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Influence of gender on girls by jamaica kincaid
Influence of gender on girls by jamaica kincaid
How did patriarchy effect the worlds of jamaica kincaid's book titled "Girl
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Jamaica Kincaid, the author of many famous short stories, writes Girl to reflect on a relationship between mother and daughter. For nine years, Kincaid was an only child and her father was never in the picture, therefore she had a very close relationship with her mother. Although, things began to change when Kincaid’s mother began to have more children. At the age of seventeen, Kincaid left for New York to attend school and earn money for her family. The mother in Girl expects a lot from her daughter, and she does not hesitate to let us readers know that. The fact that the entire two page story is essentially one sentence sends a powerful message. From the very beginning of the story, the mother orders her daughter to perform a multitude …show more content…
The mother shows no understanding of the daughter when the daughter tries to explain that she is not guilty of the actions her mother is preaching to her. For example when the mother says “don’t sing benna in Sunday school” (Lines 13-14) the daughter then replies with “but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school.” (Lines 16-17) This brief cry for innocence leads me to infer that the rest of what the mother preaches is an assumption of the daughter and her actions. Just like how the mother says “like the slut you are so bent on becoming.” (Lines 12-13) Or “You mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions.” (Lines14-15) There aren’t any facts in the story that state the daughter is guilty of being promiscuous. “Don’t pick peoples flowers-you might catch something” (Lines 43-44) is a sexual innuendo the mother makes about the daughter. “Always squeeze the bread to make sure its fresh” (Lines 58-59) the mother says. The daughter replies with “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?” (Lines 59-60) “You mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman the baker won’t let touch the bread?” (Lines 60-62) says the mother. This shows that the mother has her mind set on the kind of person her daughter is and does not side with the daughter. I believe if the daughter wasn’t so intimidated by the mother she would try to defend …show more content…
Back in the mid 1900’s, people believed that a woman’s actions and self-composition determined how society viewed them. This is why the mother is always so concerned with her daughter’s behavior and the way she takes care of herself. Also, the mother could be concerned for her daughter’s future and does not want her to end up in the same life situation as she is with raising multiple children, along with performing all of the necessary tasks that go with everyday life. Completing these everyday tasks could cause a person a great amount of stress and may be the reason the mother is stern and not polite to the
Her research has shown that daughters describe a mother’s criticism as “ a magnifying glass held between the sun rays … concentration the rays of imperfection” (971). But for a mother a criticism is just a way to help her daughter improve. As sighted by Deborah “ Mothers subject their daughters to a level of scrutiny people usually reserve for themselves.” Meaning a mother will be a tough critic not because their daughter does not please them, but because a mother only wants what is best for their daughter.
In most short stories the author writes a story about an experience they have had or something they have made up. In David Arnason’s, “A Girl’s Story,” the first thing that catches the eye is the title. David Arnason incorporates the readers in the story; he writes a story about the process of the author writing a romance novel. The story is entitled, “A Girl’s Story,” because the author tries to write a novel a female would write, or would want to read.
The children also argue with their mother often. The children think that their mother, with no doubt, will be perfect. They idealize their mothers as angel who will save them from all their problems, which the mothers actually never do. The children get angry at their false hopes and realize that their mothers aren’t going to...
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.”
“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.
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).
Being the only daughter was not like any other family who treats their daughter like the precious thing that has ever happened to them. Being treated unlike a princess or an angel means that mother did not love. Mother would come home from work and expects to find the house clean and spotless as she would depend on female cleanliness if not then lecture would come towards the room with anger. As to mother expecting her child to clean the house, “A mean mother breaks the Child Labor Law by making her children work - washing dishes, making beds, learning to cook and doing other cruel and unpleasant chores” (How To Be A Mean Mother). Sometimes she is not the one who has st...
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.
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.
The mother-daughter relationship is a common topic throughout many of Jamaica Kincaid's novels. It is particularly prominent in Annie John, Lucy, and Autobiography of my Mother. This essay however will explore the mother-daughter relationship in Lucy. Lucy tells the story of a young woman who escapes a West Indian island to North America to work as an au pair for Mariah and Lewis, a young couple, and their four girls. As in her other books—especially Annie John—Kincaid uses the mother-daughter relationship as a means to expose some of her underlying themes.
The selected passage from Jamaica Kincaid’s novel Lucy: A Novel emphasizes an explicit conflict between the narrator’s immediate and expected joy over being able to experience relative luxury for the first time against the implicit force of her inner schock and realization of her past situation as it ties into and shapes her identity and perspective of the world at large. The first paragraph details the specifics of her past situation through direct thoughts of the reader and her way of describing the luxury she’s in as presented through slightly clumsy, almost uncomfortable syntax, whether she “got into an elevator, some [she] had never done before,” (1-2) or when she was “eating food just taken from a refrigerator.” (3) She says that the experience in the apartment, compared to her home, “was such a good idea that [she] would grow used to it and like it very much.”
...n this world. After realizing of truth about life and world and disobeying her father, she goes into her room. Makes her part of the room fancier and “keep my section separate from Liard” (Munro 335). After finding out the truth her father called her a girl. She “didn't protest that, even in my heart.” (Munro 336)
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
In the story, the Jewish mother uses the “Basic Facial Expression”(Greenburg 200), which is basically making others feel guilty. She would say things like “I’m fine”, “don’t worry about me”, “I don’t mind staying home alone” (Greenburg 200). In the story, the Jewish mother puts her children in impossible and comes up with ridiculous situations where no one can win. An example from the story is when the mother caught her daughter kissing a boy. She makes a big deal over something little, doesn’t give her daughter a say in anything, and her solution was telling her daughter, “you’ll leave this house and you’ll not come back until you’re a virgin.”(Greenburg 205). A mother should never kick her daughter out for simply kissing a boy. In many ways we think this solution is unbelievably ridiculous.