Abstract
Although The Jamaica Lady belongs to the imperial romance discourse, it affords insight into configurations of identity within the eighteenth-century Jamaican space that fits into the wider discourse on the romance of identity with which I am concerned. The Jamaica Lady is one of the earliest novels which invests in the representation of women’s sexuality and its affinity to the West Indian space. Its examination allows for an understanding of how women’s sexual effrontery and passivity increasingly begin encoding ideas of otherness and identity. The Jamaica Lady also brings into prominence issues of language and voice by entwining speech and silence with women’s sexual and social powers or lack of them. Importantly, this novel engages the relationship between the romance and otherness and their impact on shaping social control through power over the female body.