Jamaica Kincaid Girl

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Suppression of the female sexuality has been a constant struggle for young ladies for thousands of years, and is still considered a problem today. In the short story “Girl” (1984), by Jamaica Kincaid, an overbearing mother is instructing her daughter on how to be the perfect lady within the village where they live. The mother explains the tasks in a list and points out her daughter’s imperfections throughout the story. After conducting a formalist reading of the short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, it is shown that readers are able to identify the major theme of rejection of female sexuality through the author’s use of narration, and writing style.
The author, "Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richardson in 1949 in St. Johns, Antigua, in …show more content…

The story is written as one giant sentence in the idea of a demonstration list. The mother within the story is explaining to her daughter how to be a perfect woman within their village. Some of the demonstrations the mother gives to her daughter are, "This is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest" (505). All of the tasks that the daughter will have to perform someday will make her the perfect lady in her mother's eyes. The mother's plans are ruined though because she believes that her daughter wants to be a slut when she is older. So in order to keep her daughter on the right track the mother explains in her list on, "This is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming" (505). The mother is trying her hardest to raise her daughter right so she will not become a village outcast. The author's writing style within the story in the form of a list is the mother trying to distract her daughter from embracing her

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