Overshadowed, objectified, and devalued, in a sundry of circumstances, young girls are often born solely to serve and breed. The prose poem “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, serves as an accurate depiction of the monotonous day to day life of a girl, as well as a bold wake up call to the ignorant people of society. The brilliant and seemingly neverending stream of so called “words of wisdom” are structured in a series of independent clauses, which is one of the most elusive yet obligatory grammatical devices. Kincaid purposely structures the text as a series of independent clauses and incorporates specific punctuation into her writing in order to express the girl’s conflicting inner thoughts regarding her mother and becoming a young woman in society.
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By stating phrases such as “Don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street-flies will follow you; but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school;” Kincaid implies that the mother in the story, although the title implies that the story should be centered around the girl, is constantly spitting commands at her daughter. The use of a semi-colon implies both that a girl's work is never done as well as the more prevalent fact that the mother, who is untrusting of her daughter and unwilling to let her daughter carry on her life on her own free will, constantly shouts commands to deter her from living a life of promiscuity. The layers of advice and commands spoken in one long, unending breath creates a smothering sense of duty and oppression that makes the conversation evidently one-way. In fact, the only time the daugher interjects is to prove her worth and innocence to her mother, yet the mother doesn’t acknowledge the response of her daughter. This structure portrays that since the mother is neglectful towards the thoughts and feelings of her daughter, the daughter no longer has a strong sense of respect towards her mother. This is made clear …show more content…
Relatively earlier in the text, Kincaid states, “cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash”. Like the girl, the reader feels trust towards the mother at first due to the repetitive and flowing nature of the advice. Both the reader and the girl feel the connectedness between all the pieces of advice as one flows into the next, and they all begin to run together as the reader feels the rhythm in lines. As the text progresses, the reader and the girl are still in a trance and blindly trusting the mother. Yet, when the mother begins to accuse and question her daughter’s behavior and innocence when stating, “always squeeze the bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; 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?”, the girl is forced to question her mother which breaks the structure and rhythm of the text. Thus, the sudden yet subtle shift of the structure of the prose implies that the girl feels betrayed by her mother, thus portraying that she no longer trusts nor does she wish to be like her
By stating phrases such as “Don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street-flies will follow you; but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school;” Kincaid implies that the mother in the story, although the title implies that the story should be centered around the girl, is constantly spitting commands at her daughter. The use of a semi-colon implies both that a girl's work is never done as well as the more prevalent fact that the mother, who is untrusting of her daughter and unwilling to let her daughter carry on her life on her own free will, constantly shouts commands to deter her from living a life of promiscuity. The layers of advice and commands spoken in one long, unending breath creates a smothering sense of duty and oppression that makes the conversation evidently one-way. In fact, the only time the daugher interjects is to prove her worth and innocence to her mother, yet the mother doesn’t acknowledge the response of her daughter. This structure portrays that since the mother is neglectful towards the thoughts and feelings of her daughter, the daughter no longer has a strong sense of respect towards her mother. This is made clear …show more content…
Relatively earlier in the text, Kincaid states, “cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash”. Like the girl, the reader feels trust towards the mother at first due to the repetitive and flowing nature of the advice. Both the reader and the girl feel the connectedness between all the pieces of advice as one flows into the next, and they all begin to run together as the reader feels the rhythm in lines. As the text progresses, the reader and the girl are still in a trance and blindly trusting the mother. Yet, when the mother begins to accuse and question her daughter’s behavior and innocence when stating, “always squeeze the bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; 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?”, the girl is forced to question her mother which breaks the structure and rhythm of the text. Thus, the sudden yet subtle shift of the structure of the prose implies that the girl feels betrayed by her mother, thus portraying that she no longer trusts nor does she wish to be like her