“Girl” runs as a stream of conscience in which a mother tells her daughter of her beliefs about life. “The unique form of the story suggests how the power of the mother's voice shapes the girl's sense of herself.” (1) Jamaica Kincaid breaks down the barriers of gender, area and wealth and status by creating a story where the only things we know are that the mother wants her daughter to be respected by all while the daughter is silent. The story is linear in plot progression and has an interesting
high expectation on women with how they should behave, what skills they should posses, and the image that they should emanate to the public. In the short story, “Girl”, written by Jamaica Kincaid, the arbitrary presumptions of women are put on display. The entire story is a list of rules on what it takes to be a woman, told to a young girl by her mother. Each sentence is a new rule that the daughter needs to follow and in order to keep the story flowing, Kincaid uses specific elements to add energy
Girl revolves around the relationship between Kincaid and her mother. Kincaid’s relationship with her mother seems hostile because her mother speaks to Kincaid in a harsh tone. The mother tries to instill her traditional values on Kincaid in a commanding fashion but Kincaid is growing up in a changing world. The mother’s values probably derive from her own experiences as a young. The mother’s instructions don’t hit home with Kincaid because in an interview Kincaid says she rapidly outgrew the things
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” is a literary work that details the duties of women in the Caribbean. Kincaid uses this story as a way of conveying the view and work of women not in just the Caribbean, but in the world at the time. Being written in 1978, “Girl” gives a retrospective view on patriarchal society at the time. Words such as “benna”, “okra”, and “dasheen” are associated with a tropical Caribbean area, which makes sense since Kincaid was born and raised in Antigua. Kincaid chronicles what is
think mothers should make the decisions for daughters or control the life of their daughter. Mothers have a great amount of influence upon their daughters, whom they possibly see as a second chance at life for themselves. In the short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother gives her daughter a lecture on how a lady is supposed to conduct herself in society. Kincaid reveals the nature of gender identity structure through the mother’s advice about home-making skills, appropriate etiquette, and
literature often identifies women's roles as unequal to those of men- particularly as regards to status, privilege, and power. In both Kate Chopin’s “The Story Of An Hour” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” there is evidence of suppression, repression, and dehumanization. Louise Mallard is suppressed by her husband Brently, while the “girl” is dehumanized by her mother. Chopin often wrote about women becoming themselves "but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself." Kincaid