Jamaica Kincaid Girl

Girl, written by Jamaica Kincaid, is a short story about the relationship between a mother and daughter. Actually, it reflects the true living background in Kincaid’s time by listing a series of imperative sentences, which show how the mother had a certain life style on how she wanted her daughter to live up. In this story, the setting and tone and characters interlace and work together to create an intense description of the daily conversation between the mother and daughter, and they present the low social status of working-class women’s living attitude. 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
conflicts between two cultures brought a lot of difficulties in natives’ life. In the story, it says that “don’t sing benna in Sunday school” (Kincaid 258). We can easily see that it is an old tradition to sing benna in Antigua. However, as the British culture invaded in their life, it is not permitted to do this any longer. For another example, mother says “cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil” (Kincaid 258). And at the same time, she points out that “this is how you set a table for tea” (Kincaid 258). The way of cooking pumpkin follows the Antigua’s habit, yet the way of setting the table is a custom in England. In addition, the setting which is presented in this story shows women’s low social status at that time. Through the mother’s list, we can see that all the trifles chores burdened on women’s shoulder, such as laundry, cleaning, cooking, and planting. Unfortunately, the mother in this story takes it for granted. She takes all these trifles in her own generation, and now she starts teaching her daughter how to be a decent woman. The thought of unequal distribution of social works between men and women became acquiescent, since it had already been a local cultural background in long run without any doubts. An obvious characteristic in this story is the tone which shows a feeling of anger and bitterness towards the social situation.
For one perspective of using words, there is no term of endearment. Nowadays, we would always use polite language such as “dear” or “yours” at the beginning or the end of our letters or emails, and sometimes we even send it to the person whom we are not familiar with. Nevertheless, in this story, it is a conversation between a mother and daughter, and we couldn’t even find a word like that! How ruthless is the society! For another perspective of the sentence structures, almost all of them are imperative sentences. For example, “This is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house” (Kincaid 258). The mother lists all the instructions by using the similar imperative sentence structure without giving any speaking chance to the girl. We can’t find any relationship which could make a conversation like that in today’s life, can we? Without expressing direct emotions, Kincaid presents the contemporary relationship between the mother and daughter incisively and vividly by using the single and bare
language. Another important term that Kincaid uses in this story is the character.
The mother in this story is such a cold and mean woman who is indifferent about her daughter’s emotional world. Cynthia Bily, who writes a literary criticism of “Girl”, points out that” She gives no advice about how to be a friend, or how to sense which women to confide in. There are no tips about changing a diaper or wiping a tear or nurturing a child in any way; she mentions children only when she shows’ how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child’” (Bily 2). Maybe the mother was also brought up in such a cruel family, then she does not have the awareness to consider her daughter’s emotion at all. Besides, the mother has a negative living attitude because she doesn’t care whether the world outside is beautiful. In the contrast, what she care is the right way that the girl should behave in front of people. Kincaid writes” don’t squat down to play marbles- you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers- you might catch something; don’t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be blackbird at all” (Kincaid 259). All the statements concerning about the natural scene are prohibitions. She doesn’t teach her daughter how to enjoy such a beautiful living environment or how to make herself feel happy, however, all the suggestions are
practical. In the terms of setting, tone, and characteristic, we can have a deep knowledge of the main character, who represents most women figures in that era. It shows a particular relationship between mother and daughter, and inflexible views which were deeply sowed in their heart.

Works Cited
Kincaid, Jamaica. “Girl.” Patterns for College Writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner. Boston: Bedford Books, 2011. 258-259. Print.
Bily, Cynthia. “Overview of ‘Girl’”. Literature of Developing Nations. Ed. Elizabeth Bellalouna, Michael L. LaBlane, and Ira Mark Miline. Vd.1. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Mar, 2014.