Draw Connections: “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

Draw Connections: “Girl” and an interview on “Girl,” with Jamaica Kincaid

In 1993, Allan Vorda interviewed Jamaica Kincaid for his book Face to Face: Interviews with Contemporary Novelists. In the interview, Kincaid talks about her 1978 story, “Girl,” which presents itself as advice from a mother to her daughter. While the piece provides a commentary on the roles of women in Kincaid’s native Antigua, Kincaid herself considers the larger symbolic meaning of the work in the interview. This is not simply a commentary on gender roles: it is also a commentary about the power relations between the colonizers and the colonized in the Caribbean.

Document links:

Annotated text of “Girl”

Annotated text of an interview on “Girl,” with Jamaica Kincaid

  1. In the interview, Kincaid suggests that the mother is trying to provide advice for her daughter that may seem oppressive, but is also well-intentioned and, ultimately, about protecting her. What advice in the story bears out that idea? How is the advice from mother to daughter about making sure the daughter will be able to protect herself in a harsh world?

    Question

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  2. Kincaid talks about the powerful and the powerless. In what ways is the mother in the story powerful? In what ways is she powerless? Why might that be?

    Question

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  3. In what ways is the daughter’s resistance to the mother’s advice a metaphor for resistance to all forms of oppression and not merely the resistance of a child to a parent’s rules?

    Question

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  4. While Kincaid suggests that the mother is simply trying to do her best for her daughter, she also acknowledges that she herself did not follow the advice given to her as a young woman in Antigua. What does this suggest about the reasons the daughter is resisting her mother? Why would Kincaid not give similar advice to her own daughters?

    Question

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