Rhetorical Analysis
Title: Girl
Author: Jamaica Kincaid
Date: 1983
Topic: The pressures of domesticity
Analysis of Argument
Exigence: Inequalities between men and women; forcing of domesticity.
Intended Audience: Anyone seeking change in the stereotypes of gender roles. Anyone growing up with forced gender roles--boys wear blue, girls wear pink etc.
Purpose: To address the standards that society has set for men and women to act only within the gender roles. People who don't fall within these lines risk being ostracized. Kincaid demonstrates this by not writing a story with a climax and a fall but rather stating what she remembered her mother telling her how to be a "proper lady."
Claim(s): How to behave like a proper woman.
Main Evidence:
I thought it was smart of Kincaid to write this in the style of a disorganized poem. It doesn't really have a beginning or an end, the writing just starts. The reader doesn't know how old Kincaid throughout either. Although, Kincaid doesn't offer her age in the writing it's clear that the relationship between the narrator and the girl is mother to daughter. The mother speaks in a way that expresses her worries for the girl who is soon to become a woman. "...this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child..."(526) The way the sentences are formed suggest that the mother has a lot of experience being a domestic housewife; she is wiser than the girl. The mom repetitively states the word "slut" because she fears that is what is to become of her daughter if she doesn't teach her what not to be. "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..."(525-526) Domesticity and purity were a must because of their conservative lifestyles. Also, most women at this point in time were dependant on men as the breadwinners, so if a woman was a slut she would have a harder time finding a man who would actually believe that she would want to stay in a committed relationship. "...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?"(526) The last sentence of this piece really suggests that reputation amongst her community was crucial for acceptance amongst others. There's a reason why the baker wouldn't want to let her near the bread. If she was known as a clean and proper woman he would have to trust her enough to allow her.
Rhetorical Analysis:
Writer's Strategy 1: Narration
Writer's Strategy 2: Description
Writer's Strategy 3: Definition
Reader Effect #1 Mother's narration instead of her own.
Reader Effect #2 Describes what her mother tells her to do in detail.
Reader Effect #3 Some of the sentences tell the reader that Kincaid grew up in poverty; she uses a lot of description.
Your Response:
Although, this piece wasn't written till the 80's Kincaid's mother lived during a more conservative time where most of these life lessons she teaches her daughter do not apply so much in modern society but do for Kincaid's mom. The mom is simply trying to look out for her daughter's future to make sure that she can comfortably live on her own. It's easy to apply this to modern society because most people do grow up forced what to think and act like.
