Thursday, 25 April 2019 Literary Theories, Master of Arts in English and Literature

101 Ways to be Lady: Analyzing Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl using the Formalist Lens

Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl is a piece of literature that highlights the plights of a coming-of-age girl
told through a lengthy sermon of a mother to her daughter, who more often than not is silent all
throughout. This literature tackles the standards and ideals prescribed for a woman for her becoming
a lady as well as the prohibitions to impede her from becoming a slut. The story is laced with rich
imagery and figures of speech as well conscious choices in style to magnify the possible themes it
wants to highlight.

Girl is an unconventional piece of literature that does not adhere to the conventions of both
prose and poetry, which is a complete contrast to its content that enumerates what and how it is to
be a conventional woman, or lady for that matter. It lacks some of the essential elements of a plot
such as the rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement, perhaps, to convey the absence of
start and end of these conventions women must subscribe to. The repeated use of commas and
semicolons also supports the idea of the continuity and connectedness of these conventions. The fact
that the text does not contain a single period signifies that this has yet to be stopped. It also does not
have a setting - both time and place - which evokes the universality of the theme, regardless of
geography and generation.

The two very short lines spoken by the daughter is symbolic of the absence of warmth between
her and her mother, who seemed more like a manual than maternal, who enumerated the things that
have to be done and things that have to be avoided. It is evident, moreover, that the mother knew
fully well the art and trade of what it is to be a lady and warned her daughter fairly more than enough
not to become a slut that she was so bent on becoming, perhaps, because she learned from
experience.

The story is rich in symbols and ironies that exudes the very essence of the story. Its entirety,
allocated to do’s, don’ts and how’s, depicts what the society deems as an acceptable woman - a
lady for the matter, which is almost impossible to achieve. There are significant parts of the story that
exemplify the truth about the double-standards between men and women and the existence of a
woman is very much devoted for a man, given that she has to know everything that a conventional
wife has to do and be. It also is worthy to be noted that the very goal of the mother in the story is to
train her daughter to be good but not everything that she prescribes is universally moral. For instance,
the mother teaches her daughter how to abort a child and how to be promiscuous, as implied by the
act fish catching. The very last part of the story which mentions the ‘bread’ part may connotatively
insinuate sexual innuendos as to how a woman should necessarily learn to attract a man to get by and
survive, as suggested by the bread as well. Abortion, promiscuity, and prostitution are exactly the acts
commonly performed by a slut – the very opposite thing the mother warned her child not to be.

If that is the case, whether or not the girl does everything in the lengthy list her mother provides
her, the society is so bent on becoming to view women as sluts.

Al Jeffrey L. Gonzales
Thursday, 25 April 2019 Literary Theories, Master of Arts in English and Literature