GIRL by Jamacia Kincaid essay by Eric Richard and Kaden Chen
1: The short story GIRL by Jamacia Kincaid expresses the tone in its title by representing how any woman can be overwhelmed and commanded by others around her.
2: This is mirrored in the tone of the mother figure, which is also very demeaning and heartless to her daughter.
3: Throughout the story, the main character is lectured about how to be a perfect girl in society, including setting tables, dressing right, interacting with men, and other mannerisms.
4: The mother tells the girl all the information about being a woman in one sentence while not allowing her to respond, and when the girl does, the mother just brushes her off.
5: The mother’s tone is also expressed through her use of harsh words while referring to her daughter, implying a
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7: One way this tone is present is through the harsh words that the mother calls her daughter, mainly the constant repetition of “slut” such as the line”...try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming…”
8: This expresses that the mother is displeased about her daughter’s life and thinks that she should listen to her to ratify it, however, she does so in a disrespectful manner by calling her a slut without regard to her daughter’s emotions, which highlights an aggressive/belligerent tone.
9: The mother is also commanding due to her constant downplay of her daughter's responses, for example “...but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button…”
10: In this segment, the daughter tells the mother that she never sings the song “Benna” after being accused of it, still the mother does not take heed of her daughter’s correction and instead just keeps ruling her
This will continue to be a issue she asks for help. Going into the fourth marking period at home, Melinda’s mother insulted Melinda about being sick. Melinda was “sick” her mother agreed with her because she actually spoke (Anderson P 163). Melinda’s family didn’t talk but she was offended by it. She would’ve thought that her mother would be happy to hear her daughter talking instead she said “you’re talking, you must be sick” Melinda’s mother must’ve knew that what she said was wrong and then said that she was happy to hear her voice.
Rosa Hubermann is constantly yelling profanities and insults at neighbors, Liesel, and her own husband. The reader perceives Rosa as a rude character and an awful mother and wife. But, throughout the book the reader sees that Rosa profanity is simply a love language, and her husband and foster daughter will say it back to her. It is odd to think that the insults make the family closer. The reader sees the love Rosa has for her daughter, and the love she has for her husband.
Her mother is jealous of her daughter, and because of that their relationship is weak. This is shown by the author’s choice of tone and usage of rhetorical phrases emphasizing on the point that their relationship is not family like. Moving on throughout the story the mother daughter relationship continually weakens. Connie’s mother compares Connie and June by commenting “Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister” and then compares the beauty products both sisters use, specifically hair spray, and tells Connie “You don’t see your sister using that junk”(1), The author’s usage of a comparison of beauty products both sisters use shows how she favors June instead of Connie. Most commonly the mother daughter relationship in a family should be the strongest but opposite to this is the relationship is Connie and her mother, They are very distant from each other and it even goes to a point where Connie “wished her mother was dead”(1).
Over the course of this book, she learns how important it is to speak up because if you stay silent you're letting the person who immensely changed your life for the worse win and get away with things that are unacceptable. In our society young women are being assaulted and are the victims of rape quite frequently and this book really stretches the importance of speaking up for your rights and to
This attitude towards the situation shows that the author has given up. Therefore, her tone is conveyed as
However, her tone throughout the poem seems to establish that she herself would not be one of those parents. She has witnessed during her childhood the negative effects putting the family
" Her mother criticizes and brings her down to the point where she wishes she
Their attempts to get her to answer while she sits in the kitchen drinking cause one to want to question how a parent chooses to ignore the pleas of her children to the point of leaving the room. Then the author quickly expresses how they become angry at her choice of behavior. It even draws a surprising reaction of the use of profanity from one of his
The speaker’s grandmother is originally presented in a way that causes the ending to be a surprise, saying, “Her apron flapping in a breeze, her hair mussed, and said, ‘Let me help you’” (21-22). The imagery of the apron blowing in the wind characterizes her as calm, and when she offers to help her grandson, she seems to be caring and helpful. Once she punches the speaker, this description of her changes entirely from one of serenity and care to a sarcastic description with much more meaning than before. The fact that the grandmother handles her grandson’s behavior in this witty, decisive way raises the possibility that this behavior is very common and she has grown accustomed to handling it in a way that she deems to be effective; however, it is clearly an ineffective method, evidenced by the continued behavior that causes her to punish the speaker in this manner in the first place.
Jamaica Kincaid writes “girl” A story or poem that is something like a lecture from a mother figure to a daughter figure. There is an enormous amount of ways to present the tone. The tone of “Girl” is loving, caring, but strict. Jamaica uses literary devices to achieve the tone. She uses characters, setting, plot, point of view and style to establish a tone.
The mood and tone throughout this book changed. The characters in this book did not keep the same mood and tone due to the events that happened. Also the different characters have different tones in what we think their voices sound like. I am going to focus on Miranda’s tone. Her tone was very serious, and sometimes worried during the events that occurred in this story.
The speaker uses both alliteration and imagery to compare herself to “famous flowers glowing in the garden” (22). This image and repetition of consonants is used to both show the speaker as a metaphorical center of attention in her children’s lives and emphasize her intentions. The speaker also notices her daughters only talk about “morsels of their [own] history” instead of asking their parents (27). Here, it can be inferred that the speaker resents her daughter’s choices to independently find answers to their own questions and stray away from their mothers
The narrator in this short story is not clearly stated, but, based on the details given, the narrator is a mother who is speaking to her daughter. The parental figure is attempting to teach the child about how a girl/woman should act based on her own beliefs and experiences. The mother is a firm believer in gender roles based on the context; one can assume this is because of the time period that the mother
The point of the poem is very cynical and skeptical opinion that shows his demeanor towards women. He is attempting to warn men about how disloyal and unfaithful a woman can be. The ideas being communicated is that a perfect woman, who is true and fair, will never exist. He compares how impossible it is by stating impractical things like catching a falling star or not feeling jealousy towards another person. The ideas are being reinforced by the elements of the poem in many ways.
To begin with, the poem itself serves as something of a statement on the concept of beauty, and the first stanza of the poem is essential to this overarching theme. William Blake seems to be of the opinion that there is always a part of a creator that "rubs off" on its work, and nowhere is this more apparent, to Blake, than in nature. This is not exactly a surprise; according to one work, Blake spent a great deal of time in nature throughout the course of this life and, like the creator found in The Tyger, it is likely that this time in nature had a salient effect on his own poems (Gilchrist, 1998). To that end, the first stanza establishes the overall tone of the poem, and this tone is one of curiosity and wonder; two emotions that one would