Samantha Rowland Ms. D Interpretation Of Fiction 18 July, 2015 Jamaica Kincaid- “Girl” 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. The relationship between the Mother and Daughter comes off as “The powerful and the powerless.” (Kincaid 1454) The Mother is deemed to be the powerful one and is the only one to who can lead her daughter in the right direction to …show more content…
live a successful life based upon how the community views women. The Mother comes off as a very wise person not only by doing the normal mother duties but also by knowing when to act a certain way around different people. Also the Kincaid shows that the Mother becomes a little angry with the Daughter and thinks that her words of wisdom have no meaning to her and that her life is already set to how it’s going to be. On the other hand the Daughter is seen to be powerless but never the less plays a very important role in the story although she doesn’t say much throughout the short story. The daughter shows us how powerful a mother’s influence can play a part on their children. By listening to the mother’s speech through the daughter point of view it shows us how affected she was by the speech even though her mom viewed her in a way that wasn’t respectful. From the beginning of the short story we get the impression that the community the Mother is living in is very tight knit, and also that generations before her had lived within the same style of living. This means that there are certain expectations from the families within that community. The Mother feels she has to mold her Daughter in such a way that the community will accept her, so that the Daughter doesn’t bring any shame on her or their family's history. For example the Mother informs her on how to act during certain situations like when she said “This is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely.” (Kincaid 757). Not only does the Mother teach the Daughter on how to act during certain situations, she also informs her of some basic survival methods and techniques she will need later on in life. The daughters sexuality shows us that her Mother looks at her in a way that she believes isn’t accepted by her standard or the community's.
The mom believes there are only two different types of women: those that are respectable and those that are “sluts” which she characterizes her Daughter by. The Mother portrays her as a slut by the way she plays marbles, walks, and even how she relates to other people. The mother constantly has to remind her that she is not a boy and that she doesn’t need to act like one as she stated in the story “You are not a boy, you know.” (Kincaid 757). This line makes us believe that prior to their talk the daughter had tendencies of acting like a boy so the Mother had to remind her. Growing up to be an young adult, you’ll go through many stages and her mother just wants her to be able to handle every stage fully so she will live a successful life based on how the community views
women. Benna is a famous Antiguan folk song that is use to spread gossip and rumors about one another. Her mother views this song as harmful because she believes her Daughter already knows too much about it at a young age. The story shows us that she has actually sing Benna in Sunday School showing that she knows the full meaning of the song and what it means to her. Singing the song shows her strong interest in boys and disobedience towards her mother and the way she views it. Also singing Benna in Sunday School shows sinful and unnecessary actions that can’t be discussed in public freely.
In “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid’s use of repetitive syntax and intense diction help to underscore the harsh confines within which women are expected to exist. The entire essay is told from the point of view of a mother lecturing her daughter about how to be a proper lady. The speaker shifts seamlessly between domestic chores—”This is how you sweep a house”—and larger lessons: “This is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all…” (Kincaid 1). The way in which the speaker bombards the girl overwhelms the reader, too. Every aspect of her life is managed, to the point where all of the lessons she receives throughout her girlhood blur together as one run-on sentence.
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.
...ughter to realize that she is “not a boy” (171) and that she needs to act like a lady. Doing so will win the daughter the respect from the community that her mother wants for her.
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.
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.
Works like “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady and “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth all have the elements of what a woman is supposed to be according to sexual politics. In doing this she lists off things that the Daughter should be acting out upon. “Don't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know” (Kincaid 68). The mother is demonstrating how the daughter should act in the presence of boys and explaining she is not one.
When Kincaid wrote, “this is how you hem a buttonhole…” the process to hem a buttonhole began to symbolize a sense of domesticity to save her “sexual reputation”. The mother is so strongly bent on straying the daughter away from anything that could affect their reputation. Consequently, she is forcing her daughter into social norms and stereotypical ways a woman is expected to behave. In a way, it can be said that the mother is domesticating her daughter into a life to keep her from promiscuity. Before the mother says, “… the slut you are so bent on becoming” (Kincaid 92) each time, she states a certain way the daughter should behave. From this we can see that the mother believes that women can only be seen two ways: of respect or of promiscuity. Due to this belief, it can be concluded that the mother will say and do anything to her daughter to shape her into a respectable member in their society and creating her into the stereotypical woman. Kincaid faced this exact situation in her childhood when her mother tried to domesticate her, when she did not seek to be a social norm. Kincaid was disapproved of by her family when she became a writer, much like the daughter in Girl would be. Kincaid uses the mother’s instructions on sweeping, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and gardening to express the domesticity that is expected from the daughter to turn her into the
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, is a story about a mother who tells her daughter what to do and how to act. The girl in the story wants to become a normal teenager, hang out with her friends and do fun things so we assume. Her mother on the other hand, wants her to start preparing meals, wash the clothes, and not to talk to boys among other things. Numerous times within the story the mother believes the daughter wants to become promiscuous, so the mother is continually trying to show her how to do things and how to act so that she doesn’t become a promiscuous woman. It seems as if the girl doesn’t have a choice to live a normal life, or to live her life the way that she wants to just like any other girl her age. Instead,
In modern society, the relationship between a parent and child is an ever-changing one. Although, parents of different cultures play different roles for their children as they grow up. In a time from Elizabethan England to the late 19th century Ireland, the fifth commandment, states, “Honor thy father and mother” although, most importantly “honor thy father” was the basis of the parent-child relationship. It was a patriarchal society and the daughters in these ages were possibly the greatest victims of that time—As the famous Scottish Reformer, John Knox said, “Women in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey men.” Furthermore, the men regarded women in these times as “the weaker sex,” both physically and emotionally. During both periods, the men were the leaders and the females were their inferiors.
In all honesty, I chose to read The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien because it was the only text that I could get my hands on. After reading it though, I’m glad I had the luck of choosing it. I realized, while reading the trilogy, that throughout my course of study, I have not read very many female authors. I may have read a few short stories along the way, but most books that I have read for classes and for pleasure have been written by men. I saw the difference in writing styles as I read the first paragraph of the book and immediately liked the change of pace and detail-oriented style. I also found that I really connected with the main characters, Caithleen and Baba, whose real name is Bridget. I found it interesting that I invested such interest in two characters whose personalities are so different from my own. Caithleen was the narrator in the first two books, and I found that I connected with her most because of her details and innocence. The trilogy represents three phases of these women’s lives from their girlhood, to losing loves and the trials of marriage. Through it all, their interesting friendship changes according to the events in their lives until a sad and untimely end. I’m not sure that that I would want a friendship like Caithleen and Baba’s, but at least that had each other in the end, when the rest of the world seemed to have forgotten them. The excerpt in Colm Toibin’s anthology, The Penguin book of Irish Fiction, is from the first book in O’Brien’s trilogy called The Country Girls. For purposes of this paper, I will discuss the excerpt itself, and then the rest of the first book of O’Brien’s trilogy.
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...
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.