Research

The reader could also explore the definitions of responsibility that are suggested by the story in the final line of the piece, the mother asks her daughter if she will really just turn out to be a woman whom the baker won’t let near the bread, implying that only women who are socially respected will be allowed such graces. In the mother’s mind she is giving her daughter life lessons in how to grow up to be a respectable woman which she expresses numerous times throughout the story. Whenever the mother speaks she addresses how the daughter should conduct herself around men and who she is allowed to hang around. For instance, the mother says “you mustn’t speak to whraf-rat boys, not even to give directions” (Kincaid), which is her way of expressing to her daughter that those are not the right men for her.

The mother also states “this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming,” implicating that her daughter needs to present and maintain an innocent perception with her clothing. Her mother also tells the daughter how to properly conduct herself in front of men, “this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming” (Kincaid). Her mother continues indicates to the daughter that self –image is important in the face of men and society. Everything that she wants her daughter to embody is configured off of what men want and like in a woman. It is unimportant whether her daughter has her own personality, choices, and identity. The only thing that is important is pleasing the wants and ...

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...ans property and slave. The women can only dress like this and a woman must act like attitude is all that the mother preaches on. Her society gives the daughter no choices and assumes what her position must be. The mother also indicates to the daughter all the things that the daughter should not do based on societies view of how women act. Women cannot play marbles or be sexualized. They must have tea parties and keep their dresses hemmed up. The one thing that the mother never discusses is what men are supposed to do. The story critiques how men do not have all these restrictions. Men are represented as being our leader who we wait on hand and foot. We dress up for men and learn to keep a house. The mother is teaching her daughter how to be a wife to a man rather than find her own identity. In “Girl” it seems that a woman’s identity and life is based off of a man.