Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid

“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid : 

“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid Class Notes

Jamaica Kincaid : 

Jamaica Kincaid Jamaica Kincaid was born in 1949 as Elaine Potter Richardson on the island of Antigua. She lived with her stepfather, a carpenter, and her mother until 1965 when she was sent to Westchester, New York to work as an au pair. Her first writing experience involved a series of articles for Ingenue magazine.

Jamaica Kincaid : 

Jamaica Kincaid In 1973, she changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid because her family disapproved of her writing. She worked for New Yorker magazine for 20 years. She now resides in Bennington Vermont with her husband and children.

Jamaica Kincaid : 

Jamaica Kincaid “I think in many ways the problem that my writing would have with an American reviewer is that Americans find difficulty very hard to take. They are inevitably looking for a happy ending. Perversely, I will not give the happy ending. I think life is difficult and that's that.” - Jamaica Kincaid

“Girl” - Publication Info. : 

“Girl” - Publication Info. First published in the June 26, 1978, issue of The New Yorker, “Girl” was the first of what would become more than a dozen short stories Jamaica Kincaid published in that magazine. Five years later, “Girl” appeared as the opening story in Kincaid's collection of stories, At the Bottom of the River (1983), her first book.

Story Overview : 

Story Overview “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Story Overview : 

Story Overview Kincaid has said that all of her fiction is based on autobiography, and that her own relationship with her mother has been difficult since Kincaid was nine years old. In an interview she explains: ‘‘the fertile soil of my creative life is my mother. When I write, in some things I use my mother's voice, because I like my mother's voice ... I feel I would have no creative life or no real interest in art without my mother. It's really my 'fertile soil.'’’

Story overview : 

Story overview The story begins abruptly with words spoken by an unidentified voice The voice continues, offering instructions about how a woman should do her chores, and then about how she should behave

Story overview : 

Story overview At the end of the first third of the story, another voice responds, signaled by italics. It becomes clear that the speaker is an adult female, one in authority, probably a family member, and she is speaking to a younger female

Story overview : 

Story overview “Girl” is a one-sentence, 650-word dialogue between a mother and daughter. “Girl” is based on Kincaid's own life and her relationship with her mother.

Story overview : 

Story overview The story is told in the 2nd person POV. The mother does most of the talking; she delivers a long series of instructions and warnings to the daughter. The daughter responds only twice, but her responses go unnoticed by the mother.

Story overview : 

Story overview There is no introduction of the characters, no action, and no traditional plotline. Setting: Although no specific setting is named, Kincaid has revealed in interviews that it takes place in Antigua, her island birthplace.

Story overview : 

Story overview As the story progresses, the mother's tone becomes more insistent and more critical. The chores and behaviors are more directly related to a woman's duties to men, such as ironing a man's clothes.

Story overview : 

Story overview Throughout the mostly one-sided dialogue, the mother warns the girl/daughter about being promiscuous—she seems to believe the girl is on her way to becoming a “slut”

Story overview : 

Story overview The story ends abruptly with the line: “you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?” There is no action, no exposition of any kind, and no resolution or hint of what happens to the characters after this conversation.

Characters : 

Characters “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Mother : : 

Mother : The mother is a woman in Antigua who understands a woman's “place.” She lives in a culture that looks to both Christianity and obeah, an African-based religion.

obeah : 

obeah Many Antiguans, especially the older generations, practice a woman-centered, African-based religion called obeah, similar to voodoo. Even those who are members of Christian churches will often also practice obeah, using spells and secret medicines when the situation calls for them.

obeah : 

obeah Because objects may conceal spirits, believers in obeah do not trust appearances. This lies behind the mother's warning about the blackbird being something other than it appears

Antigua – obeah : 

Antigua – obeah Kincaid's mother and grandmother practiced obeah: ‘‘I was very interested in it; it was such an everyday part of my life, you see. I wore things, a little black sachet filled with things, in my undershirt. I was always having special baths. It was a complete part of my life for a very long time.'' --Jamaica Kincaid

Mother : : 

Mother : Her culture holds women in a position of subservience to men. She recites a catalog of advice and warnings to help her daughter learn all a woman should know.

Mother : : 

Mother : Many of her lines are practical pieces of advice about laundry, sewing, ironing, sweeping, and setting a table for different occasions.

Mother : : 

Mother : Other harsher admonitions warn the daughter against being careless with her sexuality, “so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming.”

Daughter: : 

Daughter: The daughter is an adolescent or pre-adolescent girl in Antigua, learning from her mother how to be a proper woman. She speaks only twice in the story, voicing impulsive objections to her mother's accusations and warnings.

Writing Style : 

Writing Style “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” By using 2nd person POV, "Girl'' is more like a type of lyric poetry called dramatic monologue than short prose fiction. Jamaica Kincaid’s fiction focuses on the importance of continuity and community preserved and kept alive by mothers, through their stories and through their connection with their daughters.

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” The mother is maintaining an oral tradition whereby cultural traditions and survival skills are passed down from mother to daughter, and from generation to generation, by way of a rhythmic flow of words such as that conveyed in this story.

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” Throughout the story, Kincaid manipulates the reader by juxtaposing: positive/negative benign/ominous virtue/sin As the contradictions draw closer--as nurture and condemnation become increasingly intertwined--the language seems to become more rhythmic.

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” The story begins with manipulative rhythm and repetition It begins with the mother's voice giving simple, benevolent, and appropriately maternal advice Like the girl to whom the mother speaks, the reader is drawn in by the chant of motherly admonitions.

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” Lulled by the first few “motherly” lines, readers, like the listening girl, are caught unaware by an admonition that suddenly veers the story in a new direction, presenting the contradiction of nurture + condemnationut you are so bent on becoming”

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” The Art of Manipulation: The mother's speech, not only manipulates the girl into listening to the mother's condemning view, but also teaches the art of manipulation: inviting with nurturing advice on the one hand repelling with condemnatory characterization on the other

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” The mother combines her indictment of the girl's impending sluttishness her task of teaching the girl how to hide that condition: ". . . this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming."

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” Toward the end, the mother's voice continues with domestic instruction + comment on a world in which nothing is ever what it seems to be.

Writing Style – “Girl” : 

Writing Style – “Girl” The tone of motherly advice lightens the sinister nature of the information and then makes the disclosures even more frightening. Eventually we see that, in a world in which a recipe for stew moves on to a recipe for the death of a child, nothing is safe.

Culture & Tradition : 

Culture & Tradition “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Culture & Tradition : 

Culture & Tradition In Antigua, Kincaid grew up with a mix of European and African cultural influences, and these cultures are both present in “Girl.”

Culture & History : 

Culture & History Antigua was colonized by the British and Portuguese Antigua was important as a port for British commerce and as a producer of sugarcane. Sugarcane plantations were established and African slaves were brought to the island.

Culture & History : 

Culture & History Most Antiguans are of African lineage, descendants of slaves brought to the island centuries ago to labor in the sugarcane fields.

Culture & History : 

Culture & History Slavery left a bitter legacy on Antigua. "Freedom" came on August 1, 1834, but the lack of transition period left former slaves instantly impoverished. They had no choice but to continue working on the sugar plantations, where conditions and wages kept them dependent on their former masters.

Antigua : 

Antigua “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Antigua, the setting : 

Antigua, the setting Kincaid grew up on the island of Antigua, in a home without electricity or running water, and although she does not name the place, in her mind it is set there.

Antigua, the setting : 

Antigua, the setting Although there are no specific mentions of place in "Girl," there are several clues to the story's Caribbean setting in the mother's instructions.

Antigua, the setting : 

Antigua, the setting In the first lines, for example, the mother mentions putting laundry ‘‘on the stone heap’’ and ‘‘on the clothesline to dry,'' indicating a way of life without electrical appliances. Later, she tells "how you make ends meet,’’ indicating relative poverty.

Antigua, the setting : 

Antigua, the setting The foods she mentions help place the story in the Caribbean: pumpkin fritters, salt fish, okra, dasheen (also called taro, a tropical starchy root), bread pudding, and pepper pot.

Antigua: Daily Life : 

Antigua: Daily Life Although it is the wealthiest island in the Eastern Caribbean, Antigua is poor by North American standards, and was even poorer during the time of Kincaid's youth.

Antigua: Daily Life : 

Antigua: Daily Life Most families, like the mother and daughter in "Girl," grew most of their own fruits and vegetables and ate little meat beyond the fish they caught themselves.

Antigua: Daily Life : 

Antigua: Daily Life Many homes do not have running water or electricity, and many Antiguans still treat illnesses with home-made medicines rather than with doctors and pharmacies.

Culture & Tradition : 

Culture & Tradition The mother’s advice indicates the nature of her culture. The lessons reflect both Western behaviors and those of a traditional culture. To be a good Antiguan woman means then to know how to maneuver appropriately within a Eurocentric culture.

Culture & Tradition : 

Culture & Tradition The mother’s advice indicates the nature of her culture. It is a society in which public appearances are very important and in which subtle differences among those appearances are also significant.

Culture & Tradition : 

Culture & Tradition The mother’s advice indicates the nature of her culture. The mother’s speech is a conscious initiation into the expected behaviors of a woman in this culture.

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage The mother's litany of advice, warnings, and condemnation in "Girl" also contains a string of confusing and contradictory messages about the daughter's relationship to her African heritage and culture.

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage Confusing and contradictory messages: On one hand, the mother insists on warning the daughter against integrating African folk culture into her Christian education: ‘‘Is it true you sing benna in Church?’’ the mother asks. As benna songs are African folk songs, the mother's question is designed to warn the daughter against maintaining cultural practices derived from her African heritage.

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage Confusing and contradictory messages: On the other hand, the mother's list of advice contains rich elements of this African heritage, which she clearly intends to pass on to her daughter. Thus, while warning against mixing African traditional songs with the Western practice of Christianity, the mother is sure to pass on information based on folk beliefs derived from African culture.

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage The mother’s advice reflects the Afro-Antiguan culture: [D]on't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make a pepper pot; this is how to make good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you.”

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage The blackbird might be a “jablesse,” (La diablesse, “she devil”). In Caribbean folklore , the jablesse is a shape-changing spirit that often takes the form of a beautiful woman. The jablesse lures men with her beauty but then isolates and devours them. She is beautiful, deceptive, and deadly. (Note how the folklore reflects attitudes about female gender roles)

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage Fish appear in many Caribbean myths. Fish are caught with various foreign objects inside them, revealing a truth, foretelling an event, or invoking a curse. The toxic venom of the puffer fish has been used in voodoo to create a zombie-like state. According to Caribbean folklore, when a pretty woman spits on the lure, the fish will surely bite.

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage The “good medicine” is most likely folk medicine, much of which is based upon natural cures and/or spiritual combined with physical remedies. The medicine to prevent pregnancy and/or induce abortion would have been kept by the women and passed by word of mouth generationally. In much folk medicine, the power of nature to do harm is taken for granted, thereby requiring various remedies to counteract malevolence.

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage Clearly the family lives simultaneously in two cultures. They sing benna (calypso music), but know enough not to sing it in the European church. They practice obeah, a system of belief derived from Africa, but they also attend Sunday school. They know how to ‘‘set a table for tea’’ AND they eat bread pudding and doukona, a spicy starchy food (sometimes made w/yams) wrapped in a plantain or banana leaf and boiled

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage The mother attempts to train her daughter in the ways of the Europeans, the Antiguan colonizers, that will help her be successful but will turn her against her true self. Resentment about this dichotomy may account for the mother's growing coldness throughout “Girl.”

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage : 

Culture: Afro-Caribbean Heritage The mother becomes angry because, however dutifully she passes along her knowledge, her heart may not believe in its usefulness.

Culture & Tradition : 

Culture & Tradition Thus, there is a world behind the world of public appearance and performance, one which has its own authority and its own rituals. Kincaid remembers her own training with some anger: ''I was brought up to be sexless and well-behaved ... I was supposed to be full of good manners and good speech. Where the hell I was going to go with it I don't know.''

What is NOT Said : 

What is NOT Said “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

What is NOT Said : 

What is NOT Said Sometimes what is NOT said (but reasonably expected under “normal” circumstances) is as important as what IS said.

What is NOT Said The advice is practical, ‘‘how to make ends meet.’’ There is no BEAUTY. : 

What is NOT Said The advice is practical, ‘‘how to make ends meet.’’ There is no BEAUTY. There are no instructions for how to make beautiful things, or how to make oneself happy. The Caribbean is celebrated all around the world for its colorful folk art, rich textiles, local crafts, and exuberant music, but the mother makes no mention of these important elements of Caribbean culture. The only reference to music in the story is to music that must not be made: "don't sing benna in Sunday school.’’

What is NOT Said The advice is practical, ‘‘how to make ends meet.’’ There is no BEAUTY. : 

What is NOT Said The advice is practical, ‘‘how to make ends meet.’’ There is no BEAUTY. No mention is made of Antigua’s beautiful flowers and birds. The mother refers to flowers only once: ‘‘don't pick people's flowers you might catch something.’’

What is NOT Said The advice is practical, ‘‘how to make ends meet.’’ There is no BEAUTY. : 

What is NOT Said The advice is practical, ‘‘how to make ends meet.’’ There is no BEAUTY. No mention is made of Antigua’s beautiful flowers and birds. Her one mention of a bird is strangely cautionary: ‘‘don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all.’’

What is NOT SaidWomen are suspect – no mention of positive female relationships. : 

What is NOT SaidWomen are suspect – no mention of positive female relationships. The relationship that concerns the mother is the relationship between a man and a woman. She gives no advice about how to be a friend, or how to sense which women to confide in.

What is NOT SaidNo advice on nurturing or parenting children. : 

What is NOT SaidNo advice on nurturing or parenting children. There are no tips about changing a diaper or wiping a tear or nurturing a child in any way The mother mentions children only when she shows "how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child.’’

What is NOT SaidNo advice on nurturing or parenting children. : 

What is NOT SaidNo advice on nurturing or parenting children. If she derives any pleasure or pride from her own experiences with parenthood, she does not reveal it here.

What is NOT SaidNo self improvement; no dreams. : 

What is NOT SaidNo self improvement; no dreams. The mother's speech mentions nothing about possibilities beyond home and domestic duties. She does not speak of school or books, nor of travel, nor of a career. What the girl may want is not important. The mother offers the daughter what she has to offer: a set of instructions for a successful life as she understands it and lives it.

What is NOT SaidNo self improvement; no dreams. : 

What is NOT SaidNo self improvement; no dreams. That Kincaid wanted more is evident. She left Antigua and found a different sort of life for herself, as she explained in an interview in The Missouri Review: "I did not know what would happen to me. I was just leaving, with great bitterness in my heart towards everyone I've ever known, but I could not have articulated why. I knew that I wanted something, but I did not know what. I knew I did not want convention. I wanted to risk something.’’

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality The reference to ridding oneself of an unwanted unborn child leads to the repeated naming of the daughter as a potential "slut." The mother asserts the view that the daughter is determined to become promiscuous.

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality The warnings and the assumptions behind them indicate the importance of the suppression of female sexuality, at least in any form not authorized by the society.

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality The mother seems to believe that the daughter is intrinsically such a person: "this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are bent on becoming ... this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming.” The daughter's sluttishness is taken for granted; the advice is aimed at preventing others from realizing it.

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality The mother's function, then, in part is to condition a new generation of young women to experience themselves as guilty because of their gender rather than their behavior. The authoritarian nature of this lesson is emphasized by the ineffectiveness of the daughter's resistance to her mother's accusations.

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality Thus, the daughter's education in subservience alludes to her culture's negative definition of womanhood. Her only power comes in manipulation of appearances and in avoiding evil forces. She cannot be self-defining or assertive. Her only approved acts of resistance have been against her own sensual nature.

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality If the mother feels that the tasks allotted to a woman are demeaning or subservient, she does not say so, but neither does she describe the satisfactions of her life.

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality There is a steady current of suspicion and fear lying under the surface, and the mother is unable to talk very long without something reminding her of the dangers of sex, and of ''the slut you are so bent on becoming.''

Women’s Roles & Sexuality : 

Women’s Roles & Sexuality When she thinks of sex, and of her daughter's supposed or real flirtation with it, her tone becomes colder, even angry.

Alternate Interpretation: Memory : 

Alternate Interpretation: Memory The 2nd person point of view could also represent the girl’s memory of her mother’s advice…

Alternate Interpretation: Memory : 

Alternate Interpretation: Memory It is possible that the entire story could be the girl's own internal monologue. The advice then could be from actual people or simply a melding of many voices in the girl’s memory.

Alternate Interpretation: Memory : 

Alternate Interpretation: Memory If the story is memory, the words assumed to be the mother's would be advice she (or another) has given over time, not necessarily one long speech.

Alternate Interpretation: Memory : 

Alternate Interpretation: Memory The italicized responses from the girl could be rehearsals for replies she wished she had said or she might say the next time the mother criticizes. Whether the mother is speaking or the girl is remembering, Kincaid uses the imperative to create immediacy and tension Even with no description of people or places, the reader cannot help but visualize these two women and feel the charged atmosphere between them.

Mother – Daughter Relationships : 

Mother – Daughter Relationships “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Mother – Daughter Relationships : 

Mother – Daughter Relationships Conflict between mother and daughter is not unusual. Many mothers, because they know what their daughters may not know—that sexual promiscuity tends to hurt women more than it does men—grow angry and fearful at the thought of their daughters behaving recklessly. However, in this mother's entire long speech there is not a single gentle line, not one word of love or reassurance.

Mother – Daughter Relationships : 

Mother – Daughter Relationships The daughter's reaction to her mother's litany can only be imagined, because Kincaid does not reveal it. Twice the daughter interrupts with a defensive comment, both times beginning with the word ''but.'' The first time, the mother does not respond, but simply goes on with her speech.

Mother – Daughter Relationships : 

Mother – Daughter Relationships The second time, near the end of the story, her growing anger causes her to irrationally hear the daughter's innocent question, ''but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?’’ as confirmation of her suspicions, that the girl is thinking about "sluttish" behavior, that she is going to become ''the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread.’’

Mother – Daughter Relationships : 

Mother – Daughter Relationships Apparently the mother has learned to do all these things, and they are probably not beyond the girl's capacity either. But if she learns her lessons well, what will she have to look forward to, to be excited about? Where is the pleasure in this life?

Mother – Daughter Relationships : 

Mother – Daughter Relationships The litany of instructions in "Girl'' is a far cry from the advice given to women today, which may include “creative outlets” or ‘‘making time for yourself ” or “balancing family with career aspirations” or “smart financial planning for your future”

End of Presentation : 

End of Presentation And you thought this was a short story, right?