GIRL - Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid (1949)

Interlocutor: partner
Onslaught: trouble
Clothesline: a rope or wire where clothes are hung to dry
Fritters: deep-fried meat, vegetable or fruit
Hem: the edge of a piece of cloth or clothing which has been turned under and sewn
Dasheen: taro plant (पिंडालु)
Squat: Sit on one's heels
Pepper pot: meat-based stew rich with braised beef and infused with cinnamon, clove and peppers
Doukona: सेवई

Girl by Kincaid features a non-stop monologue of a mother to her daughter, with her daughter only responding a couple of times. The story comprises one single sentence in 650 words and takes the form of of a dialogue between a mother and her daughter. In the story we see the author talking about the things that a young girl should do and learn so that she can be accepted by society. She starts by saying in the beginning that washing cloth is only a task for women, starting on Monday “Wash the white clothes on Monday”. Then goes on to talk about doing more chores on Tuesday that should only be done by a woman.

Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the colour clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry.

The story is about a mother talking and teaching her young daughter. In this story, Kincaid is trying to show how differently young boys are treated by same-aged girls and how they are looked at differently for doing the same activities. The mother gives advice to her daughter: Initially, this is practical domestic advice about washing and drying clothes, as well as cooking tips, such as how to cook salt fish. It is also parental advice along the lines of not walking bareheaded in the hot sun. But as the mother’s advice continues, we begin to learn something about her attitude to her daughter: she tells her to walk like a lady on Sundays, rather than the immoral and unkempt woman she is determined, according to the mother, to become.

The girl’s mother gives her daughter too many commands, ranging from “Wash the white clothes on Monday,” to “Don’t eat fruits on the street.” She should spend time with her mother and respond to her needs.

The mother doesn’t encourage her daughter to share her ideas and feelings. Additionally, the mother doesn’t set her daughter up for success in school and for her future career. She teaches her how to be the perfect woman in society, ranging from “This is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt,” to “This is how you set a table for dinner.”

The story ends with the mother advising her daughter how to squeeze a loaf of bread to tell whether it is fresh. The daughter speaks again – only the second time she has done so in the story – to ask what she should do if the baker won’t let her touch the bread. The mother responds, is her daughter really going to be the kind of woman the baker won’t let near the bread?

To conclude, this story tries to express the difficulty of mother-daughter relationships, the contradictions of femininity, life under patriarchy, adolescent sexuality and the legacy of colonialism. In this text, the mother tries to pass down certain beliefs from her culture to her daughter via demand. For example, she says “On Sundays try to walk like a lady,” “This is how you sweep a whole house,” “This is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well” and “This is how to make doukona.”

Bibliography

Kincaid, J. (2021). Girl. In S. Lohani, Visions - A Thematic Anthology (pp. 196-199). Kathmandu, Nepal: Vidyarthi Pustak Bhandar.

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