Girl By Jamaica Kincaid Analysis

When I first read through Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” I’ll admit my first reaction to the piece was relief at the short length. However, as I processed what she was writing, my appreciation for the piece deepened. It is rapid and blatantly lays out the standards that Kincaid was held to during her childhood. It is written as though the reader is on the receiving end of a harsh set of rules, seeing their brutality from Kincaid’s perspective. Originally, I believed Kincaid’s purpose for writing this piece was to highlight the stark contrast in the treatment of men and women.

The mother also teaches her daughter to cook, clean, and wash which traditionally is up to the women in a household to do. Kincaid makes the reader think and figure out for him, or herself, what point of life the child is in and what gender they are in order to draw them into the story.

In Kincaids short story “Girl” our narrator is describing the ways a traditional woman must act in West Indian culture. Dominated by males, women are given a set of guidelines that are found to be socially acceptable in their culture. The narrator is given a set of rules to her daughter that she must learn and follow in order to become a proper lady in India. In order to not be seen as a slut she must obey these rules. It is her duty to cook and clean for her household, even act a certain way in the presence of men.

In the short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid is told from the perspective of two different people. There is a bonding relationship that is happening between the two people in this short story. The mother seems to be the main character in this essay uses a very strict tone to her daughter. The daughter is being told about how to do things in her life the correct way. The daughter barely speaks during this essay, she is doing more analyzing than arguing with her mother. When the mother gives the daughter advise she was trying to give her words of wisdom. But, at the same time, some of the ideas the mother gave to her child was offensive like “slut”. The mother has different perspectives throughout this essay with a lot of different

In a stream of authoritative orders of domestic chores, appearance, and behavior, a female in the short story, “Girl”, depicts her overwhelmingly self-conscious actions during her repetitive inner dialogue. All the necessary knowledge and skills the girl must know is a reflection of society’s requirements for women to avoid shame. However, her effort in maintaining a perfect appearance may not guarantee a respectful standing in society. The author, Kincaid, sheds light on society’s judgmental and demanding expectations towards girls through repetition, symbolism, and imagery.

There are always a “to-do list” and a “how-to-do list” in the life of a female. In a patriarchal society, female responsibility includes “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry…” (Kincaid 1). At a young age, a mother would trained her daughters several things, so they can become a proper lady. Kincaid inserts “this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease…this is how you sweep a whole house…this is how you set a table for dinner…this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make good medicine for a cold…” (Kincaid 1-2). The mother controls her daughter and told her to act like a proper lady. The limited talking of the daughter in the story also reveals that there is no talk back, only obey. The instructions for her daughter illustrates the gender formations; the mother want her daughter to act like a lady because she knew if her daughter refuses, she would be called a slut. In a patriarchal society, women’s role is to serve men. The mother trained her daughter so that she was able to serve her future husband

352). In today’s society there are no rules that prevent a person from doing all their laundry in the same day. A majority of people have probably learned from their parents or from experience that it doesn’t work so well if you wash whites and darks together; otherwise stating there are no instructions that come along with the task of laundry. In Kincaid’s (2011) story “Girl” the reader gathers the idea from the tone of the text, as it is the women’s role to do the laundry; whereas, in today’s society it is not always the woman completing the task of laundry. In some families, more often than less the women and men share the responsibility of doing laundry. In viewing the story “Girl” from a feminist perspective, another occurrence of gender roles would be the narrator’s statement “soak salt water fish overnight before you cook it” (Kincaid, 2011, p. 352). In the society that the story takes place, it is the woman’s responsibility to cook, compared to the twentieth century family, the meals may be prepared by every member of the family. Prior to the feminist laws women were treated with little to no respect for the things that they were expected to accomplish on a daily basis. In the era the story is written, women were often wives, housekeepers, cooks, and teachers. “This is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease,” and “this is how you sweep a

Oppression of Women Oppression is that state of being subject to unjust treatment or control. In today’s world oppression is prevalent in society despite race, gender, or sexuality. In the short story, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid shows the use of oppression of women in her time and home. The narrative coming from the perspective of her mother creates a list of lessons and guides that a girl must follow. Each lesson lays out the guidelines for how the daughter should act, appear to be, and do.

Although the story is only 650 words long, analyzing it from the feminist criticism, it has a very deep and vast meaning. It has prevailed around 30 years ago, now the society is changing rapidly and so is the perspective and viewpoint towards the woman. The narrator in this short story is the girl, who can be assumed to be a girl entering adolescence, it can be said so as she is been taught how to do all the household work and how to deal with her sexuality. From the very first line instructions are being given to the girl on how to do the household work “Wash the clothes on Monday…” (Kincaid). It shows that females were expected to do all the work in the house with no doubt and with no questions. They were supposed to do it all by themselves and it was taught as soon as a girl grows as if they were destined to do that in her life. It can be clearly said that there was less or no options for girls. By learning the household work and being perfecting on it, it was believed to be the way to be a good woman or an acceptable woman in the society. Women were treated like a machine, expected to do the work with a less expectation, just like the machine needs fuel, oil to work and handled by an operator, in the same way, women would work with less or no expectation but the acceptability in the society and handled by the society itself.

We live in a society where the similarities between female and males are seen at birth. It begins innocently with the toddlers; girls get pink while boys get blue. The gap between boys and girls develops with time and becomes increasingly apparent. There are still gender stereotypes today, but it is not as bad as it was in the past. Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” perfectly portrays gender stereotypes. It represents gender concepts as cultural constructs in the period it was written. These conceptions are comparable to current stereotypes about gender. The book gives us a list of commands from a mother to a daughter. Men in the society are dominant to the women, and the set of rules is a product of patriarchy whereby the mother and daughter appear as subordinates to the men in their lives. The article makes one aware of the prevailing masculine hierarchy that exists in a family, and how it creates firm gender roles for females in the society.

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

Society is often seen to have different biases or perspectives on topics such as the role and perception of women. The short story, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, consists primarily of a catalog of commands and instructions, the purpose of which is to make sure that the mother’s daughter is constantly in check and not getting into any trouble. Jamaica Kincaid utilizes a wide range of techniques such as symbolism and diction in order to showcase the theme of how the depiction of women rely mainly on how they present themselves in the public and how they are so easily described as impure or filthy.

While literature to some may be inspirational, compared to others seeing it as lifeless, everyone obtains their own opinions due to having some type of feeling towards the writing. Whether appreciation falls with characters or ends resenting them, you learn how to analyze the material from your own perspective. Likewise, the author's style can impact a reader's interest depending on the setup of the piece, but overall whenever material is read, the reader creates their own opinion on the story. The story being analyzed within is called Girl by Jamaica Kincaid.

The characters are being viewed are from a first-person narrative since the narrator is telling her story. The story is told in a very lax, kind of stream-of-consciousness voice, and the mother--except for two, speaks every line in the piece.

Since almost the beginning of time, women have a played a much more different role in society than men. They would stay home, clean, cook, and take care of the children while the man in the family would go out and work. While the situation for women has somewhat changed in today’s society, not too long ago, females’ lives were extremely limited with not many opportunities in life. Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” consists of a mother constantly berating her daughter, teaching her how to act and do certain things that she will be expected to know. Although the title’s brevity may be misleading, “Girl” is a very powerful and meaningful story in that it addresses multiple big issues in society, mainly showing how life as a young lady in the 1900s was very constricting.