Ethos In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl For The New Yorker

In her prose poem, Jamaica Kincaid wrote Girl for the New Yorker in 1978 which uses a very unique syntax that resembles a long lecture a mother would give her child as well as establishing ethos by using traditions known in Antigua and very feminine lessons, including how to sit like a woman and how to make pills to get rid of child. The lecturing, condescending tone is very reminiscent of a mother, especially when they are giving orders to their child. This is true because she is not only telling her daughter to be as ‘sweet’ and ‘innocent’ while scorning the daughter for being acting like a slut and not wanting to act the same as her. Kincaid probably wanted to show her reader the conflicting opinions of an older generation and a younger, while also showing the …show more content…
The mother, on one hand, wants her daughter to be fit perfectly into the “tradition housewife” mold, yet the daughter doesn’t truly fit inside. As such, is called a “slut” by her mother constantly throughout the piece, such as when she scolds her daughter about becoming “...the slut I have warned you against becoming…” Not only that, but every sentence is actually a different lessons, for example, “ this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard;” though her lessons sometimes are usually basic, as with Sweeping or cooking, or basic medicine. Others are more gender-specific. Her mother not only teaches her how to “how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child” but also scolds the daughter when she asks “but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?” by replying angrily to her retort. The strained relationship between the mother who believes she knows what’s best and the daughter who flips between acting “slutty” and acting “traditional” which her mother wants her to