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Literary analysis on girl by jamaica kincaid
Literary analysis on girl by jamaica kincaid
Analysis of Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
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Who Said What Means
Ask yourselves these questions before you read Kincaid’s “Girl”, Do you know what a housewife is, being a student or child, getting advice from an elder, and being called something that you are not? What is this story's about is it a story at all or just a poem in essay form? What kind of mood are you in right now to decipher this story in your own words? The story depends on the mood you are in and change the whole perception of this story. Then again, isn’t that what writing is about to begin with? Interpret the story as Mr. Hass told us to do, I did, but I analyzed it as a poem looking for an underlying meaning. There had to be much more than what there than what was told to us. I had a totally different perception. After the discussion, it seemed relevant for me to understand the story in a different way. But, I thought it was a mother to daughter talk. The “daughter talk” (my interpretation of the narration) was commands that her mom was saying. The advice told to her was not to become a slut, which was repeated several times in this story. But the question I ask you is, this present situation in the girl’s life, or was it a recollection of one that she had before with her mother?
Is this story taking place in present time or in the past? It could be in the present with a young girl but I also came to the conclusion that this could be in the past and the italicized words could keep repeating in her mothers forgotten speech. Now is when she needs her mothers comfort and not only that what she wished at the time of the talk. In the other perspective though it could be in the present time and just be recalled by the narrator to opens one’s imagination to make them draw their own conclusions.
Is story a poem or is it a story, isn’t this story just a page with sentences making thoughts about a person to another person. Well that is what I got out of it and now I can only get more confused thinking of it, the story is so broad anyone’s interpretation could be perceived as correct. Not only that the story can change with each person, it also changes with the readers mood at that point time, not only that try to analyze it and your mind just wonders with the choices that Kincaid gives you.
In conclusion, the story describes that life changes, and nothing stays the same throughout it. It is in the hands of the people to decide that how they want their life to be. They can make it as beautiful as they want to and they can also make it worse than it has ever been
Racial inequality was a big thing back in the day, as the blacks were oppressed, discriminated and killed. The blacks did not get fair treatment as the whites, they were always been looked down, mocked, and terrified. But Moody knew there’s still an opportunity to change the institution through Civil Rights Movement. As she matured Anne Moody come to a conclusion that race was created as something to separate people, and there were a lot of common between a white person and a black person. Moody knew sexual orientation was very important back in the 1950s, there was little what women can do or allowed to do in the society. For example, when Moody was ridiculed by her activist fellas in Civil Rights Movement. Women indeed played an important role in Moody’s life, because they helped forming her personality development and growth. The first most important woman in Moody’s life would be her mother, Toosweet Davis. Toosweet represent the older rural African American women generation, whom was too terrified to stand up for their rights. She was portrayed as a good mother to Moody. She struggled to make ends meet, yet she did everything she could to provide shelter and food to her children. Toosweet has encouraged Moody to pursue education. However, she did not want Moody to go to college because of the fear of her daughter joining the Civil Rights Movement and getting killed. The second important woman to Moody would be Mrs. Burke, She is the white woman Moody worked for. Mrs. Burke is a fine example of racist white people, arguably the most racist, destructive, and disgusting individual. In the story, Mrs. Burke hold grudge and hatred against all African American. Although she got some respects for Moody, State by the Narrator: “You see, Essie, I wouldn’t mind Wayne going to school with you. But all Negroes aren’t like you and your
She begins to cry fearing that her father will not trust her anymore. However, when the father does not become angry, but blames her action on the fact that “She’s only a girl” (Munro 147), the young girl seems to accept his explanation. She said, “I didn’t protest that, even in my heart. “May be it was true” (Munro 147). At that point, it is possible to understand that the girl who once viewed her mother as being silly and dumb for talking about boys and dances was becoming that girl. She was accepting a gender role in society for herself that was based on going to dances and being with boys as opposed to feeding wolves and working on the farm (Rasporich 114).
When reading a story or a poem, readers tend to analyze, and develop their own opinions. Any content an author or poet produces is up to the reader to question, and identify what the story is trying to say. The point that I am stating is that, stories are like maps that we readers need to figure out. We have to find the starting point, and get to the destination of our conclusion, and the thoughts we have about the story or poem. In the stories that we have read so for throughout the semester, they all have different messages of what they are trying to convey to the reader in a way that can be relatable. Among all the author’s and poet’s works we have read, I have enjoyed Theodore Roethke’s poems. Roethke has developed poems that explore emotions that readers can relate to. I would like to explain and interpret the themes that Theodore Roethke expresses in the poems “My Papa’s Waltz”, “The Waking”, and “I Knew a Woman”.
The Poet begins with the Rocky Mountain Newspaper reporter Jack McEvoy being informed of his twin brother’s suicide. As two of the detectives from the Denver police department who also worked with Sean McEvoy in the Crimes Against Persons unit inform McEvoy of the incident, he immediately has doubts about his twin’s alleged suicide. Seeking to better understand what his brother did and what the Denver PD says his brother did, Jack McEvoy decides to write a story for the paper about his brother. From this point on McEvoy began to learn about evil in a new way.
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid demonstrate how a mother cautions her daughter, in becoming a responsible woman in her society. Although the daughter hasn’t gotten into adolescence yet, the mother fears that her daughter’s current behavior, if continued, will tip to a life of promiscuity. The mother believes that a woman’s status or propriety determines the quality of her life in the community. Hence, gender roles, must be carefully guarded to maintain a respectable front. Her advice centers on how to uphold responsibility. The mother cautions her daughter endlessly; emphasising on how much she wants her to realize her role in the society by acting like woman in order to be respected by the community and the world at large. Thus, Jamaica Kincaid’s
I believe that the structure of this poem allows for the speaker to tell a narrative which further allows him to convey his point. The use of enjambment emphasizes this idea as well as provides a sense of flow throughout the entirety of a poem, giving it the look and feel of reading a story. Overall, I believe this piece is very simplistic when it comes to poetic devices, due to the fact that it is written as a prose poem, this piece lacks many of the common poetic devices such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and metaphors. However, the tone, symbolism, allusion and imagery presented in the poem, give way to an extremely deep and complicated
Browning’s use of thirty six stanzas, each about roughly seven lines, instills breaks into the poem. These breaks combined with the tone of the poem exude how the narrator feels about the turn of events in her life. “About our souls in care and cark/ Our blackness shuts like prison-bars…”calls the bleak view that she has on the life of a slave (E. Browning 1131). In the beginning, with the discovery of a new, budding love, her voice is hopeful. “I sang his name instead of a song, / Over and over I sang his name, / … I sang it low, that the slave-girls near / Might never guess, from aught they could hear …” reflects her quiet but joyful outlook of life (E. Browning 1133). Afterward, when he is taken and killed, the narrator loses her chance for true love; while grieving, her...
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...
Unrealistically, the narrator believes that she would be of use to her father more and more as she got older. However, as she grows older, the difference between boys and girls becomes more clear and conflicting to her.
...s spoken, other times not. Our author may have read this poem and felt predisposed to aptly name his book as an ode, or possibly read it and felt inspired to write his own interpretation as a personal response and passionate understanding of the same pain. As you can clearly see, there are lines from the poem that translate into the summary of the story quite clearly and vice versa. The relationship and nature between the content of both the novel and poem are near identical, no matter the length, or the method or in which they are told. Which leads me to my closing; these works were both written from difficult places within, souls enduring, but men who hope.
The “Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid is essentially a set of instructions given by an adult, who is assumed to be the mother of the girl, who is laying out the rules of womanhood, in Caribbean society, as expected by the daughter’s gender. These instructions set out by the mother are related to topics including household chores, manners, cooking, social conduct, and relationships. The reader may see these instructions as demanding, but these are a mother’s attempt, out of care for the daughter, to help the daughter to grow up properly. The daughter does not appear to have yet reached adolescence, however, her mother believes that her current behavior will lead her to a life of promiscuity. The mother postulates that her daughter can be saved from a life of promiscuity and ruin by having domestic knowledge that would, in turn also, empower her as a productive member in their community and the head of her future household.
The second person point of view helps the reader to connect with the girl in this story. It shows the reader a better understanding of this character and how she is being raised to be a respectable woman. This point of view also gives us an insight on the life of women and shows us how they fit into their society. Through this point of view, the reader can also identify the important aspects of the social class and culture. The daughter tries to assert a sense of selfhood by replying to the mother but it is visible that the mother is being over whelming and constraining her daughter to prepare her for
I read this book out of interest for another Henry James piece, liking Daisy Miller so much. I found that this book, as in Daisy Miller, has a female point of interest throughout. Isabel Archer is a young American girl brought to Europe after her father has died in America. Isabel is an independent girl, easily noticed by many others in her circle. I felt that Isabel was a woman in her time, in that she took notice of things that she wouldn’t have without certain without the opportunities she was given. In America she would have see and done other things, but in Europe she saw so much opportunity. I like the carefree attitude she had, but with the regard for her elders and common courtesy. The example in the book about being a proper young lady when it was not looked at very well that she stay up ‘alone’ with her cousin and another young man. She had asked her aunt to help her and tell her when she is doing, or about to do something saw as improper. I admired that. I think nowadays young women would revolt against proper if it meant something they did not wish to do.
McNair’s childhood when she sleepwalks to the pond as a kid. This is where Mrs.McNair always went to get away from things. This plays a big part when the little boy shows up in a dream like state. She is escaping to him, to the baby boy she connected with in the hospital. She is confused because the baby boy she connected with at the hospital wasn’t hers, yet she still dreams about him, about how he is doing. Mrs.McNair lost her own child and through a mistake in the hospital connected with someone else’s, who then had to be taken away from her. While she is dealing with that hardship her husband is never home during the week and is cheating on her. Yet society says she still needs to keep her prim and proper ways other wise she may cause uproar in society. On the other hand Mr.McNair was applauded for his actions, for sticking around with Mrs. McNair while having a mistress. He stayed the good guy throughout the story. While Mrs. McNair and other females during this time, were limited in almost everything that they did. Her actions reflected on her husband. The women of society had a duty to maintain this standard of perfection no matter what they were going through in their