GIRL
Jamaica kincaid
Biographie & Background of the author
Summary of the story
Structure
describe
character
how did the
characters develop
Gender role
Narrative technique
Analysis and interpretation
Biography of the author
■ Born :May 25,1949 as Elaine Cynthia Potter
Richardson in Saint Johns , Antigua and Barbuda
,Caribbean
■ Settled in NYC at age 16
■ 1974 writing for “the New Yorker "magazine
■ In June 26 ,1978 the short story “Girl” appeared
■ 1983 her first book “At the Bottom of the River "was
published
■ Later novels are autobiographical in nature
Deals with the experience of being young
female in a poor country
Why did she
write girl ?
To describe her mother as a literate woman
who struggled against her poor circumstances
To show her experiences of being young ,being
poor , being female
To show how her mother treats her
Single sentence
Advice of a mother imparts to her daughter
Helpful advice for future
Summary
The mother is teaching the girl everything she need to know about
“Girl “is not a word-for-word transcript (conversation between the mother
and daughter) but a compilation of an advice that daughter remembers
her mother saying
It is prose poem read like prose
What is short story?
CHARACTER
SETTING
PLOT
CONFLICT
Narrative
technique
First Person
(Central Narrator)
The girl is recalling
all the advice that
her mother give her
“Girl “ there no real
narrator
Girl is the one doing
the talking her
Kincaid's narrative
technique gives girl
all the power
Girl is doing all the
talking
Lines that
make me
think twice
■
But I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and
never in Sunday school;…
Gendered identity in work /family spaces :
‘wash clothes’
‘always smile’
Gender role
‘walk like lady ‘
‘this how to make a good medicine for a cold
‘this how you set a table for dinner ‘
‘this how to behave ..’
‘ you are not a boy, you know ‘
CHARACTER
The mother
Want to protect
her daughter
The main
speaker of the
story
Community plays
a larger role in
Antiguan’s live
She want to keep
her daughter
respectable
Bitterness in the
mother's voice
She has a keen
sense of social
etiquette
She take her
anger and
frustration out of
her daughter
She is teaching
her daughter how
to behave around
different person
She is hopeless
for her daughter
future
The girl
Spoke twice in the
story to defend
herself against her
mother's accusation
The preadolescent
daughter who listen
to her mother's
speech
“girl” recalling the
memory of her
mother in distant
future
Her mothers word
make her the silent
narrator and
protagonist
Kincaid does not
show her true
thoughts or feelings
Analysis and interpretation
■ The Danger of female Sexuality
■ The Transformative Power of Domesticity
■ Motifs (food ,cloth)
THANK YOU FOR
YOUR ATTENTION☺