Preview

Jamaica Kincaid Girl Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
628 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Jamaica Kincaid Girl Essay
Jamaica Kincaid, who was originally known as Elaine Potter Richardson, changed her name due to her families’ disapproval of her occupation and is today a renowned Caribbean American writer. Kincaid’s use of the themes of family relationships, personhood, and the taint of colonialism were prominent in her written works. Kincaid is an honor winning author whose work has been both lauded and scrutinized for its focuses since her composition to a great extent draws upon her own life and her tone is regularly seen as vexed. Kincaid's stories, books, and articles have additionally been vital to postcolonial hypothesis, a branch of scholarly reviews that is worried with seeing how colonized people groups both disguise and oppose the colonizing society. …show more content…
Throughout the story it is clear that the mother is essentially trying to teach the daughter how to conduct herself in the proper manner. Therefore, this short story can also be seen as a parable as its theme takes the form of a series of lessons. The mother, who can be perceived as the main speaker of the story, relays advice that seems both helpful and chastising towards her daughter. The mother relays lessons that can teach her daughter how to effectively run a household and how to uphold herself. On the other hand, in between her words of knowledge the mother implies that her daughter has attributes like that of a “slut” scolding her only in fear that her daughter will take on a life of promiscuity. Some examples include how she reprimands her little girl for the way she strolls, the way she plays marbles, and how she identifies with other individuals. These constant reprimands bring up the underlying theme of gender identity and demonstrates the amount she desires her little girl to understand that she is "not a boy" and that she needs to act in a way that will win her regard from the group. The daughter who stays attentive to her mother, only speaks when she feels the need to defend herself, for her mother’s chastising that suggests the daughter

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Jamaica Kincaid

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages

    After reading Jamaica Kincaid’s “On Seeing England for the First Time” it’s evident that Kincaid’s life revolved around the English. Jamaica Kincaid grew up like one of the English from eating huge portions for breakfast, to her father buying the same hat that was “Made in England”, but what really stood out was Kincaid’s street name: John Hawkins. Kincaid’s grew up in St.Johns Antigua, Ovals where there were five streets “each of them named after a famous English seaman…” her street was John Hawkins. John Hawkins was a terrible man who is notably known for opening the slave trade. “Every single person living on Hawkins street was descended from a slave.” When Kincaid mentioned John Hawkins the tone of the essay quickly shifted from gloomy…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jamaica Kincaid, born Elaine Cynthia Potter, has clearly never been content with accepting the world as presented to her. She changed her name, as she felt it wasn’t representative of her origins or the history of her bloodline. Moreover, her name wasn’t the only name she had a problem with; in her passage,”In History,” she undertakes the enormous task of demolishing and reestablishing our understanding of the names we encounter on a daily basis. Through intentionally withholding information and repetition, she takes apart our traditionally accepted, racially constructed worldview piece by piece, replacing it with the rarely explored truths of what naming does to a people and to a place.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jamaica Kincaid's Girl

    • 326 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout the short story “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid tells a story about a mother giving her daughter advice about growing up through a series of semicolons and run on sentences within a single paragraph. This technique Kincaid uses through the course of her short story is quite an unusual approach to the reader at first. Usually, short stories consist of completely structured sentences and multiple paragraphs. Although Kincaid’s structure in “Girl” is constructed in an untraditional manner, it plays an important role in describing a mother’s responsibility of teaching their daughter life lessons essential to adulthood as a woman. The advice the mother gives her daughter is quite abundant and clearly wasn’t taught in a single session, but…

    • 326 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Adam And Eve Poem

    • 1741 Words
    • 7 Pages

    “Adam and Eve” by Ani Difranco and “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid are two literary works that speak to the issue of how important it is to have a mother in a daughter’s life. It is the life experience(s) that can only be communicated to a daughter by her mother. The emotions, feeling and understanding of the female experience of what a woman goes through in life. When a young lady does not receive this information for the female prospective is the difference between socialites view and becoming of a “bad” or “good” girl. It is critical to have a mother in the life of a daughter to provide emotional balance, feeling and understanding from a woman’s point of view.…

    • 1741 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story of “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is about a mother and her relationship with her daughter. It is a harsh one sided conversation between the narrator and her mother, with the mother doing all the talking. The story gives a rich description of what her mother expects from her in all aspects of her life, from chores, to how she plays, to what she sings in church. From each line you see the viewpoint of how her mother sees the world, what is proper in her eyes and her expectations for her daughter. Throughout the story the symbolism gives deeper meaner to every verse and shows deeper insight to their realsonship.…

    • 1465 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are two different ways, in my opinion, to interpret this piece. Firstly and most obviously, it is that the mother is training the daughter in how she ought to act…

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jamaica Kincaid Analysis

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Kincaid’s word choice description on how living in Antigua was influenced by England, was shown by the reported details of all of the items that are made by England. These details are what expresses Kincaid's feeling of assimilation. Kincaid constructs a pattern on how the common perception of England being Antigua's superior was taken and how she, herself believed England only cared for their personal gain as a nation. Kincaid's writes on writings display her contrasting opinions on England compared to other Antiguan’s. Kincaid’s perception of the tight grip that England has on Antigua , sculpting it into the very manner it wishes. Illustrating an image that she “Kincaid” see’s right through. Kincaid’s strategy on labeling simplistically expressing the everyday life such as the “Breakfast business made in England” shows just how dominating England was towards the native Antiguan…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator’s descriptions of Mrs. Margolin represented her as a very dull, and trusting woman who is easily fooled and not strict. Mrs. Margolin is so immersed in her biblical acronyms that she believes that her troop members are all good girls, allowing for girls like Arnetta to easily fool Mrs. Margolin. This is shown as the narrator states “Arnetta always made a point of listening to Mrs. Margolin’s religious talk and giving her what she wanted to hear”(39) Furthermore, Mrs. Hedy, Octavia’s mother is the chaperone of the Troop, however it is shown as that she rarely cares as she has unchecked marital problems with her husband. The narrator states that “When Octavia’s mother wasn’t giving bored, parochial orders, she sniffled continuously, mourning an imminent divorce from her husband”(44). According to umaine.edu, Respect is a two Way Street in which both participants, the adult and child, must actively participate to get any respect from each other. This is exactly what isn’t happening with Mrs. Hedy and Mrs. Margolin and her troop. Since the children no longer fear their adults, nor had any respect for them, it was easy for the troop members to dismiss their authority, and blatantly lie and deceive them. This lack of respect given by the group of girls, coupled with the ignorance of adults fosters the growth of racism within the troop, as the group easily lies to the adults about their whereabouts, like when Arnetta states, “I handled them… I told her we was going to gather leaves”(42). These girls are also further shaped by the society they happen to live in. The narrator Snot states that “When you live in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those baby pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about”(40). They never really had that much interaction with…

    • 1309 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Girl by Jamaica Kincaid and If by Rudyard Kipling, are two texts that are written by parents with real world expectations for their children. Both texts though are similar and different in many different ways. Girl, is a one sentence story about a mother’s expectations for her “Boy crazy girl” that is going out into the real world by herself. She explains what so tips for her daughter in a more harsh than gentle voice. “If” is a poem of a dad poetically telling his son about the good and bad and how to handle it including some expectations he has for his son.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boys Party

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The girl attempts to deny the emergence of her femininity though the impersonal use of…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I Stand Here Ironing

    • 569 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The central idea in this story seems to be the mother’s search of an understanding of her daughter’s personality and outlook on life. The majority of the story is the mother trying to depict reasons for why her daughter is the way she is, so delicate, reserved, needless, and even unhappy at times. She seems to also defend her parenting choices by making excuses or blaming the urges of others in order to not have all the blame on her. She speaks about how she had no other option but to put her in the care of someone else at the age of two, even though she knew the teacher was “evil” (Pg. 925). “It was the only place there was…the only way I could hold a job” (pg. 925).…

    • 569 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jamaica Kincaid grew up in a world where everything she owned wasn’t hers. While she may have physically owned it, mentally she did not. As her world of Antigua was being eaten alive by England, Kincaids family loved every bit of it. In the essay, On Seeing England for the First Time, Jamaica Kincaid uses several literary elements to explore her negative feelings towards England and England’s influence in Antigua. Three of the main elements used in the essay are structure, ethos, and diction.…

    • 640 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Compare and Contrast

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Even though the daughter doesn’t seem to have yet reached adolescence, the mother worries that her current behavior, if continued, will lead to a life of promiscuity. The mother believes that a woman’s reputation or respectability determines the quality of her life in the community. A female’s sexuality must be carefully guarded and even concealed to maintain a respectable front. Consequently, the mother links various tangential objects and tasks to the taboo topic of sexuality, such as squeezing bread before buying it, and much of her advice is centered on how to uphold respectability. She scolds her daughter for the way she walks, the way she plays marbles, and how she relates to other people. The mother’s constant emphasis on this theme shows how much she wants her daughter to realize that she is “not a boy” and that she needs to act in a way that will win her respect from the community.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gender Role and Narrator

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Mother in the both story “playing to win” and “Boys and Girls” doesn’t support their daughter when they wish to be more masculine than feminine. For example, the protagonist in the “Boys and Girls” prefers to help her father than to help her mother in the kitchen. However, because narrator’s mother has strong idea about indoor and outdoor territoriality, her mother thinks it’s wrong for a girl to work outside. “I just get my back turned and she runs off. It’s not like I have a girl in the family at all”. Even though there are two kids in the house the narrator’s mother only think of the narrator to help her in the house because she’s the only girl. Also In the “playing to win” the narrator disapproves of her daughter playing sports. She sates “my daughter is an athlete. Nowadays, this statement won’t strike many parents as unusual, but it does me.” This illustrates that her daughter doesn’t fit into society’s idea about women.…

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jamaica Kincaid Girl

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages

    An important influence on Kincaid’s writing is the era she was living in when she composed her stories. At that time, Antigua and Barbuda was colonized by England, so that the…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays