Jamaica Kincaid’s narrative “Girl” provides a brief glance on the demanding and rigorous parenting manner. used by Caribbean people merely twenty old ages ago. The short narrative is composed of a series of instructions and prescriptions and evidently it lacks encouragement and authorization and points to the considerable distance between the girl and the female parent. Structurally. the narrative consists of one long sentence. from which one can deduce a decision that the list of outlooks the female parent has refering her kid is rather long.
Apparently. the female parents either holds or pretends to keep a high grade of control and authorization over the supporter. In order to beef up the sense of control. the female parent uses three destructive compliance-gaining techniques: bullying. apparently “friendly” advice and elaborate instructions. which indicate that the miss is treated as inferior and non plenty bright trainee. The present paper provides a list and sum-ups of resources. which will be utile in developing this statement. Bouson. J. Jamaica Kincaid: Writing Memory. Writing Back to the Mother. SUNY Press. 2005.
The book by Bouson is a comprehensive and interesting journey into Kincaid’s life. The cardinal subject of her Hagiographas is the writer’s relationships with her diehard female parent. every bit good as unsaid offense. bitterness and gratitude. All her literary plants are autobiographical ; furthermore. as Kincaid herself states. her narrative is told by her female parent. as she sees the universe chiefly through the lens of her parent’s mentality. Back in the early childhood. Kincaid developed a position that the domestic life is a step of all other events so that everything can be reduced to the wrangle in the kitchen.
In “Girl” . the loss of privateness in domesticity is implied. so the short might reflect the author’s ain frights. beyond the existent episodes from her life. This work can be used as a context and position of the paper and will supply autobiographical analogues for the chief thesis. Sheehan. T. “Caribbean Impossibility: The Lack of Jamaica Kincaid” . In Jamaica Kincaid and Caribbean Double Crossings. edited by Linda Lang-Peralta. University of Delaware Press. 2006. 79-95. This essay focuses on the motive of emptiness and deficiency in Kincaid’s fiction.
In her novels. emptiness is represented through absent parents. unsated physical demands. poorness and desolation. whereas in short narratives emptiness is instead a religious motive. In “Girl” . although the supporter of the literary work is a adolescent miss. an addressee of maternal instructions. her presence is about unobtrusive. The miss tends to maintain silence. listening to her mother’s soliloquy and there are merely few words she says to stipulate what her parent really means. Therefore. it seems like her female parents is speaking to a manikin.
The image the reader can conceive of shows the miss automatically obeying to all orders and transporting out all the responsibilities with empty head. The book chapter by Sheehan is to great extent utile in explicating and clarifying the 3rd point of the statement. or mother’s 3rd compliance-gaining scheme of handling her girl like a “dull girl” . Edwards. J. Understanding Jamaica Kincaid: At the underside of the river. Early novels: Annie John and Lucy. Nonfiction: A little topographic point and My brother. Recent novels: Autobiography of my female parent and Mr. Potter.
University of South Carolina Press. 2007. The writer of the book conducts an in-depth analysis of Kincaid’s literary plants including “Girl” . The writer examines the function of linguistic communication in the short narrative and argues that the mother’s chief purpose is keeping control over the kid through “practical recommendations” . All instructions sound allegedly helpful. but the metaphors and hints the adult female is utilizing reveal that apart from her love and caring attitude towards her kid. one can besides detect the desire to oblige the miss to copy her even in the slightest gestures.
In fact. female parent is turning a “revised” transcript of herself and warns the miss against the errors she really made. Therefore. in footings of the vocabulary the female parent is using. she bit by bit moves from fostering to a direct onslaught on the supporter. This book allows covering and decently turn toing the woman’s 2nd scheme of obedience-gaining. which is “friendly advice” . and demoing how this friendliness is being transformed into bullying. Phelps. D. “Jamaica Kincaid” . In Multicultural Writers Since 1945: An A-to-Z Guide. edited by Alba della Fazia Amoia. Alba Amoia and Bettina Knapp.
Greenwood Publishing Group. 2004. 289-292. The writer addresses multicultural subjects in Kincaid’s Hagiographas and provinces that the author systematically writes from the position of “colonial family” . where parents treated their kids as submissive household units. In “Girl” . this colonialism is rather obvious. given that the commanding female parent is constructing her psychological “domain” in the girl. to the full prehending and repressing the latter’s mentality. Therefore. bullying as a compliance-gaining scheme represents the female parent as a totalitarian leader of the household.
The present article allows casting more light on control relationships in the short narrative and depicting the struggle between the two coevalss in a broader context. As one can reason. the plants included in the bibliography will supply plenty background information every bit good as analysis and review. vital in explicating the nature of control relationship between the parent and the kid from different angles of position. Generally. all beginnings covered discuss the household pathology and the destructive upbringing the chief character’s female parent provides.
