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The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo has many critical approaches within it, but the gender approach was one consistent approach with its three concepts of gender roles, masculinity and femininity, and patriarchy and matriarchy. From the beginning of this reading, the gender roles concept was frequently used to compare characters and their roles in the story. As a punishment, Marjorie would be forced to act like a boy by her parents, who referred to it as “boying” days. “On boying days there would always be a job to do, a house repair project usually…it was almost as if he really did want a son there to help him” (Merullo 74). As a female, it was as uncommon for one to participate in house repairs and outdoor work, so the roles of gender were altered in this setting.
Short stories are a piece of literature that holds a lesson in a small story, it has meaning behind it and with a large amount of imagery shows a picture of what the writer is trying to say. Short stories have been a very important piece of modern and past literature and always will, each story over the generations shows an evolution of not only english but also life in general. The story girl is an amazing short story by Jamaica Kincaid which has a deeper undertone of freedom while the mother explains how to be a lady. In the short story girl the mother explains how to be a lady, however with a deeper meaning of freedom behind it using a few key lines such as calling her daughter a slut.
In the story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, indications of time are used to express the never-ending instruction and scrutiny placed on females. All of the actions represented in the story are repeatable. None of the instructions occur for just one instance. This implies that the girl in the story must remember all of the rules contemporaneously. She cannot forget anything she has learned already and must add new rules to her memory as she receives them in order to be a proper lady.
Womanhood is something you don’t consider until it hits you- Laura Marling In the short story Girl; Jamaica Kincaid, paints a vibrant picture, of a young girl, who has just started her journey into an unknown world simply known as womanhood. Kincaid portrays a ‘mother’ character giving her daughter advice, drawing in the reader with “Wash the white clothes on Monday” (Kincaid 97). You get a sense of a mother who feels the need to start training up her daughter to become more of a woman and less of a girl, one that should “wash every day even if it is with your own spit” (Kincaid).
In an era when young ladies are raised to be both strong and independent, it is jarring to read a story centered around the repression of women for the sake of propriety. In the short story, “Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid, a mother gives her young daughter meticulous instructions on how to be a domestic, respectable wife. These instructions range from cooking tips to cleaning methods, and they all aim to repress any unconventional traits her daughter may harbor. “Girl” is a second-person narrative told from a mother’s point of view. Due to the narrator’s misogynistic and patronizing worldview, the reader is forced to ask what being a “good girl” even means, why it’s so important to be one, and how the values of the narrator affect the information
The role of women in a society varies depending on the place and time in question, but almost universally it will be seen as the domestic servant by many. Across the world, girls are taught to behave in a way that pleases the men and keeps them in the public’s favor. Jamaica Kincaid writes “Girl” to show her distaste with the way Antiguan society treats women. She sees that, to society, girls are either respectable housewives or sluts, and she does not agree that this is right. Kincaid uses details, as well as the organization of the piece, to exemplify these views.
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” is a very interesting story. In short it is about an unspecified guardian giving life advice to a young girl; the range of this advice varies from dress and grooming to medicinal recipes. The older woman, also referred to as the “guardian”, is not censored about this advice either. While people may think that “Girl” is a minor tale of verbal abuse, I prefer to think of it as story of tough love as well as hope that the girl will do better in life then the adult.
Gender role is roughly defined as the type of behaviors and attitudes that are desirable for people based on their sex or perceived sexuality. In fact, socially, women are expected to take a range of roles. They are, for example, expected to be responsible for the cleanliness of the house, the family’s nutrition and more. In “Girls”, we can encounter what happens to be a list of things that a girl should do or should avoid doing, and a list of behavior that she should exhibit or avoid. In this text, Jamaica Kincaid elaborates on some of the expectations of society towards women like doing the laundry: “Wash the white clothes …”; cooking: “cook pumpkin fritters…”, cleaning the house: “This is how you sweep a corner…” and more.
In Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, the author uses thematic symbols such as “the black thing” and Annie and her mother seeing “eye to eye” to guide the reader to a position where it is clear to see that Annie and her mother do not have the same, sweet relationship they used to have. Overtime, Kincaid develops the story in such a way where it is easy to see that the relationship between Annie John and her mother begins to go downhill and is not the same as it was in the beginning of the novel. Annie clearly begins to despise her mother as she realizes that her mother is not treating her like the little girl she used to be. In this passage of Annie John, the use of “the two black things” provides a clear example of how the Annie John and her mother are very similar, yet they are never able to retain a good relationship because there is space between them.
As one can see, many mothers in today 's society would not be nearly as picky and constructive as the mother within "Girl" written by Jamaica Kincaid. Young girls almost always look up first to their mother for guidance and instruction on how to be a woman. Although the advice used in this story was used to help the young girl, it was also used to scold her as well. The mother 's strong belief in a woman having domestic knowledge is what drives her to preach the life lessons of a good woman to her daughter. It is through these lessons that she hopes for her daughter to be respected within her own home and by her community as well.
The narrator in this short story is not clearly stated, but, based on the details given, the narrator is a mother who is speaking to her daughter. The parental figure is attempting to teach the child about how a girl/woman should act based on her own beliefs and experiences. The mother is a firm believer in gender roles based on the context; one can assume this is because of the time period that the mother
Jamaica Kincaid writes “girl” A story or poem that is something like a lecture from a mother figure to a daughter figure. There is an enormous amount of ways to present the tone. The tone of “Girl” is loving, caring, but strict. Jamaica uses literary devices to achieve the tone. She uses characters, setting, plot, point of view and style to establish a tone.
This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a
When children see the female characters in the stories being obedient to men or in other words, not being as good as men are, two things happen: the male children regard themselves as superior and powerful while female children start having low self-esteem and become less satisfied about themselves. Last but not least, the fact that racism and sexism remain present in children’s books and literature leads to the thought of why this is still the case despite all the progress that the world has witnessed over the years. Racism was practically put aside with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960’s when Black people gained their freedom yet, it is still contained in children’s stories. Also, gender discrimination remains in these stories despite the fact that all the societies, even the most patriarchal among them, have witnessed a huge revolution regarding this issue. To sum up, two serious
The starts from the adolescent protagonist’s coming of age as the mature woman’s awakening to reality of her social and cultural role as a women and her subsequent attempts to reexamine her life and shape it in accordance with her
