In the passage, Jamaica Kincaid dramatizes the opposing forces of the desire for stability and the desire to grow as a human. The passage encapsulates Kincaid’s move to a new city up North and all the unexpected changes she discovers. By the end of the excerpt, she clearly delineates that she’s homesick and wants to return to her old, rural lifestyle because she “didn’t want to take in anything else.” This surface need of returning home and regaining stability in her life clashes with her subconscious, which begs to continue trying new experiences. Kincaid has outgrown her hometown and knows that the only way to further grow into a dynamic human being is through moving to a city filled with “good ideas.” Kincaid won’t be able to grow and evolve toward self-actualization if she only experiences her past, rural life. Kincaid implements much detail throughout the paragraphs, which allows the reader to step into her shoes and, furthermore, allows the reader to hold a magnifying glass up to their own life and search for any changes they should make. Kincaid reminisces on “eating a bowl of pink mullet and green figs cooked in coconut milk.” She even misses the “bed she had outgrown” and people she “longed to see dead at her feet.” She vividly describes her prior life and makes it out to be dissatisfactory. Even though it wasn’t favorable, it was …show more content…
Kincaid comes off as a pessimistic child who constantly complains and won’t give her new lifestyle a fair chance, even though it’s the best thing for her. The only option in her opinion is “to go back where I(she) came from” and achieve stability. Kincaid purposefully puts the reader in a more objective seat, so the reader understands that this decision can only end in eventual misery. She must experience new things, such as a new city, to grow and scale Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human
Kincaid doesn’t bother with throwing everything into quotations and the entirety of the story is essentially one sentence joined by semicolons. This style gives the work an overall matter of fact tone. The nagging voice is immediately evident in “Wash the clothes on Monday and put them on a stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on a clothesline to dry…” (Fader/Rabinowitz pg. 66). The reader can also get a sense of the cultural expectations of the main character through the domestic imagery throughout the text. The girl is expected to uphold certain roles within her home and is instructed as to how to behave and not draw attention to herself. Her mother assumed that her daughter’s behavior was inappropriate and any protest she offered to defend herself was shot down. Kincaid drives her point home effectively when in the very last line: “...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?” (Fader/Rabinowitz pg. 67). The reader can see the mother’s surprise towards her daughter’s innocent question. The girl was unable to learn how to be adult and conduct herself properly, even after all of her mother’s speeches and
of others and the impact that has had on them. Satrapi writes about the point in her life she began learning once she realizes that the views she had of the people in her country were wrong during her time at West Point. Similarly, Kincaid’s essay is about the rough relationship she had with her mother and how her criticism of her changed after her experience as a mother. Both provide social commentary on the mistakes they made as they reflect on the hardships they experienced and ultimately, share how that has influenced their growth as human beings.
“You are a product of your environment.”- W. Clement. The way you were raised, the people who raised you and the community that you are raised in all play a role in who you are as an individual. Constantly throughout time the way an individual defines themselves is based on their roots, the actions or reactions that have built a foundation of who they’re today. Through the lens of a slave later turned into one of the largest faces of abolitionist acts, Frederick Douglass creates “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” in which he accounts the community he was raised in and the constant fear instilled within his community as well as his later assimilation into new communities and possibly being responsible for creation of a
Kincaid utilizes the element of tone to support the theme of how to be the “perfect” woman in a society. The mother speaks with great authority, and is very commanding. The tone when she is speaking is very commanding and authoritative. She tells her daughter to wash her clothes a certain way, and how to dry them. She also tells her she needs to always make sure she is dressed very appropriately. The short story is written in one long sentence form using only semicolons to separate the phrases. Most of the story is made up of the mother speaking; seeing that the daughter only speaks two times throughout the entire piece. However, when the Girl speaks the tone changes very drastically. She is almost upright and shows to be very over sensitive with her words. When the daughter says, “but I don't sing
This is an Antiqua, British story where things are different, but really no different, than the upbringing in rural United States. “Born in the West Indian Island of Antigua, Kincaid admits that her desire to write came while she was young, but it seemed like avocation that would elude her because she knew so little about what it involved” (ProQuest Learning, 1). Themes that included things she had perhaps experienced personally. The poem stresses that the conditions are so poor that mother must prepare her daughter for womanhood and to find a decent man. It teaches her to cook certain baked goods and to be a good housekeeper.
Kincaid begins her essay by discussing her different views on England that she gained while she was a child. Everyone that grew up with Kincaid up on the Caribbean island aimed to be more like the “perfect” England. As if she could not even acknowledge
Many denounce Kincaid’s latest book as an over attack, her gaze too penetrating and intimidating. The tone of voice continuously shifts throughout the memoir, starting from sardonic, manifesting into anger, to slowly conclude in melancholy. Though particular accusations, such as when the narrator cruelly rejects “you” as “an ugly thing”, may upset the readers, Kincaid purposely provokes reactions of defensiveness and guilt to challenge us
As Antigua's society conforms into what is socially accepted in the English culture, she states, “My mother taught me how to eat my food the English way… But I knew then that I enjoyed food more when I ate it with my bare hands.” Despite Kincaid’s own opinions and desires, she is forced to act in a certain way in order to appease the now widely accepted English principles. Her unknowingly futile struggle at the time shows an overpowering and consuming England. Furthermore, Kincaid continues to disparage her parents as she states, “My father…was a carpenter and cabinet maker.
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.
A Small Place, a novel written by Jamaica Kincaid, is a story relating to the small country of Antigua and its dilemmas from Jamaica Kincaid’s point of view. In this novel Kincaid is trying to inform her audience that Antigua is in a poor state due to British imperial, government corruption, and tourism. Kincaid exposes her audience to the effect of these very problems in Antigua by using persuasive visual language. In the third part of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, Kincaid does an exceptional job in arguing that, her country Antigua has corrupt government officials due to British influence by appealing effectively to pathos, logos, and ethos.
It’s hard to imagine someone’s personal experience without actually being the one enduring it; however, Jamaica Kincaid’s use of language contests other wise.Through intense imagery and emotional response, Jamaica Kincaid utilizes rhetorical appeals such as logos, pathos, and ethos, which successfully convinces her audience by creating a conversation between herself and the reader. Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place is an expression of her inner feelings on the transformation her hometown, Antigua, and the everlasting postcolonial impact that occurs. Kincaid reacts to the feelings she had as a young girl and compares that mindset to the opinions she holds today as an adult. Kincaid’s piece evaluates the foreignness, race, and power that consumes Antigua. While she descriptively explains the circumstances she faced in Antigua, Kincaid incorporates historical background which provides logical support to her purpose. Notably, the author’s first hand experiences gives her credibility, ethos, and allows the audience to clearly understand the context from her perspective. Not only does Kincaid effectively describe her experiences, but she also makes her audience feel as though they are looking through her eyes. Her purpose demonstrates the difficulty and impossibility of returning to origin after crucial influences. A Small Place proves that the effects of racism and racial inequality are long term and culture cannot simply return exactly how it once was in that specific culture,
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
Kincaid uses a great deal of symbolism to reflect on female sexuality. From the first line to the last there is Symbolism. The first line says, “Wash the white clothes on Monday”. The mother, in that first sentence, is saying that her daughter should keep her body pure and clean. Another symbol many recognize in this story is when the mother accuses the girl of singing benna at Sunday School. The girl replies by stating, “but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school.” Benna is an Antiguan folksong sang to spread rumors about scandalous events. Benna is symbolic because the mother is accusing her daughter of getting mixed up in ‘scandalous events”. While symbolism
To begin, Kincaid’s use of symbolism to strengthen how the girl’s image is very important is shown with the constant reiteration of the upkeep of clothes. “ this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut…” (320). In the past the type clothes worn and how they looked told a great deal about a person's social status. The girl's mother believes that if her clothes are not neatly kept people will look down on her and lose respect for her. Kincaid using clothes is a good symbol because she has the mother
Kincaid’s On Seeing England for the First Time is an essay on the imperialism political and cultural dominance on it’s colonies. The narrator and her people are taught to love, admire, and emulate British Culture. However, as the narrator grows up she realizes all the discrepancies in all she has learned about the culture she should have and her own country. She picks apart England culture piece by piece.