Personal Experiences
(A comparison of Adjoa from The Girl Who Can and the girl from Checkouts) One girl has boy problems, the other family troubles, a growing young woman can’t win. Adjoa and the girl from Checkouts both face issues in completely different social environments. The grandmother in The Girl Who Can is continually downgrading Adjoa for having long, supposedly unnatural legs. The girl in Checkouts finds herself completely infatuated with a boy she has never met, yet somehow it makes her rough move a little less so. Each is growing and learning as situations arise, adapting as much as possible. Checkouts and The Girl Who Can show ways that young girls must learn from experiences and adapt to different environments as they grow and mature. In Checkouts, the main character becomes infatuated with a boy she sees at the supermarket. This girl, to whom no name is given, has just moved to a new town. Moving is never easy, especially when you know no one around, and this case is no exception. She is mad at her parents for making the entire family come to an unfamiliar town, and mopes for quite a while. At one point, her parents ask her to go grocery shopping for them. She grudgingly
…show more content…
When the girl finds these feelings, she doesn’t know what to do, only that she suddenly isn’t so upset about moving any more. When Adjoa learns, and understands, why her Nana is upset, she is determined to prove that she does have value… just maybe not in the way expected. The struggles faced by young people are various, but widespread. Each culture has its’ own most common difficulties, but none are much more problematic to deal with than others. From nagging Nana’s to love at first sight, but accompanied by shyness, every adolescent knows how difficult it is to grow and learn. On the bright side, once a lesson is lived and learned, it is not easily
girl’s life from childhood to her early adult life. Johnson begins her piece by talking about the
In the short story “Saving Sourdi” by May-Lee Chai, the author use Nea’s point of view to show how a bond between sisters can grow farther apart through time and maturity. Nea is the younger sister in short story and Sourdi is the older one “escaping” Nea. By placing the point of view on Nea the reader is given the perspective of the sister that is naïve and sampling does know about life. This way, the author is able to make her readers emotionally connect with Nea because the reader directly knows Nea thoughts and fears, ultimately sympathizing with her through the point of view of Nea. Once the readers connects with Nea, the theme of the story is able to be recognized by the readers.
Though this book is written from a young girl’s point of view, even in the first hundred pages there are various forms of
It doesn't matter what lies behind or before us, what matters is what lies within us. Self love is to believe in ourselves that we are valuable which indirectly builds up from the independence and freedom we get from our family, culture and believe. The text shows Independence and self love which includes the following texts. The memoir “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls represents the struggles the way she overcome them in various self independent ways. The song “I ” by Kendrick Lumar represents the affection and self love towards oneself and “The Other Family” by Himani Bennerji shows the complexity of a daughter who is struggling to achieve her own self love and independence. Firstly, childhood struggles and difficulties can be overcome if one loves them and they are passionate to achieve their goals and dreams. Secondly, our experience of the family can help to shape our independence and to halt our progress as we are reliable on them. Finally, accepting ourselves and investing in self love makes us capable to achieve something in life. By examining the impact of struggles, family and acceptance, this essay will demonstrate that finding self love regardless of family status influence our perspectives on ourselves and what we are capable of achieving.
In both the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the poem “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, young girls are lectured on who they should be in life and how they should act.
As the beginning of life starts all children have some caretaker. Janie is a teenage girl and like any is young and naive. In this case for Janie her Nanny looks after her as a loving family member, but this love does not exactly communicate correctly between them. Nanny clearly wants Janie to have a better life, as she explains with her past in slavery. The aspirations she wishes to have is put towards Janie. But the ideals conflict as Nanny’s outlook of love battles Janie's teenage aspirations. Only later does Janie understand of why
In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls
For a reader in 2017 “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid might seems very surreal and harsh as a story; mostly because of the very grating and mean language that is used when the mother is talking. The mother’s heartless language makes is really uncomfortable even though at the end of the day, she speaks nothing but love into her daughter’s life. She is giving her daughter social and family teachings, sharing with her the cultural and social values that will help her girl to have a peaceful and respected household and a happy life.
Although the daughter’s shame in her mother is evident, she is also prideful of her as well. The strong love that the mother and daughter share is pervasive throughout the story. The story is being told by the daughter after she is all grown up. The fact that Jones uses such vivid detail on the mother’s preparation for her daughters first day of school shows that the daughter loved her mom and all that she did for her. The daughter recalls that her mother spent a lot of time preparing her when she says, “My mother has uncharacteristically spent nearly an hour on my hair that morning, plaiting and replaiting so that now my scalp tingles.” (Jones) She also remembers that her “pale green slip and underwear are new, the underwear having come three to a plastic package with a little girl on the front who appears to be dancing.” (Jones) The daughter having remembered details like these illustrate that she has an immense love and takes pride
Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl explores these controversies and writes a long form poem that includes a list of rules for young girls to follow as advice that will help them be more likeable and become a reputable “woman”. These rules are delivered in a direct emphasis with strict undertone. The guidelines given to the young girl can be inferred as a mother teaching her daughter who is at the age of adolescence. Jamaica Kincaid’s long form poem Girl highlights the stereotypical social responsibilities of young girls which is heavily defined by language, culture, and mothers. In the poem the mother figure covers everything from how to
From the start the girlchild was given gifts that stained in her mind as what she was suppose to become in life. With the little dolls, GE stoves and irons, and lipstick her parents put this ideal image of the perfect woman in her head. With these types of presents the girlchild is already learning her role in society.
In her short story "Two Kinds," Amy Tan utilizes the daughter's point of view to share a mother's attempts to control her daughter's hopes and dreams, providing a further understanding of how their relationship sours. The daughter has grown into a young woman and is telling the story of her coming of age in a family that had emigrated from China. In particular, she tells that her mother's attempted parental guidance was dominated by foolish hopes and dreams. This double perspective allows both the naivety of a young girl trying to identify herself and the hindsight and judgment of a mature woman.
“Girl” is a short story in which the author, Jamaica Kincaid, unofficially presents the stereotypes of girls in the mid 1900s. Kincaid includes two major characters in the story “Girl”, they are the mother and the girl. Although the daughter only asks two questions in this story, she is the major character. The mother feels like her daughter is going in the wrong direction and not making the best decisions in her life. The whole story is basically the mother telling her daughter what affects her decisions will have in the future. The mother believes that because her daughter isn’t sitting, talking, cleaning, walking or singing correctly it will lead her to a path of destruction. “Girl” is a reflection of female sexuality, the power of family, and how family can help overcome future dangers.
The Romantic-Comedy-Drama follows the life of a teenage girl named Nadine, and the story is told from her perspective through first person narration. The protagonist is awkward, lonely, and depressed. Nadine’s behavior spirals out of her control when her best friend Krista begins dating her brother Darian. The film centers around Nadine trying to navigate the world of love and loss as she comes to terms with her father’s death and her complicated relationships. This paper will focus on the different relationships Nadine has with other characters in the film and on how these relationships contribute to the development and identity of the protagonist.
The resentment within the young girl’s family is essential to the novel because one can understand the young girl better as she makes her decision.