Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

Theme

The central theme of Girl, as in many of Kincaid's stories, is the mother/daughter relationship. An important element of the use of language in this story is the sense that the mother's chant of information and advice (as Simmons calls it) threatens to completely engulf the girl, leaving her no language with which to formulate her own sense of identity as separate from her mother. Simmons has pointed out that the use of rhythm and repetition in the mother's words enfolds and ensnares the daughter, rendering the girl nearly helpless before the mother's transforming will. It is as if the mother's incantatory speech pattern is so all-enveloping that it prevents the daughter from asserting any individuality, opinion, or will outside of the narrowly defined world of advice and warning her mother has created through her speech (Dutton 102). In the two instances in which the girl does attempt either to question her mother's advice or to defend herself against her mother's judgment, the rhythm and repetition of the mother's voice only works to overwhelm and engulf this meek voice of dissent.

Symbolism

The entire story is based on the relationship between the mother and her girl. In the story mother always speaks and girl listen each and everything to her mother without arguing anything and the same time with the two notable exceptions like set off in italics, when the girl asserts her own voice against the mother's barrage of advice). The story is based on the main character of the story the women who belongs to West Indian culture and this created her character as the Kincaid (Kincaid 55). Even though, it is not a chronological study but the influence of the mother lecture starts with Monday, but travels quite randomly through its various topics its progression and repetitions propose certain issues that control the life of the mother, as well as the concerns that she has for her daughter as she enters the passage into womanhood.

The mother teaches the girl to how to stitch a button, how to speak and with whom its necessary to speak and at the same time how to smile at other people, one likes to varying degrees is a self-portrait. These are the basic rules that mother followed and try to impose on her daughter. As she learn a lot from her life and the rules that she has collected from experience about the best way to get by within the strictures of the feminine social role, want to impose on her daughter. As, she understood that the same list of the rule which he uses to command her daughter will unfold the future life of her daughter and if her daughter will be successful in her life then the entire credit goes to her mother and to her rules that he commanded on her daughter (Austin 225).

Comparison and Analysis

Also the advice that the mother gives to her daughter is also tarnished by contradictions. She is unable to guide her daughter as ...