Hide the Crazy, and Be a Lady
In today’s patriarchal society, women are held to extremely high standards, and expected to be nothing less (or more) than what man says they are to be. “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, uses one long sentence of conversation between a mother and her daughter, putting in to prospective how society has given women specific roles, showing their inferiority to men. In this text, Kincaid conveys the domestic roles of women through a long and detailed sentence which mirrors how women are provided for, must maintain being a “lady”, and how they’re compared to men in the man’s society today.
To fulfill domestic duties, and to decrease the behaviors that do not cohere with the notions placed upon women is a huge point made in “Girl”. The mother in the story tells the daughter “this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease…” along with many other “How to’s” for domestic duties. This small part is just one thing on the lengthy list of duties that society says the girl has to be responsible for. Essentially, the idea
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Kincaid is putting into the mind of the readers is that women have so many domestic responsibilities that there is no time to ever try and pursue an education. Since this is the case, a woman must depend on her man to provide for her. That is why the mother in the text lectures the girl on “how to love a man...” (Kincaid, 55). Women have mastered the art of manipulation to survive in the Man’s world they live in. Essentially without men, women are impotent. In the text as well as in our society, if women do not behave like ladies than they are immediately thought of as less. It is clear that the mother is sure her daughter will turn in to a “slut” (55), without her guidance. Therefore the girl is instructed several times to be a lady “and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming” (55). The mother accusing her daughter of becoming a slut is to help stress that it is absolutely vital women act like ladies in order to shine in society. To be the ideal lady, one must wash, dry, cook, sweep, clean, and know “how to smile at someone you don’t like at all” (55). To say the least, women are expected to give off the impression they are always polite and put together, and never for any reason expose how they really feel. Women are basically expected to be anything, but themselves. When the mother advises her daughter to never “squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy” (55), Kincaid is giving the message to the reader that society holds boys and girls to different standards.
Even though the girl is still quite young, the mother desperately tries to put it into her daughter’s head that she will not be any less than the high expectations society has already set for her. In our society, women are discriminated against when it comes to sports. Generally, men do not believe that women will ever be as good as them athletically. Therefore, women’s sports are not talked about or broadcasted nearly as much as men’s sports. Overall, women feel they have to accept this societal norm. Men have lead women to believe this is true because that is the low expectation men have set for women. Society compares boys to girls in a very biased way that is, consequentially, not in favor of the
girls. Through one long sentence, Kincaid conveys the domestic roles of women which mirrors how women are provided for, must maintain being a “lady”, and how they’re compared to men in the man’s society today. Although “Girl” was written in the seventies, the issues presented in the text are still very much relevant to how our society thinks today, thirty years later. The expectation of women to achieve the domestic roles assigned to them, as well as daughters having to be taught by their mothers how to survive in a society ran by men are still very real issues in the world, right now. Our society still has a lot of evolving to do before there will be gender equality, if there ever will be.
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 the story of "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator quickly shares a litany of advice and rules about the obligations and expectations of becoming of woman and a mother. The mother or narrator in this case, uses a third person point of view to express a sense of urgency, almost a never ending, never taking a breath account of the way her life will and should be as a homemaker. She is explaining how she should act, how to eat and how to dress, even how to walk in certain situations. “On Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming.” The narrator is clear in her expectations of a well-bred woman and how they are to portray themselves.
In 1970 only 1 in 27 girls participated in high school sports, today that ratio is 1 in 3. Sports are a very important part of the American society. Within sports heroes are made, goals are set and dreams are lived. The media makes all these things possible by creating publicity for the rising stars of today. Within society today, the media has downplayed the role of the woman within sports. When the American people think of women in sports, they think of ice skating, field hockey and diving. People don’t recognize that women have the potential to play any sport that a Man can play, with equal skill, if not better.
Jamaica Kincaid, born Elaine Cynthia Porter Richardson, grew up on the island of Antigua during an era of post-colonialism, surrounded by a colonial culture and the brutal history of her heritage. At the age of 17, her mother forced her to move to America so that she could work as a nurse to earn money that she could send home to her family. Instead of doing as her mother told her, she studied photography and writing during her time in America. Eventually, she took a job at The New Yorker, publishing her first piece of short fiction, “Girl.” She kept her writing secret from her family by using the pseudonym Jamaica Kincaid (Kincaid 300). Her story addresses the life of a girl living in the Caribbean and the influential characteristics of her
Always listen to mother. Mother knows everything. Mother is always right. In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl”, smothering motherly advice is present through Kincaid’s use of a stern tone and a “how-to” format, providing instructions from an overbearing mother to her daughter on how she should live and behave as a young woman. These instructions, along with the stern tone, highlight the mother’s experience as a repressed woman and her skewed knowledge of what it means to be a female in society.
“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is a short story that is about how a mother is giving advice to her daughter. The structure of the short story is in a how-to list form. She’s telling her about life, cooking, cleaning, men, and her reputation. The mother constantly reminds her daughter of how to become the "perfect" woman in order to fit into the society that they live in . Some themes represented in this story are that a woman should be domestic and should act a certain way and that parents can be bossy towards their kids.
The mother in “Girl” tells her daughter the long list of chores she needed to be able to perform, as well as what was expected of her in almost every aspect of life. “ ...try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming.” This line from the mother alerts us that the appearance of “not looking like a slut” is more important than whether or not her daughter actually becomes one (Bailey 110). The mother was attempting to push her own ideals and values onto her daughter, in hopes of “saving” her. This story seems all too familiar, because it of course seems to be loosely based on the relationship between Kincaid and her own mother. Although I do not think it was necessarily her intention, this work has been viewed by many as a literary work of feminism (SOURCE). From birth we are all socialized, and there is no bigger influence in our lives than our family, specifically our parents. The gender roles that are forced into the minds of children are too often misguided and clearly unfair. In Kincaid 's case, we see that her expected role as a woman in life was terrible. How a woman walks or dresses should not matter, and becoming a stay-at-home male caretaker is not a job description I think anyone would enjoy signing
In Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl, a mother simultaneously berates her daughter with instructions and teaches her what is expected from her as a woman. Kincaid uses repetitive details frequently throughout the story. For example, the mother tells her daughter “how to hem a dress” and “behave in the presence of men” so that the daughter can avoid “looking” and being “recognize[d]” as the “slut” she is “bent on becoming” (437-8). Her mother’s message of avoiding acting ‘slutty’ exposes modern gender stereotypes. The repetitive details suggest that a girl must dress and behave a certain way to avoid being branded a slut. Although these stereotypes are horrific, they are the harrowing reality women face every day. Kincaid uses repetitive details to critique women’s role in society. These
I love how detail your essay is, the reasons behind why she resented her brothers and way the relationship changed with her mother. Jamaica Kincaid main kinship was with her mother, its very visible in her writing of "Girl." I believe her recall of her mother gives her the strict, firmness to create a good storyline. Furthermore she is definitely an author known for Writeing her perception of the past, even though they are fictions story's they betray a tale of her life . I really enjoyed your post, the only advice I would give is to take a look over the syllabus because the MLA formatting Is not occurring here but your post was very informative and
Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” is a dialogue between a Mother and Daughter that deals with the experience of growing up young and a female in a poor country. The conversation is one long projected sentence spoken from the Mother towards her Daughter who can barely get a word in edgeways showing the big difference in mother-daughter relationships. Even though she doesn’t say much the Daughter is considered the protagonist of the story, because we build an emotional connection with her throughout the Mothers speech about growing into a respected young lady of their community. The story informs the reader about various elements on how the Mother believes young women should act and carry themselves in her era vs the era she lives in now.
I chose the story girl by Jamaica Kincaid in the book At the bottom of the river. I've also read the story Blossom, Priestess of Oya, Goddess of Winds, Storms and Waterfalls by Brand Dionne in the book Sans Souci: And Other Stories. Both stories were extremely enchanting. I chose the girl story and not the Blossom, Priestess of Oya, Goddess of Winds, Storms and Waterfalls from the other stories because it was more easier for me to understand and answer the questions. “Girl” is one ongoing sentence of a conversation between two ladies separated by semicolons with only two replies from her daughter trying to defend herself. The story Girl was different than any other story I have ever read there was no characters in
The optimization of a male’s authority in the 17th century has led to the subjectification of women. Thus, the occurrence of the second, and third wave of feminism has resulted in women to retaliating against social oppression. In Lady Mary Chudleigh’s To The Ladies, women are expected to inherit a domestic role where they adhere to a man’s word due to a misogynistic society’s expectations. The patriarchal ideology is reflected through the demeaning, and oppressive status allocated to women, an imbalance in power, and through the blatant disregard of a woman’s intellectual capability, and worth.
Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richardson in 1949 in Antigua, in the British West Indies, but changed her name when she started to write because her family did not like her choice of profession. She arrived in New York at the age of seventeen years, taking a working as a nanny for a rich family, and met New Yorker columnist George S. TRow, which finally helped her to publish in the magazine. The New Yorker has published the short story Kincaid's "Girl" in 1978, the first part of its fiction. History has since has appeared in a short story anthology of Kincaid. The story of "Girl", as well as many of the books Kincaid relates the experience of being young and a woman in a poor country. Kincaid complicated relationship with her mother goes to the mother-daughter dynamic in history. She describes her mother as a competent woman who fought against its poor conditions in the end feeling bitterness toward their children, because all their problems
Some people would say that they would like to raise them how they were raised. Others argue that they would raise them completely different in a better way, and then there are people who are so caught up in saying that they don’t want to raise them one way and that’s exactly what they end up doing. How do you go from a girl to a woman? Your mother teaches you step by step on how to become one. One issue in this story is that it seems that the mother has been passing down to her daughter what happened to her. It seems like the mother had been raised in a way to please the house. She’s been teaching her daughter to sweep, clean, cook, set the table, iron her father’s clothes, and take care of the house itself. While the mother thought she was teaching her daughter how to be a woman, she was actually teaching her to become the backbone of the house which is exactly what her family could’ve taught
The role women play in today’s society is a drastic change from the previous role. Women used to be confined to the superiority of the man. Physically, mentally, and emotionally abused, belittled, embarrassed, and silenced. These are just a few examples of the emotion from the isolated treatment of the past. A woman’s role in today’s society is more valued than ever before.