Girl-Jamaica Kincaid

In the poem Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, talks about how a girl, assuming a little girl, does the things that she is taught and told to do. They are totally sexist things she is told as well. Her parents, possibly just mother or father,  completely brain wash this little girl into thinking that if she does not do all of these things she will become a slut. She stresses all of the little things that she has to do and remember, ironing, setting tables, setting tables for important guests, how to sew buttons and their corresponding holes. All mean while you can tell that she is becoming angry with all of these little things and wishes to have fun and do stuff that every one else is. But the parent(s) is brain washing and training her to become a step ford wife women and wife.

it is stressed in the poem about her becoming a slut. "This is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and to prevent yourself from looking like the slut you are bent on becoming."(Kincaid,2). She says it like her father is telling her to do these things or she will become a slut. And to stay away from boys. When there is an almost hint that she wants to experiment with the opposite sex to make her dad angry. When she talks about how to make birth control. " This is how to make good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child" (Kincaid, 3). As well as when she says "don't pick people's flowers-you might catch some thing" (Kincaid, 3). I think this is a metaphor to not have sex with other peoples spouses for the fact that you could make them mad and they will try to hurt you. Then there is a big one, the one that makes her think twice about being a slut and experiment. "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 wont let near the bread?" (Kincaid, 3). She is saying that if she sleeps around the baker will hear about it. And so when she is growen up the baker wont let her touch the bread because he does not know where her dirty hand have been, and does not wish for the bread to be dirty.

So this entire poem is about how doing all of these tasks is supposed to make her look good in the eyes of people, but deep down make her sad. However that some of it is actually good because if she were to do what she wished then there is the possibility that she could ruin her public image. Its a poem of opposites, and deciding in the middle.