Week 5 Critical Response “What is the conflict in ‘Girl’ by Jamaica Kincaid and why is there conflict?” The conflict in “Girl” is that of parenting vs the environment. The narrator of the text is a mother giving advice to her daughter. The mother is concerned for the daughter because she believes that the daughter may grow up to be a slut because of the social pressures put on her. This is supported by the lines “on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming,” “you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys,” and “don’t squat down to play marbles,” (74). These lines suggest that by interacting with boys and not being pious will lead the daughter down the path to becoming a slut. It is because of this environment that the mother attempts to steer her daughter back on to the right path by giving her both practical advice for when she has her own home, such as how to sew, iron, cook, sweep, and even make herbal medicines, and general life and relationship advice, such as how to talk to strangers and that some relationships may or may not work out. In certai...
In 1492, Christopher Columbus in his quest to validate his claim that the world was round and that it should belong to his Spanish patrons, the king and queen of Spain, set sail on his ship Santa Maria. He soon discovered the “New World”, which was new to him, but not to the Antiguans who lived there. Cultural imperialism was one of the most prominent means Western countries like Spain and Britain used to colonize other parts of the world at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Cambridge dictionary defines cultural imperialism as one “culture of a large and powerful country, organization, etc. having a great influence on other less powerful country.”
... girl. These boys are not accustomed to obeying their own grandmothers. If long division is really so important to a young man’s success in the world, how could a pretty girl know anything about it? That is what they are thinking” (280). Afterwards, Leah goes on teaching with a strong front and demands respect from the boys because there is nothing wrong with a woman knowing more than a man. Through both of these examples, Leah is defending her rights as a woman and making sure that nothing holds her back from being equal to a man.
The selected passage from Jamaica Kincaid’s novel Lucy: A Novel emphasizes an explicit conflict between the narrator’s immediate and expected joy over being able to experience relative luxury for the first time against the implicit force of her inner schock and realization of her past situation as it ties into and shapes her identity and perspective of the world at large. The first paragraph details the specifics of her past situation through direct thoughts of the reader and her way of describing the luxury she’s in as presented through slightly clumsy, almost uncomfortable syntax, whether she “got into an elevator, some [she] had never done before,” (1-2) or when she was “eating food just taken from a refrigerator.” (3) She says that the experience in the apartment, compared to her home, “was such a good idea that [she] would grow used to it and like it very much.”
The novel “The Scarlet Letter” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 and is probably the book for which he is most famous. He was a prolific writer and wrote many short stories, a few collections, and several novels during his writing career. Nathaniel Hawthorne was injured as a child and became an avid reader and decided that he wanted to be a writer. Though he was a lackluster college student, after graduation he returned to his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts and began his writing career in earnest. Not only did Nathaniel Hawthorne have one of his ancestors who had been one of the three judges involved in the Salem witch trials (of which he was not too proud, but it probably helped his career because it was depicted in his writings), but also he had many influential friends to include President Franklin Pierce, Henry David Thoreau (Author), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Poet), Herman Melville (Author) and he had actually rented the “Old Manse” mentioned in “The Scarlet Letter” from Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essayist). The “Scarlet Letter” is a work of non-fiction, but the preface is loosely based on Hawthorne’s actual life due to the fact that he actually did work at the Customs House in Salem and did lose his job there, which gave
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
The daughters in this film struggled with traditional sex roles mainly due to the influence of their mothers. In many cases, the mothers tried desperately hard to encourage their daughters to have power over their lives, be successful, and have a strong self-esteem. This over-encouragement to lead a life that they could not, led many of the daughters to feel inferior because they could not live up to their mother's expectations. In some cases, this led to the daughters getting involved in relationships in which they relied on their husbands for power and support. So in essence, it was their mothers' extremely high hopes for their daughters that led them to feeling inferior as women when these hopes could not be fulfilled.
Girl Time is a book written by Maisha T. Winn who is a former public elementary school and high school teacher. She has worked extensively with youth inside and outside urban schools throughout the United States. Winn provides information in the book about girls incarcerated in juvenile detention centers and girls who have been previously incarcerated.
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid is a piece about a mother speaking to her very young daughter who is entering adolescence, advising her very specifically how to behave. Kincaid’s use of tone, repetition, intensity, and perspective help shape the main idea that being a female is nearly impossible and that women have to act a certain way with everything they do, even if they lack integrity with these actions.
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.
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, is a story about a mother who tells her daughter what to do and how to act. The girl in the story wants to become a normal teenager, hang out with her friends and do fun things so we assume. Her mother on the other hand, wants her to start preparing meals, wash the clothes, and not to talk to boys among other things. Numerous times within the story the mother believes the daughter wants to become promiscuous, so the mother is continually trying to show her how to do things and how to act so that she doesn’t become a promiscuous woman. It seems as if the girl doesn’t have a choice to live a normal life, or to live her life the way that she wants to just like any other girl her age. Instead,
Throughout the story, however, the word girl is constantly used as an insult against her. For example, when a feed salesman comes to the father, the father introduces her as a hired-hand, and the salesman laughs and says, “ ‘Could of fooled me.’ He said ‘I thought it was only a girl.’” The mother also reinforces that she should not be out there when she talks to the father about keeping the girl inside. The narrator sees her mother in a negative light and does not want to become her; she hates housework and describes it as depressing and endless, despite the fact that shortly after she says that the father’s work is “ritualistically important.”
In order to better understand the conflict, first we must define what conformity and self image are in the story “Boys and Girls”. Conformity is action in accordance with prevailing social standards, attitudes, and practices. In the time frame of the story, as well as through much of history, it was the social norm for women to be housemaids, and to rarely venture outside of the house to perform “man’s work”. The narrator however, has a different idea as to about how she wishes to live her life. She does not enjoy “work done in the kitchen” as she finds it tedious and “endless”. She does view the work of her father though as “ritualistically important” and far more interesting. This tomboy state of mind of the girl is part of her self image, defined as the idea, conception, or mental image one has of oneself. Upon reading the story, it is clear that her views come into direct conflict with her parent’s beliefs, and even mainstream society’s. While the protagonist’s self image of herself is a driving factor in the nature of her adventures and leisure, with enough outside pressure it can b...
Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.
In the short story, “Girl,” the narrator describes certain tasks a woman should be responsible for based on the narrator’s culture, time period, and social standing. This story also reflects the coming of age of this girl, her transition into a lady, and shows the age gap between the mother and the daughter. The mother has certain beliefs that she is trying to pass to her daughter for her well-being, but the daughter is confused by this regimented life style. The author, Jamaica Kincaid, uses various tones to show a second person point of view and repetition to demonstrate what these responsibilities felt like, how she had to behave based on her social standing, and how to follow traditional customs.
As a woman Celie is expected to stay home and take care of things around the house. Celie's father puts her out because she was “a bad influence on his... other girl”. If Celie was the one daughter who was ruined he did not want his other girls turning out the same because they actually have “value” something. Celie is the only one that “can work like a man” because that's the only thing she is excelled in. Harpo, for example, beats Sofia only after his father implies that Sofia’s resistance makes Harpo less of a man. That is an example of sexsism because he feels as if he has to be more of a man and take control. Mr.___, also mistreats his family because that is the same thing his father used treat his family. “African American women’s experiences with pornoraphy, prostitution, and rape demonstrate how erotic power becomes commodified and exploited in social institutions”(Collins 167). Shug is viewed as the sexual attractive one. We start to see a sexual relationship developing between shug and celie. There is also a problem with the disruption of gender roles. Harpo's insecurity about his masculinity makes him lose power which eventually causes problems in his marriage. Shug is another fights sexsism by being extremely independent. Celia is pretty afraid to take control of her life and also afraid of men. Shug guided her telling her that she does have what it takes to gain her power back. Once Celia gains