Girl

            In the story Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, is about a girl and that follows orders from her mother. Her mother believes that by doing these things like laundry, properly dressing, being polite, sewing, ironing, cooking, practicing proper hygiene, and overall, learning how to survive,   women will be successful in everyday life. The mother played as the narrator and gave her daughter orders, so she could prepare herself when she is a grown women and exceed the expectations that men, especially their husband will accept. I believe that this story criticizes or informs us about the feminist population. It seems like women are being treated as inferior to men because they are basically the ones expected to do all of the work around the house and are supposed to do everything a certain way.

            Growing up as a girl, I think that it would be brutal to have to learn how to farm. Farming has usually been a man’s job because of the heavy lifting and back breaking work that is usually involved. I also thought that it would have been tough for a girl who wanted to play a boy’s game such as and not be able to. When most girls are younger they like to have the freedom to do what they please and play games that interest them. Not being able to play marbles is taking away their freedom and rights to enjoy being a kid. Finally, teaching a girl how to fight and approach a bully may be beneficial, but probably not necessary. Since a man is the one usually in charge of the house, they should probably be the ones fighting and protecting their families rather than the women. I think women should not have to worry about fighting because they have enough to do as it is.

            Some of terms for literary analysis that I thought would be important to talk about in this story was theme and tone. I thought that the theme of the story was patriarchy. In patriarchy the women are inferior to men and are controlled by them. Women are basically less important and have less power than men. In this story women are basically treated like slaves. They have to do all of the cooking, cleaning, ironing, farming, maintain perfect behavior and hygiene, act differently around different people, and doing things a certain way. The author makes it clear that it is tough to be a woman. The tone of this story is control. The mother gives her daughter a long list of commands of what to do, what not to do, how to do it, and how not to do it.

            Even though women are most likely to be miserable and hating their lives living up to these kinds of expectations, they are benefiting a lot as human beings. They are building character, learning discipline, mentally and physically becoming stronger. If they can live up to these expectations, then maybe they can eventually be treated equally as men. If they can do everything a man can, then I do not see why they should not be treated the same.