Analyzing Jamaica Kincaid's 'Girl'

Kincaid’s choice to separate pieces of advice by semicolons instead of full-stop periods lends the piece a sense of urgency, almost as if the mother is trying to impart all of her knowledge to her daughter as quickly as possible. However, this often makes the mother’s words come across tersely, and the their relationship seems strained at best. The daughter is allowed very little input overall; one of her sentences comes across defensively, as she denies her mother’s accusations that she is singing provocative music in Sunday school, and the other is posed as an innocent question which receives an aggressive answer. The mother’s main concern seems to be that her daughter is turning into a “slut”, and because of this apparent fear, she can be argumentative and tense towards her daughter. However, near the end of the piece, some of the advice seems to take a softer turn. The mother gives her daughter advice about love, and says, “don’t feel too bad about giving up” (1), which is much gentler than many previous sentiments. She even gives advice about “how to spit up in the air if you feel like it” (1) and how to move away; this reads much more like play than work, and almost gives a sense of playfulness between the mother and daughter, practicing a useless but entertaining trick. However, by the end, the mood turns again, as the girl’s innocent question provokes an angry answer: “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?” (1). While there may have been some progress in the mother-daughter relationship, it is ultimately returned to the same frustrated and almost resentful

In the short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid is told from the perspective of two different people. There is a bonding relationship that is happening between the two people in this short story. The mother seems to be the main character in this essay uses a very strict tone to her daughter. The daughter is being told about how to do things in her life the correct way. The daughter barely speaks during this essay, she is doing more analyzing than arguing with her mother. When the mother gives the daughter advise she was trying to give her words of wisdom. But, at the same time, some of the ideas the mother gave to her child was offensive like “slut”. The mother has different perspectives throughout this essay with a lot of different

The mother also teaches her daughter to cook, clean, and wash which traditionally is up to the women in a household to do. Kincaid makes the reader think and figure out for him, or herself, what point of life the child is in and what gender they are in order to draw them into the story.

Have you ever wished that someone had given you a guide on how live the right way? Jamaica Kincaid does just that in her short story, Girl. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which Girl was written.

In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl,” the narration of a mother lecturing her daughter with sharp, commanding diction and unusual syntax, both affect the evolution of a scornful tone, that her daughter’s behavior will eventually lead her to a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive her and respect her within her social circle. As well as the fact that it emphasizes expectations for young women to conform to a certain feminine ideal of domesticity as a social norm during this time and the danger of female sexuality.

“Girl” is a short story in which the author, Jamaica Kincaid, unofficially presents the stereotypes of girls in the mid 1900s. Kincaid includes two major characters in the story “Girl”, they are the mother and the girl. Although the daughter only asks two questions in this story, she is the major character. The mother feels like her daughter is going in the wrong direction and not making the best decisions in her life. The whole story is basically the mother telling her daughter what affects her decisions will have in the future. The mother believes that because her daughter isn’t sitting, talking, cleaning, walking or singing correctly it will lead her to a path of destruction. “Girl” is a reflection of female sexuality, the power of family, and how family can help overcome future dangers.

In the short story, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, you hear about the many words of wisdom, or advice that a mother is attempting to pass on to her daughter. The condescending tone of the story is portrayed by the use of semi colons, showing a steady stream of advice and preaching of the mother onto the daughter. The story follows an almost poetic or lyrical style of writing that flows from basic advice like how to sweep a corner to advice like how to handle a man bullying you or how to have an abortion. Although a lot of the advice given to the daughter may be useful in her life and in the culture they live in, it is delivered in a way that seems very callous, and is said with a stern tone, much like a dictator. The daughter in the story tries to speak up only twice throughout the entire thig, only to be completely unheard as the mother continues her chant. The only time the mother’s advice is repeating is when she refers to her daughter as a slut, or her inevitable “becoming of a slut”, which occurs four times throughout the work. The story is written with no real chronological timeline and does not have the traditional beginning, middle, and ending.

1. Describe the focus or focalization in Girl. Do we see what one person sees, or observe one person in particular? Describe the voice of the narrator in Girl. Who is the “you”? How do the focus and voice contribute to the reader’s response to the story?It about a girl’s womanhood set at the moment of separation between the age of innocence and the confusing, transfiguring entrance into womanhood experience. It is the story of a mother’s attempt to train her adolescent daughter to learn appropriate cultural customs and more important, the rules of social behavior, especially that of proper sexual conduct befitting a well-reared girl. Yes! We observe what the mother is trying to teach her young daughterto do for a man. It helps her too learned in order, to achieve something that her mother is trying to teach her to do and how to act as a young woman and what to expect as a young woman growing up.

In “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother is warning her daughter about what to expect, and how to act, in society. The story represents a time when the daughter knew that her mother loved her enough to spend the time to give her the advice, but is also emotionally distant. I believe this to be representative of Kincaid’s life, and how after her brother’s were born she felt that her mother did not have enough time for her.

Women are meant to behave and act proper. Though it may not be quite the same today, however, every once in awhile society still expects women to behave and act a certain way. In the past women were supposed to act like ladies and be the proper quiet housewife. Women were raised to speak, behave, and perform tasks a certain way that society deemed as right and proper. Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” shows just that. Her story is about a girl who is basically scolded by her mother on how to act and perform daily tasks. Her mother's belief is that a woman's reputation is everything and if her daughter keeps acting the way she does she will lead a promiscuous life. She does not want that for her daughter, or for her daughters reputation to come back to her if it is not a good one. Kincaid utilizes the theme of image and social acceptance are most important for woman through symbolism, repetition, and tone .

The narrator of Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl, who is implied to be a mother, reveals much of her worldview through the story’s dialogue. In this dialogue, she both instructs and scolds her a girl who is implied to be her daughter. The instructions that the mother imparts to her daughter in Girl offer a deep insight into what the mother believes is good for her. In teaching these lessons, the mother is preparing her daughter for what she believes is her daughter’s future. Thus, these lessons are setting the expectations that she has for her daughter within her world.

The story is basically 2 pages of commands being told to one from another. At first, you could say the narrator was talking to a servant, telling them everything that they need to do. You might think this, until reading further that is. Shortly into the story it is very clear that these list of “commands” are being passed down from a mother to her daughter. Everything from “wash white clothes on Monday” (1) to “you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys” (10). It is very clear that the daughter is most likely a young curious teenager. She gets a lot of directions about housekeeping, but after a while you realize the point is not just about cleanliness, but about how to keep your reputation intact. As much as we would like to believe that people are not judging us by everything that we do, we realize that this story is more than a list of command on how to keep a clean house, but in fact how to keep a good social standing. By reading this story, you can tell that the mother is trying to make her daughter understand that she will be very successful in life if she maintains a sort of social class.

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.

The girl distrusts her mother and believes her to be out of touch, while helping her father in "his real work" (468). Surprisingly, the girl's desire to avoid the manifestation of her femininity in womanly tasks, such as cooking and cleaning, influences her into feeling that her mother is "plotting now to get [her] to stay in the house [. . ]. and keep [her] from working for [her] father" (469). The girl chooses to dismiss her mother, thereby dismissing her own future role as a housewife.

352). In today’s society there are no rules that prevent a person from doing all their laundry in the same day. A majority of people have probably learned from their parents or from experience that it doesn’t work so well if you wash whites and darks together; otherwise stating there are no instructions that come along with the task of laundry. In Kincaid’s (2011) story “Girl” the reader gathers the idea from the tone of the text, as it is the women’s role to do the laundry; whereas, in today’s society it is not always the woman completing the task of laundry. In some families, more often than less the women and men share the responsibility of doing laundry. In viewing the story “Girl” from a feminist perspective, another occurrence of gender roles would be the narrator’s statement “soak salt water fish overnight before you cook it” (Kincaid, 2011, p. 352). In the society that the story takes place, it is the woman’s responsibility to cook, compared to the twentieth century family, the meals may be prepared by every member of the family. Prior to the feminist laws women were treated with little to no respect for the things that they were expected to accomplish on a daily basis. In the era the story is written, women were often wives, housekeepers, cooks, and teachers. “This is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease,” and “this is how you sweep a