Girl

2 Pages 576 Words

Throughout time mother/daughter relationships have had problems. On the mother/daughter relationship in the story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, is Dictatorial, Commanding, and Frustrating. Due to mothers indiscretions early on in there lives the daughters are forced to pay for them. The story the “Girl” is a very good example of how the mother tries to fix her mistakes through her daughter’s life. Mothers will preach to them what not to do but in reality they really are pushing them towards doing, it.
The mother in the story is very dictating towards her daughter. She tells her daughter how to “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothes-line to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun.”(Kincaid p405) The mother is always telling her daughter what to do because she’s trying to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she made when she was her age. In the story you only hear one reference to her father. To me that’s a sign saying maybe the mother didn’t do what she’s telling her daughter to do and that could be the reason the father not there. The mother is probably the woman the baker wouldn’t let touch the bread. “always squeeze bread to make sure, it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread? you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?.”(Kincaid p406) The mother is just trying to prevent her daughter from becoming the town outcast.
There relationship is also very commanding. “always eat your food in such a way that, it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school;”(Kincaid p406) The mother is so commanding because, it doesn’t seem like the daughter really listens. If she were listening the mother woul...