Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid composed a short story called “Girl” and the brief narrative is about a stern mother teaching her young daughter life lessons as she is becoming a mature adolescent. The story is a laundry list of “women’s responsibilities”, such as doing household duties, dealing with men, knowing how to be nice to people you do and do not like and learning how to be a respectable individual in the Caribbean community. Concerned that her daughter is on the urge of being promiscuous, the mother’s…

In the short story "Girl", by Jamaica Kincaid the main character is a mother, speaking to her daughter. The tone, mood, and tempo of the story suggests that the mother isn't having a nurturing conversation with her daughter, but nagging her instead. Throughout the story there is no plot and no point is made. While the mother is speaking, the daughter only responds twice. The first time she says "but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school", her mother disregards her…

Jamaica Kincaid was originally Elaine Potter Richardson, an islander from Antigua. While living in Antigua, she received a British education and performed at the top of her class. She was the first of four children. Her relationship with her mother tumbled downhill once she began to birth her three sons. At age 16 she left Antigua, became an au pair, and went on to pursue her writing career while in college. Her family rejected her writing. It was then that she changed her name to Jamaica…

Jamaica Kincaid expresses in her article Girl, by using her mother’s voice. She also separates her mother's demanding commands from her annoyed feelings toward her mother. The author's mother is giving her advice to help prepare her daughter for her future of taking care of her family and owning her own house one day. Kincaid explains that her mother makes sure that she knows how to do her household chores, and explains to her how to make catfish and herbal medicines. Her mother is suggesting…

the identity in “Girl” Born the oldest and only girl of her family Jamaica Kincaid felt like her mother turned away from her at a young age. The distant relationship between her mother and her spark the theme for Kincaid’s works. On June 26, 1978, Kincaid wrote what is to be one of her most iconic works till this day. “Girl” is a one-sentence short story. Influenced by Elizabeth Bishop poems. Writing Girl helps Jamaica Kincaid find her voice as a writer. “Girl” was featured in Kincaid’s first…

In Jamaica Kincaid’s 1990 novel, her writing created the story of a woman beginning a new phase of her life. The narrator struggles between her sense of self versus the new environment. “I was no longer in a tropical zone and I felt cold inside and out…” (lines 44-45) the narrator shows the obvious signs of fear to the unknown and a sense of homesickness magnifying her struggles to the reader. She was lost and unhappy in her new environment. She appears to be closed off and unwilling to take in…

Jamaica Kincaid wrote “Girl” in 1978. This short story is a continuous run on sentence, which a mother is giving advice and warnings to her daughter. The title “Girl” could have several meanings, a mother looking after her ‘little girl’, a young lady who is still seen as a girl to society, and the idea of females being domesticated in the household. With all these ideas for the title from 1978, one might wonder what the title could mean now in 2016. If one were to modernize “Girl” now she would…

“Girl” By Jamaica Kincaid starts off with the girl listening to her mother who’s advising on life and becoming a woman. From the daughter point of view I can see the mom is very harsh, angry and frustrated with her because she believes her daughter is going down the road towards promiscuity and wants to prevent that. The mom is very wise and knows how to clean and cook as well as knowing social decorum, in which she’s trying to instill that in her daughter at an early age. I think her mother…

the prose poem carefully crafted by Jamaica Kincaid, throughout “Girl” the use of Kincaid’s childhood, history of Antigua, word choice, tone, and symbolism reveals the underlying life lessons for a traditional community from a wise mother to her young rebellious daughter. The daughter of Annie Richardson and Roderick Potter, Elaine Potter Richardson, later changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid, was born on May 25, 1949 in the town of St. John’s (Jamaica Kincaid Facts). The capital of a small…

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…