Reading Notes W15: Kincaid, Part B

Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” (1144-1146)

Jamaica Kincaid:

·         Born 1949

·         Born and raised among an extended family

·         His family was considered to be ordinary and poor

·         She  is well-known for books and magazine articles about the immigrant experience

·         Born Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson in Antigua

·         “part of the British Leeward Island chain, Antigua was a colony of Britain throughout the writer’s childhood and adolescence; it gained political independence in 1981 and now belongs to the British commonwealth” (1144).

·         “Kincaid learned from them how to protect herself against the evil eye, how to appease local spirits, how to use herbs to conjure and heal-a familiarity with the supernatural that she later incorporated into her fiction” (1144).

·         Her changed names refer to different meanings. Jamaica: referring to the West Indies. Kincaid: referring to a work by the playwright George Bernard Shaw.

“Girl”:

·         The first piece of fiction that Kincaid published.

·         The speaker: a mother giving directions to her daughter on the rules and rites of womanhood.

·         Setting: Antigua

·         Instructions refer to many things. Medicine and obeah, keeping a house, enduring a cruel husband, aborting unwanted pregnancies, maintaining a sense of sexual propriety.

·         Child may be reaching puberty.

Quotes:

·         “On Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming” (1145). This could be one way to tell she is reaching puberty through the words “bent on becoming”, like she hasn’t reached it yet.

·         “This is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming” (1146). This repetition of the words “Slut” and “bent on becoming” indicate the important to this mother of her daughter being a proper woman and not looking like a slut.

·         “This is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up” (1146). This is a lot of rules in womanhood for a girl to follow. This definitely reflects the traditional woman and maybe even the time period this is in.