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Importance of academic writing skills
Importance of academic writing skills
Importance of academic writing skills
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Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”
In the short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid it shows a relationship between a more mature mother who has experienced life and a daughter who is a teenager about to go into the world. The mother is telling her daughter how to act to be a productive member of society. The theme in “Girl” suggests that a woman should be domesticated and should act in a certain manner in Antigua in the 1980’s. In my opinion, the mother’s attitude toward her daughter in the story is bitter. The mother is bitter because her daughter has more opportunities than the mother had when she was growing up and the mother does not want her to mess her opportunities up by being promiscuous. The daughter on the other hand is annoyed by the conversation
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because in the conversation the mother instructs the daughter on how to behave in life and never let her speak to defend herself, but twice in the whole dialog. In “Girl” there is no plot. A Plot can be defined as a series of events that make up a story. (Plot) “Girl” does not have a chronological order there is no beginning, middle, or end to conversation and the mother never pause to take a breath. An example, of ethos in the short story “Girl” the mother is qualified to give her daughter advice because she has been a young lady before and she has raised her daughter up to this point so she should know her better than anyone else. The relationship between the mother and the daughter is complicated.
The mother expects a great deal out of her daughter and she does not hesitate to let her know. From the beginning the mother commands her daughter to perform certain task. The mother dictates “wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap." (James) The mother unwillingness to speak gentle or even say please indicate that the mother is not looking to be compassionate in her conversation. The mother is probably only instructing her daughter the only way her mom instructed …show more content…
her. Alongside practical advice, the mother wants her daughter to know how to live a fulfilling life. The mother starts to become a little sympathetic when she begins to talk about relationships her daughter will one day have with men, and warning her that men and women “bully” each other. She wants her to know not all relationships will work. Also, she wants her to know how to behave in different situations, including how to talk with people she doesn’t like. Even though the mother’s advice seems harsh and reprimanding, out of fear that her daughter may be on her way to becoming a “slut”.
She tells the girl, for example, not to squat while playing marbles, not to sing any Antiguan (Benna) folk songs in Sunday school, and to always walk like a lady. The girl wants to interrupt to defend herself, but mother does not let her get much word in edge wise. This is the turning point in the story when the daughter finally speaks up.
Mother then starts to give advice that is less proper. For example, how to spite in the air and how to have an abortion, which is not, words of wisdom you will hear from grandma. During this time it seems as if mom is getting less brash in her conversation.
The “Girl” ends with two phrases, “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?” (James) After, all of the advice the mother has given to the daughter, she still does not get it, and all she wants the daughter to know is to not be a slut and to conform to the standards of Antigua culture so society will respect her. The mother may not sound like the sweetest women in the world, but she is a good mother for wanting to guide her child and protect her in the best way she knows how and I respect that in her and later own in life her daughter may thank her for the
advice.
In the short story, "Girl," by Jamaica Kincaid, the character of the mother can be seen as tyrannical. This oppressive trait of hers is reiterated several times throughout this story. It is first displayed in her initial remarks, rather than asking her daughter to do things, she lists things in a robotic manner, "Wash the white clothes on Monday, wash the colored clothes on Tuesday." Not only is she robotic, but she appears to believe that she has been sent to save her daughter from promiscuity. Her narcissistic viewpoint of being a savior is one that is consistent with that of a tyrant. This perspective is evident through commands such as "try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming." She abuses her parental power
Throughout the story, however, the word girl is constantly used as an insult against her. For example, when a feed salesman comes to the father, the father introduces her as a hired-hand, and the salesman laughs and says, “ ‘Could of fooled me.’ He said ‘I thought it was only a girl.’” The mother also reinforces that she should not be out there when she talks to the father about keeping the girl inside. The narrator sees her mother in a negative light and does not want to become her; she hates housework and describes it as depressing and endless, despite the fact that shortly after she says that the father’s work is “ritualistically important.”
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid is a piece about a mother speaking to her very young daughter who is entering adolescence, advising her very specifically how to behave. Kincaid’s use of tone, repetition, intensity, and perspective help shape the main idea that being a female is nearly impossible and that women have to act a certain way with everything they do, even if they lack integrity with these actions.
“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.
This story in the end is not about butter dishes or old quilts. It is about a woman who has two daughters and is wise enough to know that there is no place for favoritism in her little family. No matter how far one of her daughters has traveled from where she started and no matter how little the other has, her love for both of them will not be weakened by the desire of one of her daughters for something that was promised to the other.
In the poem Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, Kincaid illustrates a conversation between a mother and her daughter, presumably Kincaid and her mother. The mother provides her daughter a series of what to do’s and what not to do’s in just one sentence. “…be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know…” the mother requests in the poem. The poem is more of Kincaid’s mother stating “this is how” and less showing her how to precisely do them. Kincaid’s mother feeds her an abundance of tasks and warnings in hopes of molding her into a proper young lady. The path to growing up can be complex. No wonder Kincaid’s mother is so concerned with Kincaid’s coming of age. She tries to teach Kincaid as much as she is able to using everything she has learned throughout her life, hoping that this would help her daughter as she faces real life. Jamaica Kincaid displays the complex process of growing up.
Unrealistically, the narrator believes that she would be of use to her father more and more as she got older. However, as she grows older, the difference between boys and girls becomes more clear and conflicting to her.
It is said that a girl can often develop some of her mother's characteristics. Although, in their works, Kincaid, Hong Kingston and Davenport depict their protagonists searching for their own identities, yet being influenced in different ways by their mothers. Jamaica Kincaid's poem Girl, is about a young woman coming-of-age receiving helpful advice from her mother. In this poem, Kincaid addresses several issues where a mother's influence is beneficial to a young woman's character. The mother, or speaker, in Girl, offers advice to her daughter- advice that she otherwise would not learn without being told or shown. The mother advises the daughter about everyday tasks, and how to go about them properly (in her opinion).
The story “Girl” takes the form of a series of lessons; the point of the lessons, according to the mother, is to teach her daughter to behave and act properly. Kincaid’s complicated relationship with her mother comes out in the mother-daughter dynamic in the story. The mother mentions practical and helpful advice that will help her daughter keep a house of her own someday and also how to have a life of her own. It can be argued that in Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” that the mother is loving towards her daughter because the mother is taking time to teaching her daughter how to be a woman, and because she wants to protect her in the future from society’s judgment.
The daughter wanted to live a carefree childhood instead following the normalities of society. Before the daughter claimed acceptance of her self-identity, growing up she sought after acceptance from her father. She did this by helping him with work outside in their pen with the foxes which was out of the normal and a responsibility her brother laird a synonym for lord would fulfil once he gets bigger “Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then you’ll have real help (Munro, Alice “Boys and Girls” sussexmiddle.nbed.nb.ca. 1964.). James also faced with some of the same discrepancies the daughter faced throughout the story. James also a carefree young man who wants to live life how he likes is faced with gender traditionalism. With minimal responsibilities in life James is very keen in writing aspirations to one day become a successful author. He too is living in a world where people view the typical man a person with a lot of responsibilities married with children and providing for his family. James mother keeps asking if he and his girlfriend are going to have kids and live a typical life “well, not right now she doesn’t. She’s trying to get her career going, she’s in the same boat as me” (Russell Smith Responsibility, 38) James replied. Both character show that life should be lived on their own
In order to better understand the conflict, first we must define what conformity and self image are in the story “Boys and Girls”. Conformity is action in accordance with prevailing social standards, attitudes, and practices. In the time frame of the story, as well as through much of history, it was the social norm for women to be housemaids, and to rarely venture outside of the house to perform “man’s work”. The narrator however, has a different idea as to about how she wishes to live her life. She does not enjoy “work done in the kitchen” as she finds it tedious and “endless”. She does view the work of her father though as “ritualistically important” and far more interesting. This tomboy state of mind of the girl is part of her self image, defined as the idea, conception, or mental image one has of oneself. Upon reading the story, it is clear that her views come into direct conflict with her parent’s beliefs, and even mainstream society’s. While the protagonist’s self image of herself is a driving factor in the nature of her adventures and leisure, with enough outside pressure it can b...
The short story, Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid, can very easily be related directly to the author’s own life. Kincaid had a close relationship with her mother until her three younger brothers were born. After the birth of her brothers, three major values of her mother became apparent to Kincaid. In turn, Kincaid used the three values of her mother to write the short story, Girl. Specifically, these values led to three themes being formed throughout the story. It appears in the short story that the mother was simply looking out for her daughter; however, in all reality, the mother is worried about so much more. Kincaid uses the themes of negativity towards female sexuality, social norms and stereotypes, and the significant
Lisbon stopped the girls from having a normal life, so did the mother from ‘Girl’. The mother demands that the daughter learn everything she needs to know to be the perfect house wife, this forces her to grow up a lot faster than she should. The daughter in ‘Girl’ was taught to how to wash clothes, how to act and public and how to act and look to attract a good man. Kincaid writes “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; This is how you smile at someone you like completely; this is how to love a man (Kincaid 444). By teaching things like this the mother was keeping her daughter submissive so she would never be able to live a normal life on her own cause she would need a man to provide for her instead of being independent.
The young girl in the story is struggling with finding her own gender identity. She would much rather work alongside her father, who was “tirelessly inventive” (Munro 328), than stay and work with her mother in the kitchen, depicted through, “As soon as I was done I ran out of the house, trying to get out of earshot before my mother thought of what to do next” (329). The girl is torn between what her duties are suppose to be as a woman, and what she would rather be doing, which is work with her father. She sees her father’s work as important and worthwhile, while she sees her mother’s work as tedious and not meaningful. Although she knows her duties as a woman and what her mother expects of her, she would like to break the mould and become more like her father. It is evident that she likes to please her father in the work she does for him when her father says to the feed salesman, “Like to have you meet my new hired man.” I turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (328-329). Even though the young girl is fixed on what she wants, she has influences from both genders i...
This quote indicates that the Mom has used her child for everything that is not neccesary like decorating the cookies, picking the flowers. This can really shape a bad perspective on the parents because they are using her as a slave. This indicates the tension that could happen at the end. Either she starts to ignore her parents word and become a rebel, or she could behave the same way. All these chores have created a perspective of her parents and how they ask for too much.