The Embodiment of Postfeminism through the Aesthetics of Existence in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy

Lucy achieves unity through the protagonist’s persistent rejection of fixed identities and sexualities. It can be seen as a postfeminist novel, as the protagonist seeks to escape her social circumstances rather than focus solely on female postcolonial issues. While Lucy does not disregard social inequalities, it also avoids centering exclusively on sisterhood or postcolonialism, instead exploring the tension between negated subjectivity and feminist attitudes through an aesthetic, disinterested lens. The Foucauldian-Deleuzian framework of aesthetics of existence helps illuminate Lucy’s themes, as the protagonist expresses hysteria, melancholy, resistance, and homosexuality—elements tied to processes like “becoming-woman,” “care of the self,” and “technology of the self.” These reflect a critique of modernity and androcentrism, with postfeminist selfhood portrayed as pluralized and politicized rather than a singular female experience. Lucy’s quest for an aesthetics of existence is rooted in her dual repression—as a woman and a subject in a colonized context—echoing Foucault and Deleuze’s efforts to reclaim freedom from modernity. The novel presents postfeminism as a space where subjectivity’s negation and feminist resistance coexist, integrated through aesthetic expression.