10/28/12
English

In the story “Girl” there is a variety of things being said and it is easy to tell this is a mother, daughter relationship going on. I say that because most of things being said by the mother are things that usually only a mother would tell her daughter. The speaker in the story is the mother and the listener in the story is the daughter. In the story the mother is giving plenty of advice and telling the daughter what is appropriate and what is not. I can tell that all the information the mother was giving was too much for the daughter to take in because the daughter did not really say much at all while the mother was lecturing her. The life being described in the story “Girl” is really loose and care free which is why the mother is being strict on the daughter. The location is important because that is where most of the things that the mother is warning the daughter about are happening. I somewhat sensed that about the location in the story when the mother said “On Sunday try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”. This quote showed me that there is something that the mother does not want the daughter to experience in that location.
The advice the mother is giving in the story “Girl” is strict and controlling. The mother is not suggesting that the daughter take the advice, she is actually demanding that the daughter listen to her and take the advice than suggesting that she do so. An example would be when the mother says “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap”. The few things that the daughter says in response to the mother’s advice in the story is in italics. I believe the words being in italics gives the reader the impression that the daughter is confused by the way her mother brought the advice to her and maybe feels as if this is too much pressure to live up to her mother’s expectations. I came to this conclusion because throughout the story the daughter did not say much in response to what the mother was saying to her. I think that the author Jamaica Kincaid wrote the story in one sentence without paragraphs because she wanted to make what the mothers point bold. The effect it had on me as a reader was that the mother wasn’t really trying to listen to the daughter’s point of view. The mother I believe had it already set in her mind how the conversation was going to go and it did not seem like it included the daughter’s input on the situation.

Work Cited
Kincaid , Jamaica. “Girl” speculations
2nd edition. Charles Schuster and William
Van Pelt, eds. Upper Saddle River, NJ
Pretice Hall, 1996 7-8 print