xuela’s particular sort of child-like and open enjoyment of her body, combined with neutral or clueless openess to men as sexual partners, is a fairly common trait among DD women, in my limited experience. In other ways Xuela seems very mentally advanced, mostly in the ways she sees and the words she uses to describe her world. She attends school throughout her childhood and she talks about learning about the British and Europeans. She also has an innate, almost instinctual wisdom – she is a visionary, she’s psychic.

Kincaid implies that the post-colonial experience created a character like Xuela, or maybe that simply having no mothering, no bonding as a baby, creates this starkly simple and complex woman. Trauma and hard times can certainly push people into depression and manic/depression. How much is Xuela “retarded” by her life and at what points?