Essay

Kincaid’s choice to separate pieces of advice by semicolons instead of full-stop periods lends the piece a sense of urgency, almost as if the mother is trying to impart all of her knowledge to her daughter as quickly as possible. However, this often makes the mother’s words come across tersely, and the their relationship seems strained at best. The daughter is allowed very little input overall; one of her sentences comes across defensively, as she denies her mother’s accusations that she is singing provocative music in Sunday school, and the other is posed as an innocent question which receives an aggressive answer. The mother’s main concern seems to be that her daughter is turning into a “slut”, and because of this apparent fear, she can be argumentative and tense towards her daughter. However, near the end of the piece, some of the advice seems to take a softer turn. The mother gives her daughter advice about love, and says, “don’t feel too bad about giving up” (1), which is much gentler than many previous sentiments. She even gives advice about “how to spit up in the air if you feel like it” (1) and how to move away; this reads much more like play than work, and almost gives a sense of playfulness between the mother and daughter, practicing a useless but entertaining trick. However, by the end, the mood turns again, as the girl’s innocent question provokes an angry answer: “you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?” (1). While there may have been some progress in the mother-daughter relationship, it is ultimately returned to the same frustrated and almost resentful

In addition, the author helps the reader understand the selfishness of the mother when the reader finds out she have stole the Persian Carpet “several months before” (230) the divorce and puts the blame on Ilya, the poor blind man. Furthermore, the visit of the children is supposed to signal a fresh start for the family. The mother even emphasizes she wants the girls to come “live with [them]” (229). Yet again, even if they meet in order to reunite, characterized by a situational irony, they see themselves separated because of her mother selfish decisions.

“I got up and pretended to study the pictures on the walls like I was a lover of religious art. When I got to the Merciful Mother right above Sinita’s head, I reached in my pocket and pulled out the bottom I’d found on the train. It was sparkly like a diamond and had a little hole in back so you could thread a ribbon through it and wear it like a romantic lady’s choker necklace. It wasn’t something I’d do, but I could see the button would make a good trade with someone inclined in that direction.

The character was illiterate and thus excluded her from others. In the beginning of the story, the shame from the daughter and others was made prevalent as the author wrote “I learned to be ashamed of my mother” (58). The shame and prejudice began to grow when the mother goes to the school to register her daughter. The mother needed and asked for help when she was filling out the forms that were required for her daughter to go to school. The author wrote “The women asks my mother what she means . . . The women still seem not to understand. ‘I can’t read it. I don’t know how to read or write,” (60) showing that the women the mother was asking for help, did not understand her question, because her ignorance of other people. Her poor understanding of the question clearly made the mother feel even more ashamed of herself. The author goes on to write “My mother looks at me, then looks away. I know almost all of her looks, but this one is brand new to me.”(61) exhibiting how the mother never felt so ashamed and embarrassed in front of her daughter. Once the woman realizes that she was on a higher “level” than the mother, she agreed to help, the author wrote “and suddenly appears happier, so much more satisfied with everything”(61). The mother was being ridiculed and humiliated by the second, as the other

In the passages Confetti Girl by Diana López and Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes, the narrators and the parents have different opinion on what is the right thing to do, and because of their different opinions, tension and distance in their relationship is created. The narrators in both passages feel alone or left out either because of the lack of attention of because they are missing a beloved parent. In both passages the narrators feel uncomfortable with the parent and is not fully opening up to them. In the sections Confetti Girl and Tortilla Sun, the different opinions between the two narrators and parents create distance and tension in their relationship.

List and describe the four force multipliers. How do terrorists us force multipliers? Give examples for each force multipliers.

Florence is treated differently because she is girl. Education is not offered to her, but to her brother who hates to learn. “And he needed the education that Florence desired far more than he, and that she might have got if he had not been born.” She should take all the responsibilities and do all the works at home as a woman. “And she [mother] wanted Florence, also, to be content-helping with the washing, and fixing meals and keeping Gabriel quiet… Florence was a girl, and all the duties of a woman; and this being so, her life in the cabin was the best possible preparation for her future life.” Her mother has different attitudes toward her and her brother. “Gabriel was the apple of his mother’s eye. If he had never been born, Florence might have looked forward to a day when she would be released from her unrewarding round of labor, when she might think of her own

Written in 1983, Kincaid narrates the thoughts and moral beliefs of the time by her mother. In Girl, Kincaid uses repetition of the term “slut” to emphasize that her mother did not want her to develop a bad moral reputation (Kincaid 118-119). Later in the narration though are her mother’s thoughts on abortion, “this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child” (Kincaid 119). It shows that while the mother instructed her in moral principles, she also understood that things happen to a young woman. The practical nature of this instruction seems to indicate more modern thought while still living in a society of traditions. Another hint of the time period is the mention of divorce and how to live after it, “this is how you love a man…and if they don’t work out, don’t feel bad about giving up” (Kincaid 119). This could indicate that divorce is an accepted practice in the more modern society that Jamaica Kincaid wrote Girl in.

In the essay “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid there are references to many social problems that were prevalent earlier in society that still apply to today’s society. In this essay the author is giving advice to her teenage daughter where she teachers her the “proper” etiquette and what was expected of a woman in her view. In this story the author Kincaid seems to be the mother and the teenage daughter is probably her daughter, in a different way of viewing she may be the daughter herself reflecting on the past, but it’s not very relevant to the meaning of the literature. In this essay I will explain how the way women are viewed in today’s society have changed, as well as what remains of the past that has yet to be overcome. I will also try and analyze and give my theory as to why Kincaid decided to write her story the way she did.

Chicago’s budget crisis has been one of the most unfortunate events of the decade. As a former student of Chicago Public Schools, myself and other students wanted the best for our education, but CPS school teachers and faculty are given the bad news that the City Council thinks we demand too much. Resulting in the Chicago Teachers Union strike of 2012, budget cuts, and many other events impacting things within the schools, it is no longer new to students, who also encounter what goes on outside, such as political news or neighborhood violence. Those in schools feel that it has been the place to be and to feel secure. Now that I have recently graduated, I have encountered a similar want for the best for my education through my college. As

“Girl” is quite a strange short story compare to all the other ones that were read in class. It is strange to hear the high expectations that parents communicate to their children because of the way they are presented and because of the language that is used. All that sounds pretty unusual and outdated. But in those days it was probably something normal. Also, Kincaid is trying to point out how the world is changing and how women have much more freedom to do what

In “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother is warning her daughter about what to expect, and how to act, in society. The story represents a time when the daughter knew that her mother loved her enough to spend the time to give her the advice, but is also emotionally distant. I believe this to be representative of Kincaid’s life, and how after her brother’s were born she felt that her mother did not have enough time for her.

“Will she be too ashamed to visit? To bring her husband and his family? These thoughts begin to anger me (p. 163), what do I say to my daughter? Please do not look down upon me because I no longer have a powerful position in my society? I am not to blame our society no longer

The girl distrusts her mother and believes her to be out of touch, while helping her father in "his real work" (468). Surprisingly, the girl's desire to avoid the manifestation of her femininity in womanly tasks, such as cooking and cleaning, influences her into feeling that her mother is "plotting now to get [her] to stay in the house [. . ]. and keep [her] from working for [her] father" (469). The girl chooses to dismiss her mother, thereby dismissing her own future role as a housewife.

The resentment within the young girl’s family is essential to the novel because one can understand the young girl better as she makes her decision.