Canteen Girl Essay
Canteen girl
James Berry
The short story is about a man who comes in a canteen where a new girl works. She is an immigrant from Jamaica, and he is as well, but he has been in London for a much longer time. In the short story the man is the story teller, and he tells us about an immigrated girl. We do not know what she is thinking, but the man has been in the same situation so he can imagine how she feels. The writer of the short story was an immigrant too. James Berry was born in Jamaica in 1925 and spent his childhood in a little village there. First he immigrated to the USA to work there and after that he finally settled down in Britain in 1948 where he has stayed ever since. He was one of the first black writers in Britain at the time.
The canteen girl is black and comes from Jamaica. She is wearing a white cap, overalls, which may be her work wear. In each ear lope she has a white earring, which is similar to butterbeans and it probably, just make her look more like a Jamaican. She has a slim figure with long arms and sleek and slim legs which has two indentations of scars one of each shin. It could indicate that she has worked hard back in Jamaica. She has ripe-grape black face with shy bright eyes, a broad nose and full lips, which make her face seems rounder than it really is, but obviously a taut and blank face with subdued fear, so maybe she is a little bit scared of what the new country brings.
Her lost and lonely air has always made her apart from the fact that she seems to want to talk to the man, and that is probably because of lost self-esteem and maybe because of missing courage. She does not really expect someone to notice her. She also seems surprised and overwhelmed that the man wants to talk to her “Surprised, arrested in her track, she knocks knives and spoons clattering onto the table“(page 68, line31), and again it says something about her low self-esteem, and this may be due to lack of friends after arriving to a new county, and maybe
James Berry
The short story is about a man who comes in a canteen where a new girl works. She is an immigrant from Jamaica, and he is as well, but he has been in London for a much longer time. In the short story the man is the story teller, and he tells us about an immigrated girl. We do not know what she is thinking, but the man has been in the same situation so he can imagine how she feels. The writer of the short story was an immigrant too. James Berry was born in Jamaica in 1925 and spent his childhood in a little village there. First he immigrated to the USA to work there and after that he finally settled down in Britain in 1948 where he has stayed ever since. He was one of the first black writers in Britain at the time.
The canteen girl is black and comes from Jamaica. She is wearing a white cap, overalls, which may be her work wear. In each ear lope she has a white earring, which is similar to butterbeans and it probably, just make her look more like a Jamaican. She has a slim figure with long arms and sleek and slim legs which has two indentations of scars one of each shin. It could indicate that she has worked hard back in Jamaica. She has ripe-grape black face with shy bright eyes, a broad nose and full lips, which make her face seems rounder than it really is, but obviously a taut and blank face with subdued fear, so maybe she is a little bit scared of what the new country brings.
Her lost and lonely air has always made her apart from the fact that she seems to want to talk to the man, and that is probably because of lost self-esteem and maybe because of missing courage. She does not really expect someone to notice her. She also seems surprised and overwhelmed that the man wants to talk to her “Surprised, arrested in her track, she knocks knives and spoons clattering onto the table“(page 68, line31), and again it says something about her low self-esteem, and this may be due to lack of friends after arriving to a new county, and maybe