For this class, Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” was literally a bridge between studying Modernism and moving on to the prose of Post-Modern writers. In speaking of writing styles, a reader could interpret this as Modern or Post-Modern depending on which path they take in their interpretation. If seen as a mother’s constructive guidance to a girl, aiding her towards having a promising future, in her repressive culture, it can be considered Modernism. If “Girl” is perceived as the prolonged harsh directives at the girl from the mother, lacking any anticipation of the girl being able to have a different life than expected; it can be taken as Post-Modern.
I find “Girl” to be predominantly Post-Modern. I realize that some view the mother’s tone and message
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Yet, “Girl” focuses on the ways of life for females in a specific culture (Post-Colonial West Indies/Antigua), rather than the universal. Resulting, in a further push towards the Post-Modern, and simply accepts the unpleasantness of the girl’s reality, the way that it is. “Girl” takes deconstruction to a further level than Modernism, by defamiliarizing what readers expect from a text and creating a new and peculiar hybrid found in Post-Modernism. Initially, it both looks and sounds like an unusual poem (no periods/chaotic pace) that has a fast lyrical feel. Yet, “Girl” can also be read as a short story, perhaps a poem-short story hybrid. Still, Post-Modernism prose is often ambiguous, disorganized, and rebukes being defined to a specific term. Ultimately, trying to figure out what form of prose “Girl” falls into, is inessential. Kincaid does blur the lines between Modernism and Post-Modernism, but Post-Modern works are much more inventive than Modern, as is, “Girl”. In the end, it’s still each readers perception of the tone and message, as to what style/genre “Girl” is, or if it lies somewhere in the
In “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid’s use of repetitive syntax and intense diction help to underscore the harsh confines within which women are expected to exist. The entire essay is told from the point of view of a mother lecturing her daughter about how to be a proper lady. The speaker shifts seamlessly between domestic chores—”This is how you sweep a house”—and larger lessons: “This is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all…” (Kincaid 1). The way in which the speaker bombards the girl overwhelms the reader, too. Every aspect of her life is managed, to the point where all of the lessons she receives throughout her girlhood blur together as one run-on sentence.
It is worth mentioning that American confessional female poets have dwelled on this issue. From the first American poet, Anna Bradstreet to Anne Sexton, the quest for female identity has occupied an integral part in the poetic scene. In this respect, Laura Major states that Anne Bradstreet “unwittingly became the first American poet to publish poetry” (111). Belonging to the Puritan era of the seventeenth century, she has paved the way for generations of female poets, for the forthcoming centuries, to forge their own identities through poetry. The female confessional poets break the norms in poetry in terms of the thematic anchorage.
Throughout the year we have read many different novels from many different time periods. We have read from the following five time periods Colonial, Revolutionary, Romanticism, Realism, and Modernism. All five of these time periods express the way of life in many different ways. By that I mean that throughout every time period the thought of life is very much so different. Each time period gives you a different perspective on life and also how much different we live now in comparison to any of these time periods with the exception of post modernism. Post modernism is the current way way of writing. These time periods range from 1607-current. We have read and learned the ways of writing from 400 years in the matter of nine months. We truly need more time to truly understand all of these ways of writing.
According to Carol Baileys article on Performance and the Gendered Body in Jamaica Kincaid 's ‘Girl’ “The poem is fictional representation of the double-edged tendencies which involves child-rearing practices in many Caribbean societies: as the mother provides guidelines for living, the moments of care are constantly weaken by the severity evident in what the mother actually saying and the fact that her daughter is lectured with little room for discussion” (Carol Bailey 106). The instructions in the poem “Girl” reveal an effective performance of gender roles assigned to women in the Caribbean societies which shows significant acts in domestic, social, and other spheres. Carol Bailey argues that the poem’s primary refrain, "this is how," demonstrate a clear emphasis on particular ways one believed or taught to act, and it calls attention to a type of performance that allows the young female to reinforce where she belongs in the community of respectable women (Carol Bailey 106). The social norms and gender conducts in the Caribbean is a setting where females are constantly aware of how their body is shaped
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.
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
It is said that a girl can often develop some of her mother's characteristics. Although, in their works, Kincaid, Hong Kingston and Davenport depict their protagonists searching for their own identities, yet being influenced in different ways by their mothers. Jamaica Kincaid's poem Girl, is about a young woman coming-of-age receiving helpful advice from her mother. In this poem, Kincaid addresses several issues where a mother's influence is beneficial to a young woman's character. The mother, or speaker, in Girl, offers advice to her daughter- advice that she otherwise would not learn without being told or shown. The mother advises the daughter about everyday tasks, and how to go about them properly (in her opinion).
In most short stories the author writes a story about an experience they have had or something they have made up. In David Arnason’s, “A Girl’s Story,” the first thing that catches the eye is the title. David Arnason incorporates the readers in the story; he writes a story about the process of the author writing a romance novel. The story is entitled, “A Girl’s Story,” because the author tries to write a novel a female would write, or would want to read.
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.”
“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. This is because the mother assumes that a woman’s reputation and respectability predisposes the quality of a woman’s life in the community.
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.
The short story, Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid, can very easily be related directly to the author’s own life. Kincaid had a close relationship with her mother until her three younger brothers were born. After the birth of her brothers, three major values of her mother became apparent to Kincaid. In turn, Kincaid used the three values of her mother to write the short story, Girl. Specifically, these values led to three themes being formed throughout the story. It appears in the short story that the mother was simply looking out for her daughter; however, in all reality, the mother is worried about so much more. Kincaid uses the themes of negativity towards female sexuality, social norms and stereotypes, and the significant
Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” is a story about a girl that struggles against society’s ideas of how a girl should be, only to find her trapped in the ways of the world.
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shows in society how a woman should be placed and what it means to be a woman. A women doesn’t question her partner, instead she is subservient to him. A woman’s duties include staying at home taking care of the children and cooking; while the man works and brings home the money. A feministic approach to Kincaid’s “Girl” points to the idea of the stereotypes that women can only be what they do in the home, they should only be pure and virtuous, and their main focus should be satisfying their husband.