Worldview In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl

Society is often seen to have different biases or perspectives on topics such as the role and perception of women. The short story, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, consists primarily of a catalog of commands and instructions, the purpose of which is to make sure that the mother’s daughter is constantly in check and not getting into any trouble. Jamaica Kincaid utilizes a wide range of techniques such as symbolism and diction in order to showcase the theme of how the depiction of women rely mainly on how they present themselves in the public and how they are so easily described as impure or filthy.

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.

Society has developed the gender role of women to be caretakers of their children and the household. In her poem “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid writes a short narrative of a mother giving her daughter advice about how to behave and her responsibilities as a woman. The mother tells her daughter how to do several of the traditional housewife’s duties, such as washing clothes, preparing meals, and cleaning the house. She also instructs her on how to behave when men are present. According to her, the daughter must smile to men she likes, dislikes, despises, and is unfamiliar with. The mother informs her daughter about abusive and

“Girl” is a poem written by Jamaica Kincaid that was published in 1978 in The New Yorker. It was her first piece of published work. She is from Antigua, and most of her work contains stories of Antiguan life. As an African women, Kincaid always explores in her writing about class, race and gender discrimination. “Girl” is not exceptional from her other  writing. Here she creates the image of Western Caribbean domestic lifestyle. The theme of this story is mother and daughter argument. In this story, the mother teaches her daughter how to be a perfect lady in this society. According to old fashion many mother teaches their daughters about what a women should be. “Girl” is a perfect example of this relationship.

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, is a short story that is a long run on sentence about a mother teaching her daughter about how to be a women. Even though the story is a list, it still does an excellent job in demonstrating patriarchy and the role of a girl in society. Most importantly, how gender roles are imposed on young girls becoming women.

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the kids, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story Girl, Jamaica Kincaid give us a long one sentence story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughters mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, what man would not want her. Kincaids structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates 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 it. As a matter of fact, the story is two pages long, made into one long sentence - and almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - sends 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 be the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of house and clothing, benna and food to represent the means of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society.

“Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid is an unconventional text that portrays a mother’s list of rules that her daughter must obey in order to be accepted in society. When I first read this narrative I read it as a resistant reader, having little to no knowledge about what culture, time period or what the real meaning of this list was. I did know however that it has some link to womanhood and how a woman must portray herself to the outside world. This is an interesting take on what it is to be a girl.

As the concluding factor of the mother’s genuine interest, she expresses her voice to the reader as a woman who has been through her share of experiences that turned her into who she is today. Since her daughter is getting to an age where she needs to take up the responsibilities of a woman, the mother felt the need to take it upon herself to teach her daughter to do and act in the right, acceptable way. By doing this, she tries to present her voice as outgoing yet strict, because she wants her daughter to realize that she will face so many obstacles if she decides to act in a way that is unacceptable to

Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” is the story of a girl whose mother advises her daughter on different aspects of being a proper woman. The mother has antiquated even repressive ideas about what a woman is supposed to be. The mother focuses on two main categories in her guidance, social manners and domesticity. “The mother does most of the talking; she delivers a long series of instructions and warnings to the daughter, who twice responds but whose responses go unnoticed by the mother” (Short stories). First, she defends herself against what her mother argues she has done,

Her mother gives her daughter advice on how to fit into not only her mold of expectations, but society’s mold of a woman as well. For example, in society, the woman of the house usually performs housework or domestic duties. The mother strings along statements on how her daughter can successfully perform housework. The mother, in Kincaid’s “Girl,” trains her daughter in domestic work by stating, “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry” (Kincaid 1180). The mother wants her daughter to be the perfect domestic woman when the time comes. “Liz Brentz, in her journal, “Overview of Girl” discusses the use of the daughter’s sexuality to understand just how strict the mother’s values are. Brenz states, “ The power of the mother's words to envelop the daughter within the strict confines of her own set of values and expectations is most apparent in terms of her references to sexuality” (Brentz). The daughter in the story does not get her say in the matter of her own life The mother’s views and advise are so assertive and judgmental that the daughter can only speaks twice during her mother’s lecture. The daughter just agrees and falls into the mold her mother casts for

Since the beginning of mankind, oppression has been a major obstacle for women to overcome. In “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid illustrates through written word the struggle women go through due to the expectations set for them. While there is female oppression of different forms, Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” is a resemblance of the oppression she felt during her childhood on the small and remote island-nation of Antigua. In its most basic form, “Girl” vividly paints a literary picture depicting the way an “old-fashioned” wife is supposed to be in the eyes of her male patriarch.

In the story the mother implies that if the girl does not abide by such standards people will view the girl as a slut. “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 120-121). This implies that if the girl was a slut she would be undesirable by the men of the world and not welcomed in public places. The narrator's point of view supports the thought that women were thought less of by men if they did not uphold the image of a good

Kincaid’s poem “Girl” uses the mother/daughter relationship and the strict commanding tone of the story to show what the culture of the 1980’s were like and how certain beliefs are passed down from generation to generation. Although the setting was not directly told by the narrator in the story, it gives you a idea in which the culture was written. The story gives a “sneak peak” into how strict parents were to their children in the 1980’s. In Kincaid’s story there is no introduction of the characters, no action, and no description of setting,but it does supply a insight of the relationship between the daughter and the mother.

Jamaica Kincaid composed a short story called “Girl” and the brief narrative is about a stern mother teaching her young daughter life lessons as she is becoming a mature adolescent. The story is a laundry list of “women’s responsibilities”, such as doing household duties, knowing how to be nice to people you do and do not like and learning how to be a respectable individual in the Caribbean community. The mother is concerned that her daughter is on the urge of being promiscuous, so her next option is to warn her daughter not to take the road of converting into a wild child. Scolding her daughter beforehand about the bad things in life can affect how she lives for the rest of her life. In the Caribbean culture, women are expected to keep the

A mother teaches her daughter at an early age about values and morals. Most lessons reflect society’s expectations about what it means to be a woman. Throughout Kincaid’s poem titled Girl, I noticed the use of “how to”, followed by “duties” of a woman. Kincaid’s poem is flooded with variety of emotions, and I feel a personal connection to it. Reading the poem the time setting was in the past days. Women did not take a stand, and felt