The Story Girl by Jamaica Kincaid - Book Report/Review Example

The Narrator in "Girl" The story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is about a mother offering guidance to her daughter on how she should leave a respectable kind of life. Kincaid uses the mother as the main character and also the narrator of the story. The story is told from feminist point of view. Kinkaid uses the mother as the second person narrator, giving her an authorial voice. The mother wants to prepare her daughter for her future life, following her cultural mores. The daughter, who feels indoctrination is just nagging and oppressing her, responds by being rebellious. She (the daughter) has her own sense of what she wants to do and that is the reason she resists the indoctrination from her mother. Kinkaid seems to portray the narrator as a nagging, authoritative mother who is determined against all odds to make sure that her daughter ends up the way she wants her to be. The narrator has been portrayed this way to bring out the theme of the overwhelming expectations society has on women, which might be translated to oppression. Kincaid’s Girl can be compared to Bell Hook’s ‘Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black’ which is an account of the historical construction of the oppressive conditions and antagonistic relations that women have to put up with everyday. Hook’s work is done in a feminist point of view, which gives it a stronger sense of the oppression message that the writer is trying to paint in her work (Hooks 487). The same way, Kincaid has used the narrator, who is a woman, to bring out the concept of oppression, a situation the writer was quite familiar with. Bell outlines the ways by which women face different levels and types of oppression. Some of this oppression is hidden as societal expectations of what a woman should be and how she should behave. Hook’s essay also outlines the way in which women are not allowed to express themselves freely (Hooks 495). The title is a clear deviation from the expectation that society has on women; talking back is an indication that it is time women stopped taking a back sit on issues that they should face and address in order for them to be considered equal members of society. The silent permit of oppression is one of the issues that come out strongly in Kincaid’s story. Although the narrator is not male, the things she says to her daughter portray what is expected in a patriarchal society. The mother tries to raise her daughter in the same structure that she herself was raised in. she does not seem to question some of the expectations that she has on her daughter, she simply agrees with them and expects her daughter to do the same. To the reader, it is obvious that much of what the narrator teaches to her daughter is oppression, the same kind of oppression that Hook addresses in her essay (Hook 502). The narrator teaches her daughter on matters of how to obediently serve her husband and perform all the household chores that are associated with the house wife. However, she does not seem to appreciate that her daughter has and might have her own desires as a woman and as a human being. The type of nurturing that the narrator mother is trying to force on her daughter will influence her (the daughter) socially, psychologically and economically. In everything that she does, she will always remember that society expects her to act in a certain way and that her needs do not matter. By portraying the narrator as a proponent of female oppression that is dominant in many patriarchal societies, Kincaid shows that in many societies today, women are bound to their husbands as well as their domestic affairs. The narrator tells the girl to “ cook pumpkin fritters in very sweet oil, this is how to behave in the presence of men, this is how to bully a man…” (Kincaid). The narrator is like a drill sergeant, her work is to instill what she believes to be acceptable behavior to her daughter. When the daughter tries to intervene or ask a question, the mother ignores her and continues with her indoctrination. This is symbolic of how women are expected to accept their roles without asking too many questions. They are not expected to venture outside their normal household chores. This is a clear indication of the difference between gender roles commonly found in many patriarchal societies. When the daughter feels that her mother is nagging her too much, or when she feels oppressed by her mother’s insistence on how she should behave, she responds by rebelling. This is a clear indication that even though the mother is the narrator in this case, she doesn’t have full control of everything that is going on around her. Her daughter seems to have her own sense of what she wants min life and who she is and she tries as much as she can to resist her mother’s indoctrination. The daughter is talking back, the same words used by Hook in her essay while writing about women and how they should take a stand against some of the oppressive behaviors that they face in their I everyday lives. However, her mother ignores her when she talks back. This could signify that even though most women do not condone being oppressed, there is actually no one to listen to what they have to say. Kincaid uses the narrator as a symbol of societal oppressive nature against women and girls. The voice of oppression is always louder and people pay more attention to it than they do to the people being oppressed. By using a woman as the voice of oppression, Kinkaid is able to forcefully highlight the unfair environment that many women have to live and work in, yet they have no way f expressing themselves. Women are normally confined to the roles that society has put upon them, ignoring the fact that they have their own unique needs that need to be fulfilled. The patriarchal problem of oppression is one of the main themes in this story. Just as Hook states in her essay, talking back helps in solving some of the oppressive issues that women of today face (Hook 508). However, it is clear from “The Girl” that it is not so easy for women to speak out against some of the problems that they face everyday. Works Cited Hooks, Bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1989. Print. Kincaid, Jamaica. The Girl. 2011. Web. http://www.fphil.uniba.sk/fileadmin/user_upload/editors/kaa/Ivan_Lacko/Kincaid_Girl.pdf Read More