Jared Summitt
Mrs. Pat Homer
English 1102 SI 20332
8 March 2015
A Psychological Look into Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”
In the short story “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid portrays herself as a young African-American girl that is being taught the rights and wrongs of life by her single mother. Despite the accusations that her mother places upon her, the young girl has many other obstacles preventing her from having a better lifestyle. Throughout the story, Kincaid tells about her childhood through the life of the young African-American girl. In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl,” life for young African-American women was psychologically different than it is today.
Poverty plays a major role in the lives of young African-American women in the early 1980s
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and still does in some parts of the world today. Growing up, Jamaica Kincaid did not have very much. As a daughter of a single mother and an oldest sister to three brothers, Kincaid had a great deal of responsibility. This put a great deal of stress on her. Having four children and only one parent caused a majority of the poverty problems because there is not enough income to proficiently provide for the entire family. Being aware of the problem, Jamaica Kincaid took many side jobs growing up, trying to provide as much as she could in order to help support her family. Growing up in a poor home setting can and will mess up anyone psychologically. This is exactly what Kincaid was experiencing. She developed a sense of anxiety. Having no main source of income in her family, Kincaid was simply living day to day, not knowing what was going to happen next. In 1984, there were many single African-American mothers trying to raise their children by themselves, much like numerous amounts of single African-American mothers in present time. Having been the oldest of three other siblings, Kincaid drew an incredible amount of psychological stress from her mother and her entire family. Diane Simmons of Upsala College says, “Readers, like the listening girl, are caught unaware by an admonition which sounds like the previous, benevolent advice but has in fact suddenly veered in a new direction, uniting the contradictions of nurture and condemnation” (4). The mother is trying to force the young girl to become what the mother wants her to be. The mother is not giving her a choice on what she wishes to do, but instead, the mother is somewhat forcing the young girl to become what she wants her to do. Growing up, Kincaid’s mother did the same thing to her. In the majority of her stories, Kincaid talks about a sense of betrayal she has with her mother. Kincaid feels as if her mother brought her to a place of trust with her just to condemn and control her life. Psychologically, single parenthood can have a major effect on a child especially when the family has money problems as well. Kincaid became very depressed with her life. Young African-American women essentially had their whole lives planned out by their mothers because there was only one thing young black women grew up to do during this time.
Throughout the entire story, Kincaid repeats the words “this is how” multiple times. Aside from explaining how to wash clothes and grow crops, the mother explains how the young girl should approach men as well. “This is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up” (105). Her mother even goes to the extent of telling her how to love a man and how a man should love her. This eliminates the ability for the young girl to see what love is for her own self. Jamaica Kincaid has been fascinated by writing her entire life. Growing up, Kincaid’s family did not approve of her desire to write for a living, especially her mother. Kincaid’s mother raised her specifically to grow up and have a family of her own and raise her own children just as she did. Writing was just not what young black women did during this time. As Kincaid grew older, the worse she became psychologically with her mother. Controlling her entire life, her mother somewhat scarred her mentally and psychologically. In her mind, Kincaid only knew of what her mother told her was right and what was wrong and that is what she lived …show more content…
by. African-American mothers were pursuing to change the way they and their children lived and how society viewed their race as a whole from a psychological standpoint. In the short story “Girl”, the mother is constantly making sure the young girl is keeping her distance from any boys she comes in contact with. The mother also explains how the young girl should carry herself as well. “Always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to the wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions” (Kincaid 104). The mother of the young girl is already determined that her daughter is going to grow up to be a slut. In the 1980s, there were many young women having sex and babies at a very young age. The mother was trying to protect her daughter from becoming something she should not by keeping her away from the source of the problem. Kincaid was bombarded by the expectations of her mother and the toughness of poverty her entire life.
Everyone, including her own mother, put Jamaica Kincaid down about what she wanted to do with her life. This put a major mental obstacle in front of her. Her family and society both thought Kincaid should just go through the motions and be what every other young African-American girl was during this time. However, Kincaid had bigger plans for her future. In her late teenage years, Jamaica Kincaid moved to New York in search of work. She became a nanny for a very wealthy family. Little did she know, Kincaid was babysitting for a publisher of a major magazine company. Her long awaited pursuit of a writing career was over. The man got Kincaid’s first article published in the New Yorker magazine. After she got her first article published, Kincaid began to grow in her career, writing many more books and novels. In addition, she was also able to overcome many of her social, mental, and psychological stresses and
disabilities. In conclusion, Jamaica Kincaid shows how young African-American women were brought up when she was young in her short story “Girl.” Although Kincaid grew up in a poor home setting, she was determined to make the best of her life and become much greater than she was expected to be. She beat the expectations of her mother, society, and most of her mental disabilities. Kincaid has developed her own type of writing. “The fact that Kincaid’s work is so frequently its own contradiction may explain the difficulty critics have had in categorizing her” (Simmons 12). Kincaid tells her story of her imminent success through the context of her writing. Jamaica Kincaid was simply a diamond in the rough. Works cited Simmons, Diane. “The Rhythm Of Reality In The Works Of Jamaica Kincaid.” World Literature Today 68.3 (1994): 446. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 Mar. 2015. Soto-Crespo, Ramón E. “Death And The Diaspora Writer: Hybridity And Mourning In The Work Of Jamaica Kincaid.” Contemporary Literature 43.2 (2002): 342-376. Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 5 Mar. 2015. Jamaica, Kincaid. "Girl." LIT. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner & Stephen R. Mandell. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. 104-105. Print.
The black women’s interaction with her oppressive environment during Revolutionary period or the antebellum America was the only way of her survival. Playing her role, and being part of her community that is not always pleasant takes a lot of courage, and optimism for better tomorrow. The autonomy of a slave women still existed even if most of her natural rights were taken. As opposed to her counterparts
In 1492, Christopher Columbus in his quest to validate his claim that the world was round and that it should belong to his Spanish patrons, the king and queen of Spain, set sail on his ship Santa Maria. He soon discovered the “New World”, which was new to him, but not to the Antiguans who lived there. Cultural imperialism was one of the most prominent means Western countries like Spain and Britain used to colonize other parts of the world at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Cambridge dictionary defines cultural imperialism as one “culture of a large and powerful country, organization, etc. having a great influence on other less powerful country.”
Harriet Jacobs, Frances E. W. Harper, and Anna Julia Cooper are three African American female writers who have greatly impacted the progress of "black womanhood." Through their works, they have successfully dispelled the myths created about black women. These myths include two major ideas, the first being that all African American women are perceived as more promiscuous than the average white woman. The second myth is that black women are virtually useless, containing only the capabilities of working in white homes and raising white children. These myths caused these women to be degraded in the eyes of others as well as themselves. In Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harper's Iola Leroy, and Cooper's A Voice From the South, womanhood is defined in ways that have destroyed these myths. As seen through these literary works, womanhood is defined according to one's sexuality, spirituality, beauty, identity, relationships, and motherhood.
and the academic endeavour, to illuminate the experiences of African American women and to theorize from the materiality of their lives to broader issues of political economy, family, representation and transformation” (Mullings, page xi)
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. 2nd Edition. Edited by Pine T. Joslyn. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, INC., 2001.
Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl Essay Educating the North of the dismay of slavery through the use of literature was one strategy that led to the questioning, and ultimately, the destruction of slavery. Therefore, Harriet Jacobs’s narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is very effective in using various tactics in order to get women in the North to pay attention and question the horrifying conditions in the South. By acknowledging that not all slaveholders were inhumane, explaining the horrific abuse and punishments slaves endured, and comparing the manner in which whites and slaves spent their holidays, Jacobs’s narrative serves its purpose of arousing Northern women to take notice of the appalling conditions that tons of Southern slaves continued to endure. When you think of slavery, you think of whites controlling the black and owning them. When reading Incidents of Life as a Slave Girl, think about how she caught the audience’s attention she was trying to inflict and see the depth in meaning of slavery.
In the short story, “Girl,” the narrator describes certain tasks a woman should be responsible for based on the narrator’s culture, time period, and social standing. This story also reflects the coming of age of this girl, her transition into a lady, and shows the age gap between the mother and the daughter. The mother has certain beliefs that she is trying to pass to her daughter for her well-being, but the daughter is confused by this regimented life style. The author, Jamaica Kincaid, uses various tones to show a second person point of view and repetition to demonstrate what these responsibilities felt like, how she had to behave based on her social standing, and how to follow traditional customs.
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
This paper argued that the mother in Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” 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. Kincaid showed that the mother cared and loved her daughter. The mother wants her daughter to know how to run a home and how to keep her life in order to societies standards. Alongside practical advice, the mother instructs her daughter on how to live a fulfilling
Jamaica Kincaid’s success as a writer was not easily attained as she endured struggles of having to often sleep on the floor of her apartment because she could not afford to buy a bed. She described herself as being a struggling writer, who did not know how to write, but sheer determination and a fortunate encounter with the editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn who set the epitome for her writing success. Ms. Kincaid was a West-Indian American writer who was the first writer and the first individual from her island of Antigua to achieve this goal. Her genre of work includes novelists, essayist, and a gardener. Her writing style has been described as having dreamlike repetition, emotional truth and autobiographical underpinnings (Tahree, 2013). Oftentimes her work have been criticized for its anger and simplicity and praised for its keen observation of character, wit and lyrical quality. But according to Ms. Kincaid her writing, which are mostly autobiographical, was an act of saving her life by being able to express herself in words. She used her life experiences and placed them on paper as a way to make sense of her past. Her experience of growing up in a strict single-parent West-Indian home was the motivation for many of her writings. The knowledge we garnered at an early age influenced the choice we make throughout our life and this is no more evident than in the writings of Jamaica Kincaid.
With more education the higher the stature a person has, and with more knowledge a person can understand morality and the way the world works. For this education was denied to African-Americans. This kept African Americans inferior to the white men. This is illustrated by Harriet Ann Jacobs when she said in her book, Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl, “It is the ignorance in which white men compel him to live”, with “him” representing African-American men (68). Although it was illegal for slaves to learn how to read and write, some white mistress and children taught slaves anyway. Thus slaves taught other slaves during their secret meetings. Therefore, it is not surprising that Harriet Ann Jacobs was able to write her story in her book. In addition, Harriet lived a horrifying life that is completely unforgettable to her and those like her. This meaning that it is also not surprising how vivid and detailed her work is. African-Americans were not just property; they were human beings, and human beings have the capability to remember tragic events vividly for long periods of
The Natural Support of African Americans in poverty is to lower food bills in families by cooking instead of buying fast foods. The culture of poverty “is perceived to be a worldview and ethos contributing to poor people staying in poverty.” (Rogers, 131) it is seen as people who are in poverty are the connection of their offspring who seem to also have a difficult time to move up higher in society. “Children learn from their parents that laziness is a way of life, as is receiving food stamps every month; children never gain the motivation to work their way...
This is a personal memoir by Anne Moody written in 1968. It highlights the challenges an African-American woman underwent while growing up in the 20th century. The book covers the author’s life from childhood until her late twenties. It also includes her engagement with the United States Civil Rights Movement. This began while she was a student at Tougaloo College (Moody 255). It provides the authors’ personal evolution and is a symbol of the development of the civil rights movement. The author, born as Essie May Moody in 1940, was brought up in Wilkerson County, a County that was marked with racism and poverty. The economy of her family depended on plantation until the point in which the father deserted them. The mother worked as a maid in
Kincaid likes to write stories similar to her own life. She has wrote many novels and books. She was born in the Caribbean. A lot of her stories are about people that experience similar things she has gone through. She also has written stories about people with similar ethnicity as her. Kincaid wrote in the modernism time period in 1970’s. Jamaica Kincaid likes to write stories similar to her life in the Caribbean because she likes telling people about her life. Jamaica Kincaid’s tone in her stories is often perceived as angry. Kincaid is angry with people in her past and the way things happened. She likes writing stories about her own life. Because she wants people to know how difficult her life was. Her tone is perceived as angry. She is
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shows in society how a woman should be placed and what it means to be a woman. A women doesn’t question her partner, instead she is subservient to him. A woman’s duties include staying at home taking care of the children and cooking; while the man works and brings home the money. A feministic approach to Kincaid’s “Girl” points to the idea of the stereotypes that women can only be what they do in the home, they should only be pure and virtuous, and their main focus should be satisfying their husband.