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Summary
“Girl” is a short essay written by Jamaica Kincaid. She is an Antiguan-American novelist and essayist. She was born in Antigua is a sovereign island country in the West Indies in the Americas, lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean) and emigrated to the united States. ‘Girl’ is a prose poem that was published in The New Yorker in 1978. This consists of a single sentence of advice of mother to her daughter. The girl has interrupted only twice to ask a question or defend herself. Mother has advised and scolded her daughter at the same time. A major point from this essay is the lack of warmth. There isn’t a single word of love or encouragement anywhere. The mother’s words cover the traditional role that a woman should fulfill. Kincaid uses semicolons to separate the words.
The mother provides much practical and helpful advices that will help her daughter to keep her own house in the future. She tells her daughter how to do such household chores (works)( as laundry, sewing, ironing, cooking, setting the table, sweeping, and washing. She also tells the girl how to do other things that she needs to know such as how to make herbal medicines and catch a fish. She also offers sympathy, such as when she talks about the relationships her daughter will one day have with men. The mother also tells the girl how to behave in different situations, including how to talk with people she doesn’t like. The mother’s advices to her daughter are both positives and negatives.
Her instructions to her daughter are listed below:
a) Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap.
b) Wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline (a rope or wire on which washed clothes are hung to dry) to dry.
c) Don’t walk bare head in the hot sun.
d) Cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil.
e) Soak your little clothes right after you take off.
f) Soak salt fish overnight before you cook it.
g) Do not sing benna (Antiguan music) in school on Sunday.
h) Always eat food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach.
i) On Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut (immoral woman).
j) Mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give instructions.
k) Don’t eat fruits on the street because flies will follow you.
1) Do not squat (to sit with one’s knees bent down) to play marbles.
m) Do not pick people’s flower.
n) Do not throw stone at blackbirds because it might not be a blackbird at all
Questions
1) Whom does the speaker address the orders?
Ans: The speaker addresses the orders to her daughter.
2). What is the relation between the speaker and the addressee? How is the relation?
Ans: The relation between speaker and the addressee is mother and daughter. Their relation is not smooth. If their relation were good, mother would not advise her. Perhaps daughter is not following the rules to be perfect lady.
3) What rules may be applicable in the Caribbean, but not in Nepal? Do you think they should be applicable in Nepal too? Why or why not?
Ans: Mother has given many instructions to her daughter to be a good lady. These all rules may not be applicable in Nepal because Nepalese culture and customs are different from Caribbean. Some rules which are considered good in the Caribbean do not have any meaning in Nepal. For example: Mother says to wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap. Similarly, she also says to wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry. But in Nepal, we don’t do so. We wash the clothes of all colours usually on Saturday. We don’t have any particular day to wash for particular clothes. In Nepal, we don’t cook pumpkin fritters (slice) in very hot sweet oil. Similarly, in Nepal girls are not banned to sing any types of songs in school on Sunday.
4) What do you think are a young girl’s experiences of growing up in Nepal? What kind of admonitions are in order in Nepal?
Ans: The girls had to face many problems while growing up in Nepal in the past. There were many restrictions for them. But situation has been changed. The girls are given freedoms. They can do as men. Parents are sending their daughters to school. They can do any job as their choice. However, there are still some admonitions or them. For example: they can not stay late outside. They are not allowed to go outside alone. If they choose their boy- friends themselves, they have to bear insult. After marriage, when they go to their husband’s house, they are expected to be complete housewife. They are not expected to cigarette, wine and beer. In some societies of Nepal, girls are still dominated and they are deprived of freedom.
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