In her poem “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid explores a mother’s struggle to explain to her child the place of women in the social structure. The author’s aims are clear from her feminist actions, her relations with her family, and the poem’s format. This short fiction aims to demonstrate how women support gendered discrimination by offering a feminist perspective on the complexities and conflicts in forming femininity.
Jamaica Kincaid, the novelist, went to the United States as a teenager as a West Indian immigrant. She hated the social institutions that led to the break in her connection with her mom and had a bad interaction with her. Kincaid cherished her mother’s affection and devotion as the sole baby, but things drastically altered after her three brothers came to be part of their family.
The mother disregarded her daughter simply since she was a girl and turned all her attention to the brothers. This encounter most certainly influenced the author’s perception of gender enslavement. The selection of style made by Kincaid is a nod to the concept of female disheartening by women. Furthermore, even if the daughter occasionally speaks, the narrative reads like a long, continuous monologue. Kincaid wrote it this way to show that her work was a lecture.
Commands are frequently lengthy, biased, and disregard the perspective of the intended audience. The mother advises, in one instance, to “always eat your meal in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach (Kincaid 350).” In this instance, the mom continues to shout without halting or seeking her daughter’s opinion. The mother vilifies the daughter and tends to make it seem like she is in the wrong when she attempts to raise a concern over something. At one point, she directs the girl to inspect the bread to certify it is okay. The girl inquires about what she needs to do if the vendor forbids her from handling the bread. “You mean to say that after you are really going to be the kind of lady the baker won’t let near the bread (Kincaid 351)?” Her mother aggravatedly queries why she would have the personality of someone not deserving of the seller’s trust.
In this context, the author wished to illustrate how sexuality was constituted. Because they did not even uphold one another, women served as tools of gender discrimination. In a patriarchal society, women frequently are not allowed to voice their opinions or respond to men. Sadly, this all begins with how women relate with one another, as demonstrated by the mother in the story, who treats her daughter with contempt and mockery.
It is notably intriguing that no authentic male characters exist in the poem. The mother solely refers to men, specifically to her spouse. It is also probable that Jamaican Kincaid desired to reiterate how important women are to gender inequality in her country. As the poem’s primary concern is how women should behave in this setting, feminism is the poem’s most prominent issue.
It is possible to infer Kincaid’s preferences from her experience as an activist. In the poem, women were not given the same liberties as males. Caribbean communities picked women as their means of passing along these aspirations to new generations. They instilled domesticity, meekness, and servitude in young ladies. The author’s work as a feminist activist and her closeness with her mom lends credence to this issue.
Work Cited
Kincaid, Jamaica. “Girl.” Fiction: A Pocket Anthology. Ed. R. Gwynn. NY: Pearson Education, 2011. 349–351. Printed.