Essays on Jamaica Kincaid

“Girl” is a critically acclaimed short story by the Caribbean-American writer Jamaica Kincaid. It was first published in 1978 in The New Yorker magazine. The story revolves around the stream of consciousness interaction between two women, a mother and a daughter. The mother is giving wisdom to the daughter in the form of short, declarative sentences and commands. The conversation ranges from advice about domestic chores to advice about sexual chores, indicating that both housekeeping and sexuality are a part of a woman's domestic labor. The mother dominates the conversation, as the daughter only seems to speak twice, although ...

Jamaica Kincaid’s novel Annie John (1991) is a pure reflection of female relationships that might be seen to go against societal norms. In the novel, the author creates a heroine who struggles in her search for self-identity but whose life is dotted with affection for fellow women starting from her mother to other girls with whom she interacts. The theme of homosexual or homosocial female love is present in the story and is best expressed through Annie John, the protagonist in the book. Annie expresses her desire towards her mother especially when she gets jealousy of the relationship ...

Jamaica Kincaid, an Antiguan-American novelist, wrote the short story under consideration. It presents one paragraph, which is really a flow of advice the mother gives to her daughter. The pieces of advice are separated with either semicolons or commas, while stops are completely absent. The end of the text is left open as it finishes with a question mark. Interestingly, the long list of the mother’s advice is interrupted twice with her daughter’s remarks highlighted by italics. Overall, the text produces quite an unusual effect due to the extraordinary punctuation. Therefore, the list of advice, the main ...

Yeager by Tom Wolfe

Summary: ‘Yeager’ by Tom Wolfe is an essay about a wonderful U.S airline pilot named Chuck Yeager. The essay begins with an airline emergency situation in which the airline has had trouble with its controls and its pilot Yeager handles the situation very comically and adeptly. It was hard for the passengers that they were in an emergency situation, judging by the way in which the pilot spoke. These, according to Wolfe’s descriptions, are greatness of Yeager, who with his enthralling Appalachian accent, could move mountains in a very casually seeming way. Yeager had fought during the Second ...

Annie Dillard’s “An American Childhood” is the author’s memoir of her growing up in Pittsburg. The excerpt under consideration dwells on the mother of the family. Dillard relates about some specific features of her mother’s character and on peculiar ways through which Mother would express herself. Dillard gives numerous examples illustrating her mother’s extraordinary ability to call in question everything around, puzzle people she encountered, check all the things she learnt and used. Mother could play a scene in front of some lovers in the park making them quarrel, or she could cheat in cards ...

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin

In Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour” the author paints a rather effective picture of heartbreak. However, rather than showing the devastation of Louise Mallard’s devastation upon hearing news of her husband’s accidental death in the train wreck, Chopin takes an unexpected turn. As the reader experiences Louise’s shock at the news of her husband’s death one is led to believe that she is overwhelmed with shock and unable to comprehend the tragedy of becoming a widow. Instead, as the final scene in the story unfolds the reader is made aware ...

Although there are some similarities between the attitude of Daniel Orozco in Orientation and Jamaica Kincaid in Girl, there are austere differences in their attitudes towards their audience. In the short story Girl, Jamaica Kincaid portrays a mother imparting advice to her daughter as she prepares to face life as an adult. The short story by Kincaid shows the demeanor of a mother who admonishes and advices at the same time. On the other hand, Daniel Orozco explores the premise that all workplaces have secrets and gossips upon which people judge others. In his presentation, Daniel Orozco has the speaker in ...

In Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour," Louise Mallard, a woman "afflicted with a heart trouble" learns over the course of the story that her husband is dead. The story follows the progression of her emotions from shock and horror to a feeling of liberation and freedom, as she feels relief of the burden of being wife. A very controversial story when it was first published, Chopin's tale (like many of her works) deals with the unexpected ability of women to liberate themselves and operate separately from men (Jamil, 2009). This theme of female empowerment in a patriarchal ...

English

“Girl” is a short story written by Jamaica Kincaid and lists things a daughter should do and when to do them. In this story “girl”, a mother tries to give advice and instructions to her daughter who is growing up. The poem between the mother and the daughter ends with exchange whereby the daughter directs questions to the mother after all the comments. Girl’s theme is a mother-daughter dispute as the mother goes all the way teaching her daughter on how to be a good woman in the future times (Edwards et al, 45). The daughter seems not to appreciate the mother’s ...

English

“Girl” is a short story written by Jamaica Kincaid and lists things a daughter should do and when to do them. In this story “girl”, a mother tries to give advice and instructions to her daughter who is growing up. The poem between the mother and the daughter ends with the exchange whereby the daughter directs questions to the mother after all the comments. Girl’s theme is a mother-daughter dispute as the mother goes all the way teaching her daughter on how to be a good woman in the future times. The daughter seems not to appreciate the mother’s advice and after ...

The short story "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid presents a list of instructions for a girl from her mother. When analysing this directive, it is possible to state that mother's message to the girl is quite contradictory in its nature: it poses strict limitations for the daughter clearly delineating what is acceptable and what is not, expresses a certain level of disdain towards the girl, but at the same time shows mother's care and concerns about her child. When reading the story, it is difficult not to notice the manner in which the mother talks: she keeps giving instructions one by one ...

Imagination

Mary Oliver published Waste Land: An Elegy in the September – October 2003 issue of Orion magazine. In 2004, soon after publishing Waste Land, she released her book collection, Long life: Essays and Other Writings. Oliver fixes the imagery of how the site used to be as she projects her imagination to explore other potentials. Jamaica Kincaid first published Sowers and Reapers in the New Yorker on January 22, 2001. Although Kincaid is a well known a novelist, she is also a staff writer for the New Yorker who produced many essays examining her personal experiences. In this essay she forces her readers ...

Compare James Baldwin's view of personal liberation with Jamaica Kincaid's

Compare James Baldwin's view of personal liberation with Jamaica Kincaid's

Introduction

In this paper, the ideas of liberation have been discussed from the perspective of James Baldwin and Jamaica Kincaid. The ideas of both these authors have been derived from their writings. The writings of James Baldwin, which have been used to understand his point of view, include, going to meet the Man, This Morning, This Evening, So Soon, and others. The movie of James Baldwin i.e. the Price of the Ticket has also been analyzed. On the other side, Jamaica Kincaid’s book Lucy has been used for this ...

“The White Man will never be alone” (Chief Seattle 120). Chief Seattle is correct when he says that the White man will never be alone because there will always be other cultures in America. Throughout the ages, America has gone through a lot as a country, events which have torn the nation apart, yet in its own way sown unity within our hearts. The struggles started even as early as the colonization of the Americas, and still continue until this day. Although, there are events in time which helped shaped our country and our people. Over the course of American history, ...

English Composition

The three articles that this paper took into consideration are Against School by John Taylor Gatto, The End of White America? by Hua Hsu and Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. I choose these three articles because they shed light into matters that have been ignored in our society yet they are or much importance to the people, and I can safely argue that the findings were what I expected in the response. Everybody, parents, elders, influential people in the society, our president and his cabinet plus teachers, as well, all advocate for education as a vital key to a brighter future ( ...

Argumentative Essay

Argumentative Essay In Jamaica Kincaid’s story, A Small Place, she gives a clear picture of the conditions of living in Antigua. The island is portrayed as a popular tourist destination. However, the author gives a comprehensive overview of the island’s state of welfare. The people on the island lead a miserable life at best. There are no proper facilities such as schools and hospitals on the island. The struggles of Antiguans are given detailed focus by the author. The natives hate tourists because they feel they have invaded their homeland. The poverty, poor living conditions such as blocked sewage flowing ...

Somewhere in the Caribbean, narrator tells a story which describes her psychological changeover and talks about relationships of mother- daughter, racism, and education. ‘Annie john’ is an emotive story of a growing girl in Antigua. The novel was authored by Jamaica Kincaid in the year 1985. The story talks about Issues like clinical depression and struggle for the supremacy between medical science and native superstitious are also covered by the author in her novel. This paper discusses the novel, Annie John and talks about several other related aspects of the story. Annie john is the main character as well as ...

The short stories Girl by Jamaica Kincaid and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. focus on the themes of equality, although at different times and settings.

Girl talks about inequality from the author’s point of view, which can be assumed to be based on her experience, while Harrison Bergeron talks about how the author perceives – from a third person point of view – an egalitarian world in the future where Americans’ perception of equality is achieved

Summary

Girl was set in the second half of the 20th century, somewhere in the Caribbean presumably. It is about a dialogue between a mother and daughter ...

THESIS: The tone of Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" is one of the most important and telling aspects of this poem - both Mama's and the daughter's tone of voice (the daughter's voice implied) indicate a dramatic sense of hypocrisy and resentment on the part of the mother. I. Introduction-

Synopsis of Poem

Thesis II. Main Supporting Point: Mother is overbearing (bossy & strict). She tells her daughter how to set a table for different meals, how to cook things and how to pick out bread. (Examples to support)

A. Example: "This is how to make a bread pudding / This is how to make doukona."

B. Example: "like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming."

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