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Girl
"Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry;..."
Girl, a short story by Jamaica Kincaid, was originally published in the June 26, 1978 issue of The New Yorker and subsequently included in the short story collection At the Bottom of the River in 1983.
The story deals with the teachings and duties that a dominant mother tries to instill in her daughter, focusing on the significance of familial relationships in shaping one's individual behavior.
Jamaica Kincaid (1949-) is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). Among her most celebrated works are A Small Place (1988), Lucy (1990), and Annie John (1985).
Girl, a short story by Jamaica Kincaid, was originally published in the June 26, 1978 issue of The New Yorker and subsequently included in the short story collection At the Bottom of the River in 1983.
The story deals with the teachings and duties that a dominant mother tries to instill in her daughter, focusing on the significance of familial relationships in shaping one's individual behavior.
Jamaica Kincaid (1949-) is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). Among her most celebrated works are A Small Place (1988), Lucy (1990), and Annie John (1985).
1 pages, ebook
First published June 26, 1978
About the author
Jamaica Kincaid
86 books1,566 followersJamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). She lives in North Bennington, Vermont (in the United States), during the summers, and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University during the academic year.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 292 reviews
May 21, 2017
A tiny story about how women are being told how they should behave starting from childhood. A poetic monologue containing advices passed from mother to daughter. One of the good New Yorker stories.
August 14, 2022
A short (and I mean: really, really short!) story written by Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid. But this tiny read packs a powerful punch!
This little tale isn’t in the traditional story format but more like a dictatorial poem. It contains a long list of commands from a domineering mom to her daughter, all mandatory to ensure that the daughter doesn’t become “the slut I know you are so bent on becoming.” Needless to say, the list includes wonderful, practical suggestions (*cough, cough*) such as how to wash clothes or smile politely at someone you don’t like or walk like a lady.
The writing style is what elevates this little story from good to great. The whole story is written in a single paragraph, with each order being separated by a semicolon. Almost the entire writing is in the second person, directed from the mother to the daughter. There are just two first person statements when the daughter manages to get a word in the conversation, these being written in italics. The last sentence delivers the perfect ending!
Recommended if you are looking for an unusual story tackling the usual issue of how women “must” fit into society, and how this restrictive social conditioning begins at home.
4.25 stars.
This story was originally published in the June 26, 1978 issue of The New Yorker, and I read it from the archives of the magazine using this link:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19...
———————————————
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Facebook | Twitter
This little tale isn’t in the traditional story format but more like a dictatorial poem. It contains a long list of commands from a domineering mom to her daughter, all mandatory to ensure that the daughter doesn’t become “the slut I know you are so bent on becoming.” Needless to say, the list includes wonderful, practical suggestions (*cough, cough*) such as how to wash clothes or smile politely at someone you don’t like or walk like a lady.
The writing style is what elevates this little story from good to great. The whole story is written in a single paragraph, with each order being separated by a semicolon. Almost the entire writing is in the second person, directed from the mother to the daughter. There are just two first person statements when the daughter manages to get a word in the conversation, these being written in italics. The last sentence delivers the perfect ending!
Recommended if you are looking for an unusual story tackling the usual issue of how women “must” fit into society, and how this restrictive social conditioning begins at home.
4.25 stars.
This story was originally published in the June 26, 1978 issue of The New Yorker, and I read it from the archives of the magazine using this link:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19...
———————————————
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Facebook | Twitter
May 13, 2017
~2 minutes. one of best Newyorker fiction I have found.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/197...
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/197...
May 5, 2021
Even though the story is only composed of one long sentence of bits of advice separated by semicolons, it says a lot about the daughter, her mother, and their relationship. An Antiguan mother is telling her daughter how to be a respectable woman by learning domestic skills. The girl seems to be on the verge of being a teenager, and her mother wants her to act in a certain way so she does not get a bad reputation. Since only two phrases (in italics) are from the girl, it seems like the mother is monopolizing the conversation. Most pre-teens would resent so much advice even if the mother has her best interests in mind. The story has a great final sentence!
August 17, 2024
#A story a day to chase the blues away #16
“Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid, Antigua/EUA, 1978
Acredito que o segredo para um conto magnífico seja a capacidade de síntese. Quem consegue deixar-me em choque com uma única página tem a minha admiração, como sucede agora com Jamaica Kincaid. “Girl” é uma lista de conselhos de uma mãe para uma filha onde, no meio de advertências práticas e ensinamentos para o dia-a-dia, o leitor é apanhado desprevenido e prossegue até ao final incrédulo.
(…) this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; (…)
“Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid, Antigua/EUA, 1978
Acredito que o segredo para um conto magnífico seja a capacidade de síntese. Quem consegue deixar-me em choque com uma única página tem a minha admiração, como sucede agora com Jamaica Kincaid. “Girl” é uma lista de conselhos de uma mãe para uma filha onde, no meio de advertências práticas e ensinamentos para o dia-a-dia, o leitor é apanhado desprevenido e prossegue até ao final incrédulo.
(…) this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; (…)
June 15, 2018
On the link to The New Yorker below one hears Edwidge Danticat read two stories by Jamaica Kincaid:
*Girl
*Wingless
Link: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fic...
Edwidge Danticat reads both well. I do not hear every word clearly, but she wonderfully captures the ambiance of each story.
****************
Girl begins 4 minutes 56 seconds into the recording.
My rating 4 stars
Girl makes me smile. Listen to the words. Listen to the significance of each. Pay attention to how each is strung to the next.
We have here a mother instructing a daughter on life.
Pay attention right from the start.
****************
Wingless
begins 10 minutes 10 seconds into the recording.
My rating 2 stars
This story flew by me, light and fluttery. Yet look at its title--Wingless! I had to listen to it several times to get a grip on it. Are we in the head of a child before drifting off to sleep? Due to its ambiguity, it fails to speak to me as the first story did. This is more a poem than a short story.
*Girl
*Wingless
Link: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fic...
Edwidge Danticat reads both well. I do not hear every word clearly, but she wonderfully captures the ambiance of each story.
****************
Girl begins 4 minutes 56 seconds into the recording.
My rating 4 stars
Girl makes me smile. Listen to the words. Listen to the significance of each. Pay attention to how each is strung to the next.
We have here a mother instructing a daughter on life.
Pay attention right from the start.
****************
Wingless
begins 10 minutes 10 seconds into the recording.
My rating 2 stars
This story flew by me, light and fluttery. Yet look at its title--Wingless! I had to listen to it several times to get a grip on it. Are we in the head of a child before drifting off to sleep? Due to its ambiguity, it fails to speak to me as the first story did. This is more a poem than a short story.
October 24, 2023
me when i actually complete an assigned reading 🔥🤭😋😤 (bless, this was pretty good tbh so i can actually write an essay now 👍)
November 15, 2017
I studied this short story in my Creative Writing class today and I was truly fascinated by its unconventional form. A beautiful short story that explores the fundamental theme of gender inequality through the clever employment of a structural form that 'breaks' (and makes) the 'narrative rules'. Simply amazing!
November 5, 2023
Very beautiful and very impactful short story 🫶🏻
May 19, 2015
Wonderful lyrical. More poem than short story. Brimming with symbolism.
Prior to listening to Edwidge Dandicat read this on The Newyorker podcast, she gave a brief introduction in which she mentioned that although this was one of the author Jamaica Kincaid's early stories, it is classic Jamaica Kincaid. Though simplistic in its form, when you read any work by this author you know exactly what you are going to get and read it with anticipation. The writing style is always going to be of an almost poetic nature. It's lyrical. And though this is my first time listening to her work being read vs reading it, I see how versatile it is for the written word as well as ear.
On the surface Girl is a verbal instruction manual from a mother to a daughter on the necessary ways and skills with which to be a woman. She gives tips on proper cooking methods, house cleaning, gardening, how to set a table, how to iron and within these "Good House Keeping & Etiquette" lessons she tosses in sassy mother jabs about not being a slut or how to bully a man. Most of her advice, is practical but the author herself being born on the island of Antigua, there is some advice that leans to a more spiritual/ritual or "medicine woman" type nature. Yes all these things lay upon the top but beneath, if delved in to the symbolic layer of this advice it's more than just from one mother to her child. It can be taken as advice to all the daughters setting out into the world as young women. Even though the specifics themselves may be dated the message is timeless. Each verse can be deconstructed into a lesson that we women can take a piece of and place into our own figurative life stew or store in a clean dry place for later use. It reminds me in many ways of the various niblets of advice on being a wife that my grandmother passed on to me. In fact, it was very similar advice on cooking, keeping house, keeping self and the sly "always keep a little piece of money of your own, to yourself, you hear? Every woman should." I believe in this writing Jamaica channels the voices of our mothers, grandmothers, nanna's, bubbies, and aunties who it is their cultural duty to pass on their two cents into the pot of our bubbling womanhood.
I enjoyed this immensely. I would like to have my own written copy for my library. I do recommend to all a poetic ear. What does it make you feel?
5 stars
Prior to listening to Edwidge Dandicat read this on The Newyorker podcast, she gave a brief introduction in which she mentioned that although this was one of the author Jamaica Kincaid's early stories, it is classic Jamaica Kincaid. Though simplistic in its form, when you read any work by this author you know exactly what you are going to get and read it with anticipation. The writing style is always going to be of an almost poetic nature. It's lyrical. And though this is my first time listening to her work being read vs reading it, I see how versatile it is for the written word as well as ear.
On the surface Girl is a verbal instruction manual from a mother to a daughter on the necessary ways and skills with which to be a woman. She gives tips on proper cooking methods, house cleaning, gardening, how to set a table, how to iron and within these "Good House Keeping & Etiquette" lessons she tosses in sassy mother jabs about not being a slut or how to bully a man. Most of her advice, is practical but the author herself being born on the island of Antigua, there is some advice that leans to a more spiritual/ritual or "medicine woman" type nature. Yes all these things lay upon the top but beneath, if delved in to the symbolic layer of this advice it's more than just from one mother to her child. It can be taken as advice to all the daughters setting out into the world as young women. Even though the specifics themselves may be dated the message is timeless. Each verse can be deconstructed into a lesson that we women can take a piece of and place into our own figurative life stew or store in a clean dry place for later use. It reminds me in many ways of the various niblets of advice on being a wife that my grandmother passed on to me. In fact, it was very similar advice on cooking, keeping house, keeping self and the sly "always keep a little piece of money of your own, to yourself, you hear? Every woman should." I believe in this writing Jamaica channels the voices of our mothers, grandmothers, nanna's, bubbies, and aunties who it is their cultural duty to pass on their two cents into the pot of our bubbling womanhood.
I enjoyed this immensely. I would like to have my own written copy for my library. I do recommend to all a poetic ear. What does it make you feel?
5 stars
August 23, 2022
A short piece in experimental style where the mother 'teaches' the dos and don'ts of how a woman should be. The mother's tone alters between scathing comments, warnings, and insistent nudging to make her daughter read between the lines.
The writing style is blunt with repetitions to drive the point home. The whole thing is one huge para (of ~700 words) and naturally made me feel suffocated (huge paras are a pet peeve). The ending rather puts the rest of the content in a different light. It makes one wonder what the mother is really trying to tell her daughter.
The writing style is blunt with repetitions to drive the point home. The whole thing is one huge para (of ~700 words) and naturally made me feel suffocated (huge paras are a pet peeve). The ending rather puts the rest of the content in a different light. It makes one wonder what the mother is really trying to tell her daughter.
December 17, 2023
.. this is a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child..
😭😭
😭😭
January 28, 2023
4.5/5 stars
this is a short story with much layered meaning, but primarily examining the expectations placed on women by society and how these are often passed down generationally.
this is written in a very unique style, a ~650 word sentence with smaller commands broken up by semicolons, but i genuinely didn't mind it.
i have said this before, and will again: the best literary commentary pulls aspects in that we, as a society, have normalized, and places them on a backdrop that makes you realize the absurdity of it. that is the kind of story that makes you see things differently, and stays with you.
kincaid succeeded.
please also keep in mind that this was published by an antiguan woman in 1978, and would have held a very different social meaning then than it does now, and she gets brownie points for that.
this is a short story with much layered meaning, but primarily examining the expectations placed on women by society and how these are often passed down generationally.
this is written in a very unique style, a ~650 word sentence with smaller commands broken up by semicolons, but i genuinely didn't mind it.
i have said this before, and will again: the best literary commentary pulls aspects in that we, as a society, have normalized, and places them on a backdrop that makes you realize the absurdity of it. that is the kind of story that makes you see things differently, and stays with you.
kincaid succeeded.
please also keep in mind that this was published by an antiguan woman in 1978, and would have held a very different social meaning then than it does now, and she gets brownie points for that.
November 5, 2023
spectacular. phenomenal. wonderful.
May 28, 2014
I'm glad I got to hear Edwidge Danticat read Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" aloud, because listening to it showed how it blurs the lines between short story and poetic prose. A powerful, page-long story about a mother dictating a list of instructions to her daughter, ranging from how to iron her father's khaki pants to how to attain an abortion. Worth reading or listening to for the gender dynamic and Kincaid's use of form.
July 26, 2020
...this is how you grow okra—far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants;
THIS IS marks the opening of many lines of this small but wonderful short story about a young girl being told how to do the things she'll need to learn about life. It's really a list of instructions, but makes the reader realize just how important each THIS IS can be.
...this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad won’t fall on you;
It's a quick story, but poignant in the sense of the limitations placed on females. The Girl is already being surrounded by bars, as though imprisoned, though the bars are of parental love. We learn from our parents and they have a reason to ensure we are made aware of the real world. Generational survival.
...always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach;
Book Season = Year Round (shafts of light)
THIS IS marks the opening of many lines of this small but wonderful short story about a young girl being told how to do the things she'll need to learn about life. It's really a list of instructions, but makes the reader realize just how important each THIS IS can be.
...this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad won’t fall on you;
It's a quick story, but poignant in the sense of the limitations placed on females. The Girl is already being surrounded by bars, as though imprisoned, though the bars are of parental love. We learn from our parents and they have a reason to ensure we are made aware of the real world. Generational survival.
...always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach;
Book Season = Year Round (shafts of light)
November 27, 2015
FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. Feminist type of beautiful.
March 22, 2014
Though I've only had about a week or two of solid class, I'm in love with my Women in Lit course. We discuss all kinds of women's issues (last names, education, etc.), and I'm always intrigued by the discussions. The caliber of books on the list makes me even more excited. Currently, we're reading Girl with a Pearl Earring (of course, I finished it a week ahead of time.). If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. But that's another review...
To bid our time before Girl with a Pearl Earring is due, we've been reading various short stories, the most recent being Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. My teacher read it aloud, and I was surprised by how much it struck me. It's short, only about a page, but it's so powerful you won't mind. The format is actually more like free verse poetry than a traditional short story format. A mother is giving her daughter a litany on how to be a woman: how to clean this and cook that, how to be charming and proper, how to induce an abortion, how to love and handle not being loved, etc. You rarely hear the daughter's voice since she only speaks up two or three times. My favorite line: "this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up." How heartbreaking is that?
Kincaid delivers a startling and emotional portrayal of the exceptions on women in more traditional countries and highlights the helplessness of young girls to defy them. I highly recommend this story, and I look forward to more of Kincaid's work.
To bid our time before Girl with a Pearl Earring is due, we've been reading various short stories, the most recent being Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. My teacher read it aloud, and I was surprised by how much it struck me. It's short, only about a page, but it's so powerful you won't mind. The format is actually more like free verse poetry than a traditional short story format. A mother is giving her daughter a litany on how to be a woman: how to clean this and cook that, how to be charming and proper, how to induce an abortion, how to love and handle not being loved, etc. You rarely hear the daughter's voice since she only speaks up two or three times. My favorite line: "this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up." How heartbreaking is that?
Kincaid delivers a startling and emotional portrayal of the exceptions on women in more traditional countries and highlights the helplessness of young girls to defy them. I highly recommend this story, and I look forward to more of Kincaid's work.
March 22, 2018
A mother's instructions to her daughter on how to live and behave.
Story Review: "Girl" is a brilliant story. Wonderfully, it's often taught in schools. The story accomplishes so much by (seemingly) doing very little. Everything is done through indirection, between the lines. Superficially, it's simply a single sentence: a mother's guidance, a long series of instructions, suggestions, directions, household hints and tips (the daughter gets in only two short responses). Rules. "Soak salt fish overnight," "wash the color clothes on Tuesday," "this is how you set a table for dinner," "this is how you sweep a corner." Some of the instructions are good, "don't walk barehead in the hot sun," "this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much," "don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all." Within those instructions is a powerful and insidious critique of women's place in society. The reader reaches every conclusion about "Girl" alone, as though the thoughts sprung fully formed within her own synapses. Which, of course, is the best way to present a diatribe: without the diatribe. The story is hard and fast, like a bullet to the brain. At first the mother's guidance seems helpful and clever, how to perform various household chores. But two different themes soon arise. First, that the daughter's life will wholly consumed with cooking, cleaning, sewing, and serving. The daughter's only future is woman's work, the same as her mother's life. There is nothing about reading, learning, thinking, growing, aspiring. It's too easy to see the mother as the villain of the piece, but she's not. Her guidance stems from all she's ever known, and if it seems harsh it's only because she's learned, she knows how to survive in a small, traditional community. The mother is only teaching what she's known, she is not trying to limit her daughter, only teach her the rules of society. But then there are lines that belie the traditional guidance, moving from how to iron her father's clothes to "this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all," "this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child," "this is how to bully a man," "this is how to love a man ... and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up." These survival skills are a bit more revolutionary. Jamaica Kincaid is a good enough writer to introduce complexity into the mother: yes she's preparing her daughter for a traditional life, but she may also be giving her some tools to circumvent the rules. The second theme, like a slap in the face, is that the daughter should become and behave as a proper lady ("not like the slut you are so bent on becoming"), but then also teaches her "how to spit up in the air if you feel like it." While I read that as being only if no one is looking, who knows? That this is an Antiguan story creates one layer of meaning here, but it's also a universal story about the future of any girl in any society: will I be limited to a certain kind of life or can there be more? This story is contained in Kincaid's collection At the Bottom of the River. "Girl" is one of the great stories of our time, or any time. [5★]
Story Review: "Girl" is a brilliant story. Wonderfully, it's often taught in schools. The story accomplishes so much by (seemingly) doing very little. Everything is done through indirection, between the lines. Superficially, it's simply a single sentence: a mother's guidance, a long series of instructions, suggestions, directions, household hints and tips (the daughter gets in only two short responses). Rules. "Soak salt fish overnight," "wash the color clothes on Tuesday," "this is how you set a table for dinner," "this is how you sweep a corner." Some of the instructions are good, "don't walk barehead in the hot sun," "this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much," "don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all." Within those instructions is a powerful and insidious critique of women's place in society. The reader reaches every conclusion about "Girl" alone, as though the thoughts sprung fully formed within her own synapses. Which, of course, is the best way to present a diatribe: without the diatribe. The story is hard and fast, like a bullet to the brain. At first the mother's guidance seems helpful and clever, how to perform various household chores. But two different themes soon arise. First, that the daughter's life will wholly consumed with cooking, cleaning, sewing, and serving. The daughter's only future is woman's work, the same as her mother's life. There is nothing about reading, learning, thinking, growing, aspiring. It's too easy to see the mother as the villain of the piece, but she's not. Her guidance stems from all she's ever known, and if it seems harsh it's only because she's learned, she knows how to survive in a small, traditional community. The mother is only teaching what she's known, she is not trying to limit her daughter, only teach her the rules of society. But then there are lines that belie the traditional guidance, moving from how to iron her father's clothes to "this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all," "this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child," "this is how to bully a man," "this is how to love a man ... and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up." These survival skills are a bit more revolutionary. Jamaica Kincaid is a good enough writer to introduce complexity into the mother: yes she's preparing her daughter for a traditional life, but she may also be giving her some tools to circumvent the rules. The second theme, like a slap in the face, is that the daughter should become and behave as a proper lady ("not like the slut you are so bent on becoming"), but then also teaches her "how to spit up in the air if you feel like it." While I read that as being only if no one is looking, who knows? That this is an Antiguan story creates one layer of meaning here, but it's also a universal story about the future of any girl in any society: will I be limited to a certain kind of life or can there be more? This story is contained in Kincaid's collection At the Bottom of the River. "Girl" is one of the great stories of our time, or any time. [5★]
November 23, 2023
I believe this short story thoroughly depicts how society believes women are supposed to act a particular way mainly bee seen and not heard. Be meek and not bold. Overall, I believe this short story has significant impact even in 2023.
May 29, 2018
This will definitely help me not to act like the slut I'm so bent on becoming. *note sarcasm*
My favourite professor recommended reading this short brilliantly written story and to relate it to "use value". It's amazing how it can relate to women being transposed into mere objects with mechanical strict rules of which a 'true' woman should abide to and at the same time relate to a close connection between a mother and a daughter.
The style is mesmerizing since from beginning to end there isn't one full stop. I loved it.
Stereotypes, prototypes, feminism, parental obligation, identity, domesticity, and sexuality; all in simple commands, all in five pages.
My favourite professor recommended reading this short brilliantly written story and to relate it to "use value". It's amazing how it can relate to women being transposed into mere objects with mechanical strict rules of which a 'true' woman should abide to and at the same time relate to a close connection between a mother and a daughter.
The style is mesmerizing since from beginning to end there isn't one full stop. I loved it.
Stereotypes, prototypes, feminism, parental obligation, identity, domesticity, and sexuality; all in simple commands, all in five pages.
August 11, 2018
Ugggg. This short story got me. It really got me. I felt a lump in my throat while reading it. So many young Caribbean women have heard these instructions repeated to them. So many of our mothers, aunts, grandmothers, older sisters and family friends thought they were guarding us against harm, or turning us into strong respectable women. Many did not realize the harm they were doing. Many were completing cycles of slut shaming and respectability politics. I have much more I could say but it hurts too much!
August 13, 2023
"on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming
this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely
this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming
this is how to make a bread pudding"
this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely
this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming
this is how to make a bread pudding"
January 23, 2024
i love jamaica kincaid and yes i will be adding this 1 page short story to my reading log bc we have a goal to meet!
October 2, 2018
I've so many short story anthologies with this story in it that I knew it would have to be read. I decided to read it from You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe (I need to remember review this book, as well).
This story is an incredible chant showing the way we condition someone to be second-class. There is no dramatic set-ups, this is almost a manual on what is expected to be a female in the world. Despite this only being a page and a quarter in length, I've had to keep reading it over and over--to let what was reading to really...to come to terms with this reality. I can say I get "it," but even I know: if the baker won't let me near bread, it won't be because of my gender. The ending is what makes this such a devastating piece of literature.
This story is an incredible chant showing the way we condition someone to be second-class. There is no dramatic set-ups, this is almost a manual on what is expected to be a female in the world. Despite this only being a page and a quarter in length, I've had to keep reading it over and over--to let what was reading to really...to come to terms with this reality. I can say I get "it," but even I know: if the baker won't let me near bread, it won't be because of my gender. The ending is what makes this such a devastating piece of literature.
May 10, 2021
I feel like I read this in high school or even college. It's actually a sad short piece about survival that really reflects on society at the time. How to cook, clean, host, and deal with a man. Also, lets not forget the home remedies to have an abortion.
March 1, 2021
On 'womanhood'.
December 22, 2022
I used to teach this story, back in the day. It is so rich and complex and in very few words.
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November 15, 2016This short story is a long, run-on sentence dialogue between a mother and daughter of what is expected from the daughter since she is a girl. I would relate this to how gender and the roles associated with gender can greatly define one's identity. I would first read the children's book, Red: A Crayon's Story, to students in order to ease them into this idea of how societal labels can determine/misguide one's identity. I would then use this short story as a mentor text for students, asking them to make a list of all the things that are expected of them because of their gender. I would then ask students to pick one of the expectations from their list and write a short essay reflecting on how they personally fit or do not fit into this expectation and what the implications of this are for them and for their identity.
June 14, 2018
Source: New Yorker Podcast (Read by Edwidge Danticat)
Such a short story; an instruction manual of sorts really from mother to daughter, and one which says volumes about what we say to our girls, how we say it, and in turn what society expects of them! We chip and chip more away with the constraints we put on them until they end up in little boxes, and is this what a mother's love is supposed to be, Kincaid seems to ask us. It was saddening, frustrating, enraging, and at the end ... surprising. Because you'd expect the words said to the girl to come from someone who despises her but the tone at the end was one of love. How fucked up is that ...
Such a short story; an instruction manual of sorts really from mother to daughter, and one which says volumes about what we say to our girls, how we say it, and in turn what society expects of them! We chip and chip more away with the constraints we put on them until they end up in little boxes, and is this what a mother's love is supposed to be, Kincaid seems to ask us. It was saddening, frustrating, enraging, and at the end ... surprising. Because you'd expect the words said to the girl to come from someone who despises her but the tone at the end was one of love. How fucked up is that ...
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