The Mother In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl By Jamaica Kincaid

975 Words2 Pages

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. In Kincaid’s story “Girl” there are many lines that show that the mother …show more content…

With reasons stating that the mother’s tone is too harsh, or that she doesn 't listen and address her daughter when she speaks out, or even that the mother seems to rush through all that she has to tell her daughter. While all of those points may seem valid they can be refuted by exposing that two of the arguments made against the original point, that the mother is loving, can be based on a person’s view and opinion. As one reads the story their minds goes to assumptions based on past experiences and those can cloud their mind. The tone and the speed how the mother tells her daughter all of this information is based on a reader’s assumptions and/or interpretation of the story, not facts. To refute the other argument that the mother does not specifically address her daughter’s outburst is that in the story she does address the outburst, just not in the ways that would seem conventional. After all, this is a story set years ago in a time that modern day parenting is quite different from in the 60’s. The mother addresses the last outburst of the daughter by asking her daughter after all this time she took to teach her daughter how to be a respectable young woman she won’t even take any of the teachings and become just another ‘slut’ in the eyes of the community. This paper argued that the mother in Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” 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. Kincaid showed that the mother cared and loved her daughter. The mother wants her daughter to know how to run a home and how to keep her life in order to societies standards. Alongside practical advice, the mother instructs her daughter on how to live a fulfilling

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