An Evolving Relationship in The Circling Hand
An evolving mother-daughter relationship is the focus of Jamaica Kincaid s autobiographical The Circling Hand. Like the narrator, Kincaid grew up in Antigua as the only child her mother and carpenter father. Also like the narrator, Kincaid admits her mother kept everything she ever wore. This narrative is a coming of age story, in which this dynamic and unusual mother-daughter relationship plays an important role. Through the beginning bliss of childhood to the frustrating stage of adolescence, this unique relationship, in which the daughter is infatuated with her mother, seems to control the narrator s development as a freethinking person.
It is easily inferred that the narrator sees her mother as extremely beautiful. She even sits and thinks about it in class. She describes her mother s head as if it should be on a sixpence, (Kincaid 807). She stares at her mother s long neck and hair and glorifies virtually every feature. The narrator even makes reference to the fact that many women had loved her father, but he chose her regal mother. This heightens her mother s stature in the narrator s eyes. Through her thorough description of her mother s beauty, the narrator conveys her obsession with every detail of her mother. Although the narrator s adoration for her mother s physical appearance is vast, the longing to be like her and be with her is even greater.
The narrator spends her young childhood drunk with love for her mother. She happily sleeps late on school holidays, follows her mother ar...
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...tionship has completely evolved and the narrator somewhat comes into her own a natural and inevitable process.
As a result of the freshly severed apron strings, while at her new school, the narrator starts to love a new friend named Gwen. When she shares her day with her mother and does not mention her new - found love, this is her young mind s way of saying You have your life and I have mine and I don t have to tell you about it. While the mother daughter relationship still exist, the narrator forms another relationship, making her less dependant on the first. The evolution of adolescence is the theme of the story, but the transformation of the mother daughter relationship proves to be the most drastic change the narrator goes through at an age revolved around change.
In 1903, the U.S. published the Platt Amendment, which was a set of guidelines for Cuba to follow (Blight 165). The Platt amendment was named after Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut. The U.S. had been occupying Cuba since the Spanish American war in 1898, and Cuba wanted them out, so the U.S. set up eight rules for Cuba to agree to before the U.S. would leave them alone to establish and run their government (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/). The first three articles of the Platt Amendment can be seen after this paper. Americans and Cubans seemed to have a different approach to the Platt Amendment:
...ther is losing her daughter to time and circumstance. The mother can no longer apply the word “my” when referring to the daughter for the daughter has become her own person. This realization is a frightening one to the mother who then quickly dives back into her surreal vision of the daughter now being a new enemy in a world already filled with evils. In this way it is easier for the mother to acknowledge the daughter as a threat rather than a loss. However, this is an issue that Olds has carefully layered beneath images of war, weapons, and haircuts.
3.?Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other held a lamp. The light on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its rings of crimping-pins. To Ethan, s...
The United States embargo of Cuba has its roots planted in 1960, 53 years ago, when “the United States Congress authorized President Eisenhower to cut off the yearly quota of sugar to be imported from Cuba under the Sugar act of 1948… by 95 percent” (Hass 1998, 37). This was done in response to a growing number of anti-American developments during the height of the cold war, including the “expropriation of United States-owned properties on the island… [and] the Soviet Union [agreeing] to purchase sugar from Cuba and to supply Cuba with crude oil” (Hass 1998, 37). Bad sentiments continued to pile up as Cuba imposed restrictions on the United States Embassy and especially when, after the United States “officially broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba, and travel by United States citizens to Cuba was forbidden ... Castro openly proclaimed his revolution to be ‘socialist’” (Hass 1998, 38). The day after this, the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, but it failed in its job to topple Castro (Hass 1998, 38). Left with no diplomatic options and a failed military attempt, the United States decided that the only way to end Castro’s socialist regime was to sever all ties, and from 1961 to 1996, a series of acts were passed prohibiting the majority of trade and interaction with Cuba. (Hass 1998, 38).
...cts of the mother and the descriptions, which are presented to us from her, are very conclusive and need to be further examined to draw out any further conclusions on how she ?really? felt. The mother-daughter relationship between the narrator and her daughter bring up many questions as to their exact connection. At times it seems strong, as when the narrator is relating her childhood and recounting the good times. Other times it is very strained. All in all the connection between the two seems to be a very real and lifelike account of an actual mother-daughter relationship.
This story speaks of a married woman who fell in love with a man who was not her husband. She bore this man a child and realized that she could not live without him. In the event, she decides to leave her husband to be with the child’s father. However, there is only one problem and that is that she has two other children by her husband. She has a daughter who is 9 years old and is very mature for her age, and a darling son who is 5 years old. As she leaves to restart her life again with this other man, the 5 year old son is left behind to stay with his dad, and the little girl is tragically killed by a pack of wolves. The little boy is devastated by his mom’s decision to leave him behind. He is constantly haunted by dreams and images that come to his mind surrounding his mother’s...
The daughter alludes to an idea that her mother was also judged harshly and made to feel ashamed. By the daughters ability to see through her mothers flaws and recognize that she was as wounded as the child was, there is sense of freedom for both when the daughter find her true self. Line such as “your nightmare of weakness,” and I learned from you to define myself through your denials,” present the idea that the mother was never able to defeat those that held her captive or she denied her chance to break free. The daughter moments of personal epiphany is a victory with the mother because it breaks a chain of self-loathing or hatred. There is pride and love for the women they truly were and is to be celebrated for mother and daughter.
The nation of Cuba has been at odds with the United States since Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959. The United States embargo and sanction on Cuba stems from the fact that the United States will not tolerate Communist governments and "the most important objective of the Cuban government is to remain in power at all costs," says Felix Martin, a professor at Florida’s Cuban Research Institute. The conflict and reason for why the embargo has stayed intact over the years can be summarized in three major points of dissent: Human rights violations, Guantanamo Bay, and the Cuban exile community.
She always getting into a fight with her mother all the time about her beauty, because she has a habit of looking at herself in the mirror wherever she found one, “…she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into the mirror or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was alright.” (126). Moreover, her mother always compares her with her sister, June, which makes she feel even more hatred toward her mother, “Why don’t you clean your room like your sister? How’ve you got your hair fixed – what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk.” (126). Her mother, whenever she gossips on the phone with her aunties. They always admire June over her, “June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked, and Connie couldn’t do a thing, her minded was all filled with trashy daydreams.” (126). To them, June is always the best, because she is good at almost everything and Connie cannot do anything right. Therefore, when Connie’s mother says something or complaint about her beauty, she rolls her eyeballs and wishes that her mother was
she was pretty and that was everything” (225). This captivation with herself along with the constant looking in the mirrors and thinking her mother was only pestering her all the time because her mother’s own good looks were long gone by now (225) shows a sign of immaturity because she believes everything revolves around whether or not someo...
Adèle Ratignolle uses art to beautify her home. Madame Ratignolle represents the ideal mother-woman (Bloom 119). Her chief concerns and interests are for her husband and children. She was society’s model of a woman’s role. Madame Ratignolle’s purpose for playing the pia...
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
“Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid is essentially a set of instructions given by an adult, who is assumed to be the mother of the girl, who is laying out the rules of womanhood, in Caribbean society, as expected by the daughter’s gender. These instructions set out by the mother are related to topics including household chores, manners, cooking, social conduct, and relationships. The reader may see these instructions as demanding, but these are a mother’s attempt, out of care for the daughter, to help the daughter to grow up properly. The daughter does not appear to have yet reached adolescence, however, her mother believes that her current behavior will lead her to a life of promiscuity. The mother postulates that her daughter can be saved from a life of promiscuity and ruin by having domestic knowledge that would, in turn also, empower her as a productive member in their community and the head of her future household. This is because the mother assumes that a woman’s reputation and respectability predisposes the quality of a woman’s life in the community.
The factual nature of God (given that He exists as the First Cause) is at all times argued by most Christians. Moreover numerous questions arise on the nature of God. We all know that, at some point we will actually die; yet, we consistently refuse the causes operating within ourselves that looks into the real result of what comes after a person loses his or her life. It is far simpler for humankind to agree that, they will depart to a secure home in Heaven and will be pardoned all their sins by a supreme being, rather than to query on the existence of the extremely all-powerful being. Luckily, some of us usually query this existence and the development of humankind; in addition to, the spiritual lessons obtained from our mothers and fathers, community and religion. This essay investigates the two logical justifications for and against the nature of God; in accordance to opinions of some exceptional researchers and philosophers. Through two classical arguments for God; the ontological argument and the teleological argument, I will show that there is no adequate evidence or extensive justifications for the true nature of God.
The persuasive attempts in both literary works produce different results. The effectiveness of the mother’s guidance to her daughter is questioned since the girl cannot recognize the essence of her mother’s lesson. Despite that, the mother’s beneficial instruction serves as a standard for the daughter to reflect her future behaviors in order to live up to the community’s expectations. On the other hand, Anne’s value of candid expression and lasting relationship dissuades her from obliging to her family’s meaningless duty to place her love and interest above to experience fulfillment in life.