Jamaica Kincaid

bathrooms and even cooking. Trying to prepare children to adapt to life and its problems, mothers have been giving their children a lot of instructions. Instructions can be orders when the issue is the child’s own benefit. As a normal mother, Jamaica Kincaid in the article of “Girl” has pictured a mother giving her child some instructions seeking the benefit of the child. The writer was born in the city of St. Johns, Antigua in 1949.…

express oneself to withhold it as a little girl I was allowed to play with boys once reaching the age of thirteen I was not able to no more . Did not understand why I was not able to no longer ,mother never explained .In excerpt “ Girl” from Jamaica Kincaid makes a statement “Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming 329 ..”As a girl I was expected to cross my legs not sit with open. In my childhood…

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…

Image Expectations: A Comparison In the nearly not-a-short-story “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid tells of a girl growing up in Antigua and receiving a long list of rules from her mother, while in the short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” Karen Russell writes about girls who were raised by wolves until taking in and reformed to fit into human society by nuns. Both stories have significant differences, but despite them, both “Girl” and “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”…

Jamaica Kincaid is the writer and narrator of the book A Small Place. Kincaid was able to give the audience a tour to her native Island Antigua. Kincaid wrote the book as a second person where she gets the audience involved in her storytelling. At the beginning of the reading Kincaid addressed tourists. “An ugly thing that is when you become a tourist, empty thing a stupid thing.”(17). It is important because tourists do not pay attention to the native people, corrupted government or the…

From the Women’s Rights Movement, to today’s college campuses, women have been expressing their feelings towards the issue of sexism through writing. Sexism has left women feeling weak, unimportant, and worthless. However, writers have managed to use their craft to call out the sexist acts around them and bring awareness to the tough topic. Today, women continue to speak out against sexism, trying to finish the work of those that came before them. 1851, Sojourner Truth delivered a passionate…

The short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, is about a mother’s relationship with her daughter and the struggles they face when the mother tries constantly to control her child’s life choices. As a parent, she raises her children to know how to keep their house clean and how to effectively perform basic household chores. She tries very hard to give her daughter the best advice possible. Her mother also tells her how to make herbal medicine and to catch marine creatures like fish, crab, and…

And often, more importantly, the question is what is history itself and whose narrative is at the core. In her reflective, but argumentative, essay entitled “In History”, Jamaica Kincaid analyzes how these ideas-- what is history and how does what happened in the past impact us today-- can and should impact people today. Kincaid commences her essay discussing the actions and lasting legacy of Christopher Columbus. She describes that “he [Christopher Columbus] named” the various people,…

A Woman’s Worth "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid reveals the overwhelming pressure on young women to look and act in certain ways in order to please men and society. Through the use of literary elements such as style, tone, and characterization, Jamaica Kincaid is able to place the reader into the shoes of a young Caribbean girl as her mother describes to her what she must do in order to protect her reputation and grow into a respectable woman. While there are many cultural topics specific to…

In History “In History”, by Jamaica Kincaid, weaves together the stories of Christopher Columbus, George Clifford, and Carl Linnaeus so that the reader may understand why the author is questioning her own history and those who are like her. Kincaid questions us, “What is History? Is it a Theory? Is it an Ideal” She answers these questions through the stories of these three men as they come across and label foreign people, lands, or plants. Kincaid implies that the act of identifying and…