A mother is one of the most influential figures in a child's life, and if the mother says something, most times the child will follow. Jamaica Kincaid writes a short story “Girl,” about a mother telling her daughter information about how she should do tasks. The information is quite a lot and talks about all types of examples, such as how to smile at somebody and how to walk like a lady. In “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid argues that the amount of norms and expectations placed on women is unreasonable through her use of repetition and structure.
Jamaica Kincaid illustrates her point of high expectations set on women with her unique use of structure. For example, the story is told by the narrator in the standard font but is interrupted twice with sentences in italics from a younger girl. One instance of this is, “...but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school.” This sentence is the girl telling the narrator that the order she has been told to follow does not correlate with her daily lifestyle. Another occurrence of the italics appearing in the story is, “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread.” Again, the girl is confused and is now trying to understand the
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For example, the words "this is how," appear in the story dozens of times and are right before the girl is told how to do something. The words "this is how," are bad for young minds because it takes away free thought, and sets it so there is only one way to do something. For example, "this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely." This ideology has been forced onto this young girl's mind, and these ideas are tough to change in the future. With this repetition, Jamaica Kincaid demonstrates the ideology women have to go through and how hard it would be to distance themselves from the