Sexuality In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl

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Based on a short story "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, a mother in this poem tried to give her young daughter with all the good advice on how to live a fulfilling life in society, so she can be growing up and becoming a woman. Even though, she still young, and her mother is very worried about her daughter can be lead a bad situation about sexuality in her personal life. More than that, she was linking many objects to the topic of sexuality to dare her daughter Jamaica such as “squeezing bread before buying it” and “don’t sing benna on Sunday school” (Kincaid 172) because Benna Antiguan folksongs is a symbol of sexual and it was forbidden. Thus, the mother always repeatedly uses the word "slut" with her daughter to address all the problems in her …show more content…

Every single sentence that shows in this story a conversation between a mother and her daughter. The mother is telling and giving advice to her daughter about the correct and incorrect ways to do everything, from house chores, to how to act in society, and how to take care men…etc. However, if we just read the first two or three lines of beginning, we kind of image that the mother is cruel to her daughter. She kept ordering her young girl to follow her instruction without fail. Fortunately, after reading throughout the story, we can see that the mother just wants her daughter to become a good and helpful woman. She tried to protect her little child away from bad things that happened everyday in society. Moreover, in the last line was written, “You mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?”(Kincaid 172). Therefore, “it seem ironic that the mother has harshly demand the girl to learn all of the mother’s habits and methods, not giving the girl much of a word in any of her decisions, and then expects her to have the strength of her mother, strength that was learned through experience, not instruction” (Carroll). The short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid was a lesson of a mother to a daughter about to become a woman. There is a lot of instruction from the mother gives tips on proper cooking methods, house cleaning, gardening, how to set a table, how to iron, but everything that the mother said was helpful and useful for the girl. The mother tried to give her young daughter with all the good advice on how to live a fulfilling life in society, so she can be growing up and becoming a respect woman. At last, the mother in this story just wants her daughter to grow up as a good