Problem Of Parents And Children In The Short Story Girl By Jamaica Kincaid
Have you ever had your parents tell you think about life and what you should do in life and what you shouldn’t do based on what they’ve been through or because of society? The story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is more or less about that. The character in this story is the mother that does the majority of the talking, and the girl that only says two things in the entire story. What I got to analyze about this story is that the mother is giving her daughter all these instructions on how to behave and how to act like a lady and not a slut.
The story “Girl” there is no plot there’s no clear action telling you. Where and how old is the girl? What is the situation that the mother is having this talk with the girl? The Setting is unclear we don’t know what time it is what’s going on where they are located. What I can analyze is that the mother is very strict the mother is telling her what to do and what not to do like that she doesn’t look like a slut. I’m assuming that the mother is telling all this to the daughter like that she doesn’t look like a bad mother herself but also like that her daughter doesn’t go through the mistakes she made when she was her age. One of the motives that she wants her to look good like she they respect her. The mother is giving her advice, advice about housekeeper on how to cook and how to dress, but She goes beyond that when she tells her “this is how to make good medicine to throw away a child before he even becomes a child” (Kincaid & Meyer ‘Girl’ 115). It shows that the mother loves her daughter, but she cares more about her reputation that she teaches her daughter how to make a medication to kill a baby. This is what makes me think that the mother probably went through that. The mother reputation was really bad and She didn’t have someone to tell her looked don’t do this don’t do that and people called her a slut and treated her bad. That’s why she’s trying to correct her daughter’s actions before the girl makes the same mistakes as her mother. Then the girl she just has two sentences, and she said, ‘But I don’t sing benna on Sunday at all and never in Sunday school” (Kincaid & Meyer ‘Girl’ 115). We can say that the girl is an antihero character because she didn’t say much in the entire story. Compared to the mother she is a static character because she doesn’t change to up the story.
One of the theme in this story is the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters. The mother wants the daughter to do everything she says. The mother doesn’t have trusting and daughter and that’s why she keeps on stating “not like the slut you bent becoming and become” (Kincaid & Meyer ‘Girl’ 115). So the mother has a lot of saying in story, but we don’t see much from the girl with the girls thinking. It has to do with a lot of the things that the mother went, so she does want her daughter to go through that. The daughter doesn’t have voice into this conversation. You can see this as society versus girl because the mother is society and she’s telling the daughter like what not to do and she knows that her daughter wants to be a slut but mind you those aren’t words from a mother to a daughter it’s more like society. What’s the story is pretty much stating is that interview cooking clean and do not have the house organize means you’re going to be a successful woman.
When you look at the story you can see that the story doesn’t have any periods and it’s just one big blob of words. When you read it you really don’t have anywhere to stop because there’re no periods. So its like the mother is enforcing of those laws and rules that she think it’s how to become a “successful woman” but in reality and that’s pretty much Society and how people think but not only that but she can also be talking from experience. So the story when you read it it’s like this pressure and informant because you can’t stop because there’re no periods and you actually feel like the girl because you feel like you don’t have a say in it.
