The Failure Of Centrality In George Kincaid's Girl

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In George Saunders’s commencement speech to the graduating class at Syracuse University, he focused on three failures of kindness centrality, separate, and permanence. Within these three failures of kindness, Saunders expresses centrality in two different ways. Centrality is the concept that our story is the only story that matters. Centrality is a main element of both Saunders commencement speech and “Girl”. The authors have chosen to represent centrality differently. Kincaid displays centrality in “Girl” by having the mother act as if her opinion is the only one that matters, and because the short story is centered around the mother-daughter’s relationship. Saunders on the other hand portrays centrality by telling his audience a story about …show more content…

This short story is fast paced and the semicolon ensures that the story doesn’t slow down to take the what the daughter has to say into consideration. An example of this is “Is it true that you sing Benna in Sunday school?; 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 like the slut you are so bent on becoming” (Kincaid 3). If Saunders looked at this evidence, he would notice that the mother has asked a question but doesn’t give the girl the opportunity to respond. This portrays centrality because the mother believes that only what she has to say is important. However, the mother is demonstrating centrality in a positive light because she’s convinced that her commands are the only commands that can guide her daughter to success. The mother has experienced these commands first hand and knows that removing her daughter as a subject is the best way to relay the commands to her. In correspondence, Saunders believes everyone experiences centrality at some point. An instance where Saunders experiences centrality is …show more content…

The tension between the mother and daughter’s relationship is central to this story because they both resent each other. A great example of when tension was apparent between the mother and daughter is; “Always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?”(Kincaid 6). The context of the daughter’s response in this quote was interpreted incorrectly by the mother. The mother viewed the girl’s response as an implication that the girl was bent on becoming a slut. In this instance, the mother responds to the daughter’s statement angrily. The tension is high at this point in the story because the mother resents the girl for implying this however, it was a misunderstanding. The story was centralized around the mother teaching the daughter how to be a proper lady so the mother was appalled to hear the daughter question her. The tension is also central to the story because as a main theme in “Girl” it pushes the plot forward. Both “Girl” and Saunders commencement speech revolve around the concept of Centrality. The central focus of Saunders commencement speech is emphasizing the importance of kindness. Saunders spends a lot of time during the commencement speech encouraging the

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