Action: the Revealer of Characters’ Persona
Isabella Salas-Allende Ms. Vines
English 1170: Short Stories 9/2/15 In a story, the reader may learn about the character’s traits through that character’s actions or speech. In Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” there is no present, occurring action. However, the actions narrated in the story through the mother’s commands and instructions help the reader to draw conclusions about the daughter’s and mother’s personalities. In David Foster Wallace’s “Incarnation of Burned Children,” the father’s methodical response to a tragedy shows his fear and desperation as a father. Both Kincaid and Wallace employ …show more content…
The daughter does not interrupt to defend herself that she does not “sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school” until after five long phrases. The daughter’s shy response is also emphasized through Kincaid’s use of italics; the compressed and slanted italic words look weak in comparison to the mother’s big block of text. However, the daughter does show character development in the end, which is seen through the action of the daughter speaking in the story for the second time. Although the words are still italicized and look squashed among the mother’s large block of commands, the daughter at the end is not defending herself nor responding to her mother’s question but asking the question herself. When the mother instructs her daughter to “always squeeze the bread to make sure it’s fresh,” the daughter sassily remarks –– “what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?” The daughter’s tone of voice is defiant at the …show more content…
In the beginning of the story, the mother warns her daughter to “try to walk like a lady and not like the slut…[she is] so bent on becoming” and instructs her “how to hem a dress” and “so to prevent…[her daughter] from looking like the slut…[she is] so bent on becoming.” The similar wording of the phrases emphasizes the mother’s repeated attempts in trying to raise her daughter well. However, Kincaid shows that the role of a mother is not easy. The mother in the story at the end is helpless. The mother’s attempts seem fruitless because her daughter has indeed become the “slut…[that she had] warned…[her daughter] against becoming.” In the end, the mother seems hopeless because “after all [the mother has said]” her daughter will not grow up like the mother hoped. The fact that the story ends with the mother’s question also highlights the mother’s helplessness that her daughter in fact has not learned
Isabella Salas-Allende Ms. Vines
English 1170: Short Stories 9/2/15 In a story, the reader may learn about the character’s traits through that character’s actions or speech. In Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” there is no present, occurring action. However, the actions narrated in the story through the mother’s commands and instructions help the reader to draw conclusions about the daughter’s and mother’s personalities. In David Foster Wallace’s “Incarnation of Burned Children,” the father’s methodical response to a tragedy shows his fear and desperation as a father. Both Kincaid and Wallace employ …show more content…
The daughter does not interrupt to defend herself that she does not “sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school” until after five long phrases. The daughter’s shy response is also emphasized through Kincaid’s use of italics; the compressed and slanted italic words look weak in comparison to the mother’s big block of text. However, the daughter does show character development in the end, which is seen through the action of the daughter speaking in the story for the second time. Although the words are still italicized and look squashed among the mother’s large block of commands, the daughter at the end is not defending herself nor responding to her mother’s question but asking the question herself. When the mother instructs her daughter to “always squeeze the bread to make sure it’s fresh,” the daughter sassily remarks –– “what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?” The daughter’s tone of voice is defiant at the …show more content…
In the beginning of the story, the mother warns her daughter to “try to walk like a lady and not like the slut…[she is] so bent on becoming” and instructs her “how to hem a dress” and “so to prevent…[her daughter] from looking like the slut…[she is] so bent on becoming.” The similar wording of the phrases emphasizes the mother’s repeated attempts in trying to raise her daughter well. However, Kincaid shows that the role of a mother is not easy. The mother in the story at the end is helpless. The mother’s attempts seem fruitless because her daughter has indeed become the “slut…[that she had] warned…[her daughter] against becoming.” In the end, the mother seems hopeless because “after all [the mother has said]” her daughter will not grow up like the mother hoped. The fact that the story ends with the mother’s question also highlights the mother’s helplessness that her daughter in fact has not learned