Jamaica Kincaid
Women nowadays are not worried about society, women tend to behave more liberal and find happiness in self dependency. Women do not care how the world will criticized her daughter because both men and women sees each other equal. However, A while back, being a women was the toughest job.Women were just typical housewives who had to take care of her family and sometimes they had to self-sacrifice because she worries how the society will view her. In “The Girl,” the writer Jamaica Kincaid shows how a mother is training her daughter to get ready for adulthood. As she describes in the story, mother is being very controlling to her daughter. where women have to act and dress properly, set the dinner table right, how to smile at the one you like and so on. She points out by giving a list of the chores and how to behave in the story.While reading this short story, readers would find that back in the days girls were being pressured and
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women's role in life is to be domesticated which is not true. Readers might find that back in the days the girls were being pressured. Kincaid uses strong words and starting a sentence with repeating words to grab readers attention. For example, “this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how to bully a man; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child”( Kincaid, 56). Here, the repeated line this is how in every sentence make it feel like even if the girl does not want to understand how to behave or do chores, the mother is still forcing her to do it just because she is a girl. Another example, where it says “ don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach;on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions”( Kincaid, 56). The use of strong words such as, don’t, always, that it won’t, try to walk like lady, not slut, etc really shows that the mother is being very demanding. The mother is giving advices even if the girl does not need it and does not want to know what her daughter is thinking but her mother just simply keep telling daughter that she needs to be domestic and there should be no objecting to it.
Moreover, Kincaid shows women's role in life is to be domesticated which most of the female readers will not agree with her.
This whole story shows that a woman's place is in the house. “ 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 56). Here the mother is telling the daughter that this is the way to do chores correctly and there are many more examples on how to do the household work. “ this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra – far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants” (Kincaid 56).The story does tell that how to iron clothes, how to grow food but it does not tell us that how to have a successful career, how to work outside of the home. Nowadays, women believes in equal rights and as year goes by the thinking changes.They want to be educated and show that they are also comparable with the men, so there is no way that women just have to be only a
housewife.
On the other hand, many older women reader, they will agree that women’s role is in the life is to be domesticated and girls were not being pressured. Because, they still think like an “old fashioned” and do not tend to move on with the time so, their thinking will never change. They will think about how they were raised and the manners they learned from their parents. “on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school... and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming” (Kincaid 56). Here Kincaid gave an example of how a mother is teaching her how to walk like a lady and not and also not to sing songs in the sunday school, so it will not look like the daughter is slut. After the older women readers sees this kinds of example they will definitely agree with the story and will never find any objection with it because it all true even now days.
Finally, Kincaid, the author of the story has emphasized too much on the list that show the repetition of the words which makes the mother looks like she is pressuring the daughter to do the chores and women’s life being as a domesticated which most of the readers will never agree.In my opinion, if Kincaid would have given more examples of the daughters thinking then the story might have been more solid because the mother will find out how she is thinking and how the younger generation is developing.
women's role in life is to be domesticated which is not true. Readers might find that back in the days the girls were being pressured. Kincaid uses strong words and starting a sentence with repeating words to grab readers attention. For example, “this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how to bully a man; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child”( Kincaid, 56). Here, the repeated line this is how in every sentence make it feel like even if the girl does not want to understand how to behave or do chores, the mother is still forcing her to do it just because she is a girl. Another example, where it says “ don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach;on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions”( Kincaid, 56). The use of strong words such as, don’t, always, that it won’t, try to walk like lady, not slut, etc really shows that the mother is being very demanding. The mother is giving advices even if the girl does not need it and does not want to know what her daughter is thinking but her mother just simply keep telling daughter that she needs to be domestic and there should be no objecting to it.
Moreover, Kincaid shows women's role in life is to be domesticated which most of the female readers will not agree with her.
This whole story shows that a woman's place is in the house. “ 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 56). Here the mother is telling the daughter that this is the way to do chores correctly and there are many more examples on how to do the household work. “ this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra – far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants” (Kincaid 56).The story does tell that how to iron clothes, how to grow food but it does not tell us that how to have a successful career, how to work outside of the home. Nowadays, women believes in equal rights and as year goes by the thinking changes.They want to be educated and show that they are also comparable with the men, so there is no way that women just have to be only a
housewife.
On the other hand, many older women reader, they will agree that women’s role is in the life is to be domesticated and girls were not being pressured. Because, they still think like an “old fashioned” and do not tend to move on with the time so, their thinking will never change. They will think about how they were raised and the manners they learned from their parents. “on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school... and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming” (Kincaid 56). Here Kincaid gave an example of how a mother is teaching her how to walk like a lady and not and also not to sing songs in the sunday school, so it will not look like the daughter is slut. After the older women readers sees this kinds of example they will definitely agree with the story and will never find any objection with it because it all true even now days.
Finally, Kincaid, the author of the story has emphasized too much on the list that show the repetition of the words which makes the mother looks like she is pressuring the daughter to do the chores and women’s life being as a domesticated which most of the readers will never agree.In my opinion, if Kincaid would have given more examples of the daughters thinking then the story might have been more solid because the mother will find out how she is thinking and how the younger generation is developing.