A Single Story In Breakfast At Tiffany's By Truman Capote

The narrative voice is intriguing when choosing a literacy technique when applied to Alice Munro 's “Boys and Girls” and Jamaica Kincaid 's “Girl” because it highlights the significance of women 's role during the 1960 's. The story of Boys and Girls is in third person narration describing an eleven- year old girl. This story was published in 1968, a time when the second wave of feminism movement occurred. This story gives information about adult gender roles. The setting of the story is in Canada during the winter. The narrator is living in a fox- breeding farm which correlates to the North American culture in the 1960 's. In the 1960 's, women were stereotyped as happy wives and mothers. In contrast, the society believed that unmarried

The object of examining gender roles is to answer the question why should women and men be equal and "Are there populations in which men and women are absolutely equal? Are there societies in which women dominate men?" (Gender 238) By understanding the culture in which this piece of literature is written, the gender roles and the rules of behavior for a woman, then the relationships between genders can be realized. The general myth about women and their gender role in the American society is that the mother works in the home and supports her man in every way. For each relationship, the people in that relationship must decide the particular roles that they will play. In the literary work "Girl", Kincaid shows clearly that the woman's role in this work was to serve the family and to work mainly in the house. The mother writing this story tells her daughter that "this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease" (Kincaid 489). In this marriage, it is understood that the wife is to do the laundry for the husband. Today's society does not always provide these clear roles since many women work a full time job and the house chores are a responsibility for both to handle. Though the woman is still mainly held responsible for the home. There should be a constant search for equality in gender roles. Kincaid explains how the man is working to bring home the money and the wife supports

Adichie is able to use her own life experiences, her personal knowledge, and her undeniable farcical character to create another side to the single story. Adichie’s inspirational words are nothing short of being honest, palpable, and sufficient enough to cause all people to reconsider their views. The end to Adichie’s speech is inspired by a thought, “That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise” (Adichie). Concluding with the thought that we ourselves achieve a serenity whilst remaining open minded to the goodness of the people around

Both Truman Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the subsequent film adaptation directed by Blake Edwards and starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard give a snapshot of the life of the wild New York call girl Holly Golightly. Though the character’s major personality traits remain the same in the movie, the Holly Golighty that made her way into the pop culture lexicon after the film’s release in the 1960s does not have quite the same depth as the character written by Truman Capote earlier on. By removing and minimizing Holly’s traumas, Blake Edwards successfully creates a new sanitized and romanticized version of Holly Golightly that is easier to present to movie audiences as someone to be idolized.

The author of “Telling Tails” elaborates on how a good story should be by saying “…, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary human behavior and unexpected and startling events, which help illuminate the commonplace and the ordinary” (O’Brien). If a story does not afford the reader the luxury to imagine these extraordinary events in our lives, the reader can be easily bored and lose interest in wanting to know more. An example of a well-imagined story that captivates its reader can be deduced from “Boys and Girls.” In this story, the father introduces his female child as a hired man to a salesman who says, “Could of fooled me…I thought it was only a girl” (Kelly 305). The statement being used can tell the reader how a female was thought of as an unimportant person. The author does not mention the obvious but leaves the readers to the device of their imagination. O’Brien would deem this story as a good one as the author is successful in telling a well-imagined and organized story about extraordinary human event and the place women had in society.

In Adichie’s TED talk, she tells how the “single story” is very dangerous thing. Adichie gets this across by telling her experiences receiving a “single story” by her mother. Adichie’s Mother had told her over many years that there was this boy that was coming to live with them. This little boy was part of a very poor family, Adichie’s mother had said to her, “ Eat the rest of your food, you know there are some people in this world just like the little boy that don’t have this food and are starving.” Now Adichie had always looked at this little boy being poor, when she had met this little boy he was able to make many things and seemed very happy and content with where he was in life. Now if this little boy looked at his own life the way that

In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls

Throughout the history of storytelling, there have always been storybook characters that inspire and motivate young readers to become more engaged and knowledgeable about the struggles that some people go through. Reading has always been a pastime of mine; while reading I collect new friends in wonderful places that otherwise I could only dream of. Each of these characters that I have befriended and connected with over the years, has shaped my personality in some way or another, and choosing just one seems an impossible task. Although women’s rights have skyrocketed in the past century, overall the world is still predominately male-orientated, but the world of books has no bounds for inspirational women. Countless authors have written

puberty bring with it a complex tradition of restrictions and behavioral guidelines. Kincaid’s poem reveals the rigidity and complexity of the social confines the girl is expected to operate underl. A girl is an induction into the women community as well as an orientation into the act of womanhood (Walkerdine et. al.). The lectured instructions given to the silent girl child vary from the housekeeping, “this is how you sweep a whole house”, to dealing with intimate relationships, “this is how a man bullies you; …how to bully a man” to medicine, “this is how to make good medicine (to abort)” (Kincaid).The inane patriarchal society expects gender stereotypes to prevail. The mother is tasked to give her daughter instructions on how to be a good woman in the stereotyped society. The advice the mother gives to the daughter cements the gender stereotype and portrays limitations on a woman (Bailey and Carol 107).

In Jamaica Kincaid’s story, Girl, a mother is talking to her daughter about all the proper things she must do to be considered a good girl to her family and to the public, and when she grows up, a proper lady. She must follow the rules that are given to her by her own mother and by society. The mother also teaches the daughter how to act when things don’t go her way. She is told that along with being a proper lady, she must also be able to get what she wants and be independent. This story was written in the late 1970’s and gender roles, for women, back then were not being “followed” because women wanted equal opportunities (Women In the Workforce). “Gender stereotypes are beliefs regarding the traits and behavioral characteristics given to individuals on the basis of their gender” (Deuhr). This essay will discuss the gender roles that were given to women in the story, during the late 70’s, and in today’s society.

Lacking a wider variety of stories on any given topic can lead to dangerous misconceptions and casual racism. In her TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, Ms. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award winning Nigerian novelist and public speaker, uses personal encounters with the effects of a single story to normalize her experiences with her audiences so that they may internalize them and act upon them easier. Ms. Adichie's use of pathos, as well as her comedic tone and understanding of who her audience is makes it significantly easier for her to accomplish the aforementioned goal.

From the TED Talk video “The Danger of a Single Story,” I think that the speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wanted to tell us that we need to read more and know different stories about one place because there are more than one story exist. We should not judge other without knowing themselves. Furthermore, she said that we should not easily believe everything we heard from media because they only give us one impression. I especially felt close to her when she described how she felt after she realized her American roommate teetered her as African not Nigerian. (4:13) Moreover, she had only a single story about Africa. (4:49) Those paragraph remind me when I was in college in New York, my American classmates did not know the differences between Japanese and Chinese or

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.

“Girl” is a short story in which the author, Jamaica Kincaid, unofficially presents the stereotypes of girls in the mid 1900s. Kincaid includes two major characters in the story “Girl”, they are the mother and the girl. Although the daughter only asks two questions in this story, she is the major character. The mother feels like her daughter is going in the wrong direction and not making the best decisions in her life. The whole story is basically the mother telling her daughter what affects her decisions will have in the future. The mother believes that because her daughter isn’t sitting, talking, cleaning, walking or singing correctly it will lead her to a path of destruction. “Girl” is a reflection of female sexuality, the power of family, and how family can help overcome future dangers.

This critique seeks to provide contextualisation for investigations into gendered representations in children’s literature, and the mechanisms that underpin their construction and reproduction. The key aim is to explore possible shifts within gender representation in children’s literature. Hamilton et al. (2006) argue that although there have been changes, over time, to gender representations, improvements have been mitigated by both the underrepresentation of female characters and a continued tendency to cast girls in “passive roles, boys in active ones” (p. 758). It is important to note that whilst underrepresentation is an important facet of study in children’s literature, it will be excluded from this discussion as to