homework 1 enc1102

This Is How to Be a Woman: Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”

         The short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is mainly based on society’s views on what a perfect woman looked like back then. It focuses on how a woman's greatest accomplishment is based on a life of domesticity. Throughout the whole story, a mother offers her daughter advice on how to be a “proper” woman. The story really helps you fully acknowledge how crucial these things were back in the 1970s for a woman to do. Women and men have always been treated differently. Back in the day a woman's only asset was to be a housewife and a mother, they weren't seen as anything more. Thankfully now women have more freedom, we have proven we are so much more than what we used to be seen as.

         To begin with, double standards have always been a problem in society and men have always been “in charge” back then it was even more prominent than it is now.  In the times this story takes place a woman’s manners and lifestyle were constantly judged and all women had the same purpose: clean, cook, and birth babies. This short story focuses on how important these certain things were back then for women. Throughout the story, the mother is giving advice to the daughter which is the “Girl” in the title. Initially, she just mentions how to wash certain clothes or cook certain foods, just basic domestic advice. But as the story progresses and the mother carries on with her advice you can tell the opinion she has of her daughter. “Kincaid states, “…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…” in this specific line we can sense the passive aggressiveness from the mother towards the daughter which ties back in with what I mentioned earlier about the mother showing her true feeling towards her daughter.