critical response to "Girl," by Kincaid

Critical Response on “Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid

When we discussed this piece in class, mostly everyone thought it was fabulous. Honestly, this was not what I was expecting. When I read it the first time, I felt Kincaid had cheated her way out of actually writing a story. I felt cheated, and actually wrote on the paper “THIS. IS. STUPID.”

That being said, there are many intriguing qualities of this story that become more apparent the more the story is read. Although the first time I read it I wasn’t able to get past the first thing that irritated me (the command writing style), the more I go back to the story, the more I appreciate it.

Initially, the writing style was not appealing to me. I thought about this more the second, third and fourth time I read the story. Why wasn’t it appealing to me? I came to the conclusion that maybe Kincaid chose that manner of writing to portray what the protagonist has been hearing her whole life. By using commands, she, in a sense, puts the reader into the girl’s shoes.

Although there are a lot of commands any child would hear growing up (instructions on how to set the table, cook, take care of a family), Kincaid also threw in a few violent, angry images that shifts the feel of the work. Whereas simple commands on how to grow up to be a strong, healthy individual are commonplace in relation to parents and children, angry words like “slut” aren’t used unless there’s a significant amount of tension. Kincaid only drops the word “slut” three or four times, but each time it (figuratively speaking) slaps the reader across the face and draws their attention to this upsetting, maybe dangerous homelife.

Along with this theme we have the theme of gender relations. Naming the story “Girl” was no mistake. To this girl’s mother, before anything else, her daughter is female. I am strongly under the impression that labeling her daughter “intelligent,” or “motivated” or “human” would come as afterthoughts.

For an outsider on American culture, they would only have to read this story a couple times to understand much about the roles of women in today’s society. Throughout the story is a laundry list of chores, essentially, for the girl to complete. Included in these are ironing her father’s pants (becoming a “pleaser” to men) and having an array of cooking knowledge (to secure her position later in life of becoming a homemaker).

I didn’t catch this for some time – but the girl’s instructions age as the story progresses. At the beginning of the story, the girl is commanded to do things typical of a very young person (like acting right in Sunday school and how to talk and play with young boys). As time goes on, though, the commands become more complex. At one point, the mother says, “This is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child,” speaking of a very adult, very delicate matter with her daughter. Further along, the girl is told, “…this is how you catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like,” referring to finding a suitable life partner.

Although I still think the writing style of this piece is distracting from the issues in the story, it is creative and a unique way of portraying the girl’s situation. All in all, “Girl” was an irritating read at first, but left me satisfied in the end.