“At the Bottom of the River” is a short story by Jamaica Kincaid, first published in the short story collection At the Bottom of the River in 1983, that deals with themes of Death and How It Impacts Life, Forming One’s Own Identity, and Finding Purpose Despite Life’s Seeming Futility. Born in St. John’s, Antigua, in 1949, Kincaid’s stories and novels often explore the search for identity amid movement and relocation, and they are often connected to her own experiences or the experiences of other members of the African Diaspora. Her work has raised the profile of Antiguan writing—and Caribbean writing more broadly—in her effort to give voice to a people whose history is rooted in the upheaval and relocation of millions during and after the slave trade. Specifically, her works such as this story and her novels, Annie John (1985) and Lucy (1990), explore the notion of female identity, growth, and development. At the Bottom of the River won the Morten Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Kincaid has won other awards including the Paris Review’s Hadada Award in 2022.

This guide refers to the version of the text published by Plume Contemporary Fiction in 1992 in the collection At the Bottom of the River.

“At the Bottom of the River” alternates between an omniscient third-person point of view and a first-person narrator who explores not only her own thoughts and feelings but often references time and space in ways that go beyond the knowledge of a typical first-person narrator. In this way, aspects of magical realism as well as a biblical and poetic tone are created in the text.

The story opens with a description of the setting, specifically the area through which a river flows. This river is described in both concrete terms—a “fast, flowing body of water [that] falls over a ledge with a roar” (62)—as well as more abstract ideas, stating that the river is “flowing perilously, having only a deep ambition to see itself mighty and powerful” (62).

The story then transitions to the description of an unnamed man, who, having completed his work, seems contented by what he has accomplished. He examines his home, books, food storage, and his wife and child. However, the man’s feelings as described by the narrator devolve as he begins to recognize the repetitive nature of his work and, ultimately, its futility.

The text then shifts from a third-person perspective describing the man’s experiences to a first-person perspective: A woman with memories of her childhood and a home. The text implies that the narrator is the child who greets the man in the first section and that man is her father. Like her father, the narrator is also preoccupied with death, describing how “[d]ead lay everything that had lived and dead also lay everything that would live” (68). This is something against which she struggles, much like her father. Despite this, the narrator makes it clear that it isn’t the knowledge of death that troubles her but rather the fact that she is powerless to stop it.

The narrator then describes a parable of a small creature who lived in a mound in the earth and hunted a honeybee. However, upon attacking the honeybee, the creature is stung and suffers pain “so unbearably delicious that never did this creature hunt a honeybee again” (70). From this moment the creature is always near its mound, wearing down the earth around its home and living in both the pain and pleasure of memory. The narrator tells this parable and remembers the creature, wishing to build a monument to it.

Upon reflection, the narrator contemplates the idea that death is just natural, as her father once said to her. She sees things like trees, birds, and the sea as natural, but not death because it can’t be seen or examined in everyday life. Instead, she settles on the idea that death is “like the earth spinning on its invisible axis” (72), something that occurs but cannot truly be grasped or understood. In comparison, she considers the idea of a worm, almost eaten by a bird, that is then shot by a boy with a gun. All three will experience death, but due to the boy’s consciousness, actions, and impact on the world, “his ends are numberless” (73).

Her ruminations continue in the next section as she remembers her childhood and the beauty she saw in her mother. Her mother’s lips, nose, and even her earlobes were a beauty that she worshipped. She gave her mother love and adoration and received the same in return. The narrator considers her view of life as a child as that of an endless hymn, sung in rounds, to an end she could not see and therefore had no trouble appreciating and loving, only to move on.

The narrative shifts from reminiscence and contemplation to the more concrete act of approaching the mouth of the river. Looking into the river, she sees the concrete structure of a house—four walls, four windows, and a roof—and a perfectly groomed lawn stretching out from it, where it connects to perfectly shaped pebbles with wildflowers at the border between the two. A woman appears at the door of the home, without clothes, and walks to the point where the grass ends and the pebbles begin.

The narrator then acknowledges that the light of both the sun and the moon are present at the same time, lighting up everything while casting no shadows. Here, nothing can be hidden, and everything is truly what it is—not merely a representation or reflection of life, but life itself. Because nothing here has been touched by human hands or quantified, it also exists in true beauty without death. Through it all the narrator truly desires to be there.

The narrator looks back at the riverbank and sees herself as she truly is before entering the sea. She sees nothing living and feels a detachment from herself, becoming a mind with no consciousness. She experiences a rebirth, becoming something beyond humanity, unexplainable in human terms but also beautiful.

In the final section of the story, the narrator emerges from the river and enters a room that is lit by a lamp. She sees the room’s contents, including a chair, a table, a pen, and some books. Having entered the river and returned, she acknowledges that she has been made anew and now finds herself “bound up […] to all that is human endeavor” (82). As the story ends, she acknowledges and claims all of these things for herself and feels herself grow complete, her “name filling up [her] mouth” (82).