Jamaica Kincaid, born Elaine Potter Richardson, is a storyteller and writer who focuses on “the perils of postcolonial society, paralleled by an examination of rifts in mother-daughter relationships” (Kincaid 114). In the short story The Girl written by Kincaid, a young girl’s mother who is also the main speaker of the story spews a long narrative of advice to her daughter on how to properly run a household and live righteously. The page and a half story takes on a lecture tone where to portray that the daughter is not here for fun, merely to learn from her past mistakes to where she doesn’t make new ones for herself. In this essay, I will characterize the mother and daughter duo separately and show the train of thought throughout the story. Also, I will give short thoughts on why certain things are mentioned in
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Although the daughter does have much dialogue, which is indicated by italicize in the story, you can grasp where her mind is by where she chooses to intervene in her mother’s lecture and what she chooses to say. Her intervention in the speech always comes later after her mother moves on from the topic as if she catches on late to what is being said to her. For example, he mother mentions to her not to sing benna which is a form of Calypso music and to attend church in a prime manner. The mother goes on to talk about something else and the daughter intervenes to say she never “sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday School” (Kincaid 115). Although it seems subtle, she comes in at moments like this all throughout the story as if her mother is speaking to fast for her and she can’t keep up with all the information. She also only speaks to defend herself when her mother engages in her promiscuous ways. You can gather that she doesn’t consider herself scampi and thinks her mother is over
Although the daughter does have much dialogue, which is indicated by italicize in the story, you can grasp where her mind is by where she chooses to intervene in her mother’s lecture and what she chooses to say. Her intervention in the speech always comes later after her mother moves on from the topic as if she catches on late to what is being said to her. For example, he mother mentions to her not to sing benna which is a form of Calypso music and to attend church in a prime manner. The mother goes on to talk about something else and the daughter intervenes to say she never “sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday School” (Kincaid 115). Although it seems subtle, she comes in at moments like this all throughout the story as if her mother is speaking to fast for her and she can’t keep up with all the information. She also only speaks to defend herself when her mother engages in her promiscuous ways. You can gather that she doesn’t consider herself scampi and thinks her mother is over