Analysis Of Ann Hood And Jamaica Kincaid

In “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator begins the short story by speaking of a “blackness” that fills up her own being and eventually becomes one with it. Yet, unaware of her own nature and the narrator foreshadows the development of her consciousness as she isolates herself, attempting to place her consciousness under a category of industry and glory and a her original, simple, natural history. Jamaica Kincaid creates a metaphor for the colonialism that affected the narrator by the narrator’s dream of “bands of men… their guns and canons… emptied of bullets and shells” (472). These bands of men that she dreams of represent the colonizers after they attempted to destroy the narrator’s true heritage and replace it with their own.

In today’s society, family is often attempted to be organized within a social structure. Within this structure family typically is consisted of mom, dad, daughter, and son. However, many families do not fit into this configuration. These families may include same sex couples, separated or divorced families, extended families, or even blended families. Even though these families may be happy and healthy, to many they are not considered real families. Going along with the topic of imperfect families, both Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Rodriguez try to break down the traditional family structure through their writing. While Kingsolver’s “Stone Soup” and Rodriguez’s “Family Values” explore the ideas of different family structures and traditional American values, “Stone Soup” breaks down what an actual family is like while “Family Values” expresses the value of family in different cultures.

“ You educate a man; you educate a man. You educated a woman; you educate a generation” stated by Brigham Young. Jamaica Kincaid in her short story Girl, this is the message she wants her readers to understand.Kincaid sets up a “ how to” format for the way a woman should behave. The mother gives her daughter advice on being a woman through her past experiences and shows her that being feminine revolves around maintaining a home, but the daughter disagrees. When the mother corrects her way of thinking, it is implied throughout the story that the daughter is trapped by the rules of femininity. Kincaid lists countless stereotypical roles of a woman which appears to be sexist and puts a limit on what women can and cannot do. However, Girl empowers women and gives power, freedom and control.

Author Harriette Pipes McDoo addresses how family values are influenced by racism in her book, Black Families. She expounds that the challenges faced by African American families have given them the ability to strengthen their core family values through overcoming racially fueled injustices (McDoo 69-71). Factors like racism, poverty, and the fight for equal rights are all factors which vary across the nation within each household affecting individual family value systems. Along with the challenges of adversity, each passing generation inside of American culture have emphasized less and less on multigenerational relationships with families moving and growing into new families to new locations. This rift in the familial structure stems from the evolution of the traditional family combined with the self-motivated desire to succeed

Jamaica Kincaid’s story of “Girl,” is a mind blowing experience between mother and daughter. “This Essay presents a plot summary of Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” as well as providing historical, societal, religious, scientific and biographical context for the short story. Kincaid’s unusual land difficult to classify piece of short fiction consists of a brief monologue by an Antiguan mother to her adolescent daughter” (Kim Bencel, 2) This is a story, not in verse or order that will remind you of days gone by. The mother is hell- bent on making a respectful young lady.

Families can mean a lot of different things to different people. For some family is everything, just knowing that someone is there for you during a personal crisis to help you and provide you with love is comforting. However, at the same time a family can be heartless and relentless providing you with no comfort, instead just pain and misery. We all can agree that families shape our development and how we view the world. From childhood our thoughts and actions are shaped based on experiences from a sibling or parent that went through them. However, the influence of a family could be positive or negative, whether it is showing us the right side or perhaps making the same mistakes. In literature many writers have been influenced by their families two great examples are “A Brother’s Murder” by Brent Staples and “My father’s Life” by Raymond Carver, both writers express in great detail how families have shaped and affected them as individuals.

Family values are defined as moral standards and disciplines learned by a traditional family unit. In different essays, authors Richard Rodriguez and Jamaica Kincaid talk about family values and how they shape the person, one eventually becomes. In Rodriguez's essay, he discusses family values through the view of immigration and homosexuality. While Kincaid's essay discusses family values through her upbringing and relationship with her mother. Although those two topics may seem different they each share similarities in the case that “family values” are mainly about becoming your own person.

1. Describe the focus or focalization in Girl. Do we see what one person sees, or observe one person in particular? Describe the voice of the narrator in Girl. Who is the “you”? How do the focus and voice contribute to the reader’s response to the story?It about a girl’s womanhood set at the moment of separation between the age of innocence and the confusing, transfiguring entrance into womanhood experience. It is the story of a mother’s attempt to train her adolescent daughter to learn appropriate cultural customs and more important, the rules of social behavior, especially that of proper sexual conduct befitting a well-reared girl. Yes! We observe what the mother is trying to teach her young daughterto do for a man. It helps her too learned in order, to achieve something that her mother is trying to teach her to do and how to act as a young woman and what to expect as a young woman growing up.

ntroduction: Family is an integral part of many American’s lives it shapes how we grew up, how we interconnect with society, and how we choose to live our lives. “The American Family” by Stephanie Coontz is an essay comparing the way of the family from several points in time to show what changes have come about for better or worse. Her points may be biased and in order to seek confirmation of her points, the memories of individuals who have lived through the longer span of time will provide incite as to whether others agree with her. I have conducted such an interview with my grandparents Linda Jolliffe, being 70, and Earl Jolliffe, being 73. By reading Coontz’s essay aloud I was able to record and analyze their thoughts and opinions from their perspective, and compare theirs with mine while taking a look into why bias has such an effect when writing.

Bell hooks’ family made it very clear that they did not agree of her decision to go to a school so far away from her home because they were afraid that she would forget about her family values and ideals. However, hooks explained that her family values and ideas would remain untouched for she knew the importance of keeping close to home. “The most powerful resource any of us can have as we study and teach in a universal setting is full understanding and appreciation of the richness, beauty, and primacy of our family and community backgrounds,” (hooks 427). Hooks speaks on her parents’ fear of her losing sight of family ideals. While reading this, I could not help but think about how my family was the same way with my siblings and I. Coming from a self-made family, my parents have harped on the importance of education and never forgetting that we’re

There is a big connection between our family and our identity. Family shapes us into the person we become and takes a big part in developing our identity. No matter if their influence is life changeable or not, their presence in our lives is enough to create changes. In the book, Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez described his life as a Mexican-American trying to adapt to the new ways of life and how this has cause him to become distant with his family. On the other hand, in the essay, “The Love of My Life”, the author Cheryl Strayed discussed the affects her mother’s death had on her and her outlook in life. Both authors can relate in terms of the importance of how family helps in shaping one into the person they become. Although identities can be self-built, our families are important in the process because they provide the support needed to build and find identity.

Elaine Potter Richardson, more famously known as Jamaica Kincaid, is recognized for her writings that suggest depictions of relationships between families, mainly between a mother and daughter, and her birth place, Antigua, an island located in the West Indies. She is also familiarized with Afrocentrism and feminist point of views. Kincaid’s work is filled heavily with visual imagery that produces a mental picture in readers that helps them connect stronger to the reading. An example of this really shines through in her short story piece, “Girl.” This short story describes the life of a lower class woman living in the West Indies, and also incorporates thick detailing between the relationship between her and her mother. Jamaica Kincaid structures the story as if her mother is speaking to her. She writes broad, but straight to the point, allowing readers to imagine to picture her experience. Kincaid uses visual imagery and repetition consistently throughout “Girl” to reveal the theme and tone of the story; conflictual affair between a mother and daughter.

Kincaid had a rough childhood. At the age of thirteen, she was pulled out of school by her mother. Her mother told her she had to help her step-father out. Throughout her childhood, she never had much attention from her mother. When she turned seven-teen her mother had sent her to America to help support the family. She never received a mother to daughter relationship.

Childhood is the most sensitive period of human development. A well-structured academic enabling environment allows children to flourish, learning 15-20 new words every week all while adapting to and learning specific motor functions of all sorts. The correct environment carries an extremely important role and promotes learning under the proper circumstances, however a poor learning environment with constant conflict and poor role models can actually inhibit or slow the growth of a child. By no means does the perfect learning scenario exist, but psychologist can often identify a scenario where parents and/or guardians foster a variety of developmental issues from a psychological, physical, and mental perspective. The authoritative figure's unique and condescending style of teaching the girl in "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, directly leads to harsh social and developmental consequences short term, with diminished long term social and developmental effects including troubled relationships, attachment issues, and a poor understanding of basic social scenarios.

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid is a prose poem about a mother writing to her daughter and telling her how to do things. If by Rudyard Kipling is a father telling his son that if he can do certain things, he will become a man. These stories are similar and different in many ways, like their different formats, different points of view, and similar topic.