Girl By Jamaica Kincaid Essay

Kincaid, Jamaica.“Girl”. In The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 541-542. Print.

In “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother is adamant that her daughter’s reputation essentially defines the value of her life within society. She endlessly reprimands her daughter for her behavior and persistently mentions the importance of respectability in all facets of her life. I agree with Lauren Czosek in her electronic discussion where she states, I think that her mother is preparing her for her future [. . .] I don 't think all this stress of the responsibilities should be thrown at a child, [ . . .]" (Czosek). Sexuality, according to the mother’s advice, is something to be veiled and protected in order for her daughter to be considered a valued woman within society. The continuous highlighting of the theme by the mother demonstrates how much it means to her that her daughter understands the roles and

In fear of her daughter’s recent actions, the mother begins to think that her daughter is already on her way to becoming a “slut”. For example, she tells the young girl not to squat while playing marbles and to always walk like a lady. She constantly reminds her daughter that she is “not a boy” in order to fix the way she walks and other improper actions that are believed to win her respect from the community. She scolds her daughter for the way she has started to act because she believes there are only two types of women: those who are respected and “sluts”, and she forbids her daughter to be considered a “slut”. The mother believes that a women’s reputation and the amount of respect she receives from others, defines her life in the public.

There is an absurdly vast amount of pressure imposed on young girls today to look a certain way in society’s eyes. They are taught, since their young and innocuous days, that they must take certain actions as well as behave certain ways to conform to society’s ideals. Most girls accept these ideals and live the rest of their lives submitting to them; however, some oppose the idea and completely refrain from this way of living. A young girl in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” is being told what is expected of her as a woman. Her mother figure engraves instructions on how to tackle household chores while instructing her daughter how to behave around specific people especially men, The idea of having a man look at her daughter as upright is honorable to her. The young girl in the story hardly ever has an opportunity to explain herself or oppose what is being forced upon her because her mother strictly and continuously says imperatives such as, “This is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have worked you against becoming.”(320)

In the short story, “Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid, the story’s narrator lectures her daughter with pointed diction and unconventional syntax, both of which affect the development of an overall scathing tone, that the daughter’s perceived behavior will lead to a life of promiscuity that will undermine her future respectability and standing within the community.

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

In this poem, the mother tells her daughter what she needs to know in order to please the men with higher social class through a repetition of a “do this, do that” list of commands. The mother goes through the duties of a woman in order to keep men comfortable such as cooking, cleaning, and a personality that pleases men. However, the mother repeats one certain line to the daughter multiple times, “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” (Kincaid 200). This one line brings a lot of significance with the repetition of “to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming” through the different definitions of “slut” the mother uses each time she repeats this. She ties the word “slut” to someone who does not walk properly, someone who does not take care of clothes, someone who does not act properly in the presence of men, and someone who the baker does not let near the bread.

Kincaid also focused to how girls are expected to have a feminine appearance and not look like a “slut”. For example, Kincaid wrote about a mother telling her daughter how to hem her father’s clothes and on her appearance of not being a slut, “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; 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” (Kincaid 15-19). This shows how gender roles make a girl’s feminine appearance to be important rather than learning business. This also shows how women are expected to tend to household affairs rather than learn more important skills like business or economics because the mother was

For example, when it says “don’t pick people’s flowers— you might catch something”, on reality, it also talks about not interfering or giving your opinion on other people’s life. Living in a society that wants to command people, limits their “acceptable” actions in a way that if they do not do what others find it is reasonable, then they are not respected. Therefore, people, especially women, are not allowed to give their opinion not only because it is not seen as the right thing to do but also because they are not respectable enough to make their opinions worth of

In “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother is warning her daughter about what to expect, and how to act, in society. The story represents a time when the daughter knew that her mother loved her enough to spend the time to give her the advice, but is also emotionally distant. I believe this to be representative of Kincaid’s life, and how after her brother’s were born she felt that her mother did not have enough time for her.

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

In the essay “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid there are references to many social problems that were prevalent earlier in society that still apply to today’s society. In this essay the author is giving advice to her teenage daughter where she teachers her the “proper” etiquette and what was expected of a woman in her view. In this story the author Kincaid seems to be the mother and the teenage daughter is probably her daughter, in a different way of viewing she may be the daughter herself reflecting on the past, but it’s not very relevant to the meaning of the literature. In this essay I will explain how the way women are viewed in today’s society have changed, as well as what remains of the past that has yet to be overcome. I will also try and analyze and give my theory as to why Kincaid decided to write her story the way she did.

Written in 1983, Kincaid narrates the thoughts and moral beliefs of the time by her mother. In Girl, Kincaid uses repetition of the term “slut” to emphasize that her mother did not want her to develop a bad moral reputation (Kincaid 118-119). Later in the narration though are her mother’s thoughts on abortion, “this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child” (Kincaid 119). It shows that while the mother instructed her in moral principles, she also understood that things happen to a young woman. The practical nature of this instruction seems to indicate more modern thought while still living in a society of traditions. Another hint of the time period is the mention of divorce and how to live after it, “this is how you love a man…and if they don’t work out, don’t feel bad about giving up” (Kincaid 119). This could indicate that divorce is an accepted practice in the more modern society that Jamaica Kincaid wrote Girl in.

Even though the daughter is not an adolescence yet, the mother worries that her current behavior would transcend her into becoming a slut. The mother believes that a woman’s reputation is everything; therefore she should try anything and everything to protect her daughter’s reputation. Nevertheless, women should do everything in her power to be as innocent and pure as possible. There is an old saying that some women do “act the whore on Saturday and play the Virgin on Sunday.” Her mother does not want her to end up this way either, she teaches her how ideal women should act. Since this essay was written in the 1940’s women were a publicaly shame if they went against the norm of being a proper lady. She teaches her daughter the proper way to walk, smile, behave, and how to communicate with others. The mother’s constant emphasis on you’re either a lady or a slut makes the daughter feel overwhelmed throughout the passage because she does not understand what she is doing wrong.

In Jamaica Kincaid’s fiction short story “Girl” a mother is teaching her young daughter on how to society wants her to act as a female. She is teaching the young girl not to form her own identity and beliefs but to live by how others want her to live. The mother gives the daughter several rules to live by and suggests that if she doesn’t live by these rules she will become a slut. The setting of this story seems to take place in a Caribbean island. This shows that no matter what a female culture is, she is taught the same things like the rest of the world. The mother tells the daughter “This is how you iron your fathers khaki shirt so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you iron your fathers pants so that they don’t have a crease.” (Jamaica Kincaid 566) The mother is not teaching the daughter how to survive as an individual but how to survive and be accepted by a community that is more than likely ruled by men.