Earley 1 Brandon Earley Advanced Writing Major Revision Essay Dr. Guignard 12/11/14 Woman Wanted: The Job of Performed Gender in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” If a classified advertisement were looking to fill the position of a woman, it would read something like: Wanted—woman who cooks, cleans, washes clothes, is a loving wife, gardens, mothers and nurses children, and must be willing to work for free, all while maintaining the image of a lady; must be available 24/7; please contact Society. The expectations put upon the female gender by society are strict and numerous, and if a woman did not live up to these standards set by others, she was not thought to be properly carrying out the role and responsibilities assigned to her. In her short story, “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid exposes these expectations in Caribbean culture through a mother’s commanding lesson to her daughter about the acceptable manner in which she must go through life and perform her physical and emotional duties as a woman. Jamaica Kincaid uses “Girl” to convey the idea that the interaction between the mother and daughter is a reflection of the interaction between society and Caribbean women. The mother’s guidelines stress the importance of numerous gender-assigned tasks and behaviors, and that women are given no choice in how to live their lives. Since her work contains her own life experiences, Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shines a light on the real issues that women face, reminding readers of the reality-based belief that being a woman in the Caribbean is a performed occupation meant to serve and satisfy the needs, desires, and expectations of society.
Earley 2 It is essential to identify who makes up society in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” because society acts as the audience to which women perform, and the employers for whom they work. Society, in reference to Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” is men. The patriarchal society in “Girl” creates the expectations for women to live by. These expectations are transported from society to the girl through her mother’s voice, and they tell the girl the various ways in which she should serve and satisfy men. The text reads like a simple, brief “How To” manual for women to follow, with men reaping most of the benefits of women’s responsibilities. The girl’s mother tells her, “this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease; this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease” (Kincaid 53). Here, the girls’ mother is instructing her how to properly prepare a man’s clothes so that he looks presentable. The mother does it for her husband, and expects the girl to do it for him, as well. This gives women the responsibility for men’s images, so when men are looked at in public, it is women’s abilities to live up to expectation that are really being judged. The girl’s mother also tells her, “this is how to behave in the presence of men” (Kincaid 54). As well as being responsible for making sure men are taken care of, women must also perform their behaviors in a way that suits men’s desired image of them. This patriarchal society turns women into employees and performers, and gives them the majority of family responsibilities. In “Female-Headed Families,” Sheila Stuart explains that Caribbean men’s roles in families have been “defined as providing financial support and discipline” (31). Compared to women, men’s familial responsibilities in the Caribbean are limited. They are expected to make money and have partial involvement in raising children. Men are associated with the roles of power. As the gender with financial and disciplinary power, they mold the identity of women by requiring them to complete specific jobs and perform behaviors that benefit a male-dominated society.
Earley 3 Domestic performance is a primary aspect of womanhood that is addressed by Jamaica Kincaid in her short story, “Girl,” and in Caribbean societies, this is a requirement that the female gender is expected to adhere to. Women are expected to uphold their responsibilities to maintain their households, inside as well as outside. In the short story, these requirements of domesticity, which are assigned to women by society, are communicated to the girl by her mother. The obligatory tasks that the girl’s mother includes in her list include washing clothes, drying clothes, preparing food, sewing, gardening, cleaning, and making medicine (Kincaid 5354). The completion of these numerous tasks, as well as knowing how to complete them with accuracy, rested solely in the hands of the women in the family in Caribbean culture, making them employees in their households. Not only are females expected to complete all of these domestic tasks, but they are expected to also perform them like clockwork on specific days, much like work shifts, which the mother meticulously explains to her daughter. She says, “Wash the white clothes on Monday,” “wash the colored clothes on Tuesday,” and “on Sundays try to walk like a lady” (Kincaid 53-54). In her examination of the endless duties that Caribbean women were required to perform, Carol Bailey writes in her article that, “Black women bore the brunt of field and domestic labor” and concludes that “This mix of domestic and farming skills alludes to house and field labor that has historically characterized the lives of black and East Indian working-class females” (109). In “Female-Headed Families: A Comparative Perspective of the Caribbean and the Developed World,” Sheila Stuart explains that women have been traditionally acknowledged as the “backbone of Caribbean families” (29). Women in these families possess full responsibility, as well as full accountability, since families are fully reliant on them completing their domestic duties. The roles and expectations assigned to the female gender of these societies ultimately determines what are perceived as their acceptable identities
Earley 4 and purposes in life, which is to devote their time, energy, and skills to serving those around them, a job that never ends. The public performance aspect of being a woman in Kincaid’s work makes itself evident in the mother’s demand for acted emotion from her daughter. She places a great deal of emphasis on telling her daughter how treat others and present herself in public. She says, “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” (Kincaid 54). Whether or not the girl likes who she is smiling at, she is told to act as though she likes them. Although the smiles are different, they are still smiles, and do not necessarily reflect genuine feeling. As a result, the importance of feeling true emotion is taken away and replaced with imitating emotion to display proper manners, even if she does not like the person she is smiling at. This suggests that it is more convenient for others to see her smile, rather than be bothered with how she really feels. Therefore, the girl is expected to live as a performer for an ever-present audience. In Performance and the Gendered Body,” Bailey refers to the setting of “Girl” as “a stage where females perform” and there are “behaviors that women are supposed to display in order to reinforce dominant gender ideologies” (108). The environment, in which Caribbean women live in the text, and in reality, since Kincaid’s work is based on her own experiences, is not a place for them to express authentic identities. Rather, they must take on personas expected of women, which include a pre-determined set of behaviors assigned to their gender, and for stage presentation, the mother reminds her daughter to “walk like a lady,” and that she is “not a boy” (Kincaid). Girls must be prepared, rehearsed, and ready to play the role of a woman in a society of spectators who have embedded ideas of womanhood, and watch them with a careful, scrutinizing eye. However, Jamaica Kincaid escaped this audience and came from the Caribbean
Earley 5 to the United States. In “Singular Beast: An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid,” she tells Brittnay Buckner, “the woman sitting before you is not someone that anyone expected” (465). Sexually modest behavior is also part of the occupation of womanhood that Jamaica Kincaid addresses in “Girl,” and it is another requirement that is expected to be carried out by women in Caribbean societies. Kincaid’s text indicates that women must be sexual objects who are supposed to be paradoxically compliant to the sexual advances of men, but never exhibit any desire of their own for sexual activity. The girl’s mother instructs, “This is how to love a man” and “this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child” (Kincaid 54). This indicates that the child being thrown away would be unwanted, which suggests that the sexual interaction that resulted in the conception of the child was unwanted as well. Also, since this is something that a mother is teaching her daughter to do at home, it suggests that getting rid of an unwanted child is something women commonly did as a result of being expected to obey the sexual desires of men. The mother does not only teach her daughter how to handle the results of unwanted sexual advances from men, she teaches her how to stifle her own sexual desires because they are considered unacceptable. The mother tells her daughter how to behave in front of men, and says it so that “they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming” (Kincaid 54). This shows that society views women who desire or find any enjoyment in sexual activity are seen as promiscuous and as un-ladylike members of the female gender. On one hand, females are expected to sexually satisfy their male counterparts, while on the other hand, they are supposed to silence their own sexual identity and portray a constant image of modesty. In her article, Diane Simmons examines the issues dealt with in “Girl,” and says that the contradictions “work to manipulate a reader into unconsciously accepting the paradoxes that are being offered” (470). Simmons’s point in her article is that the
Earley 6 instructions which the mother gives to her daughter are so abundant and specific, that they have a tendency to overlap and contradict one another. If requirements are so overwhelmingly numerous, it becomes difficult to even begin searching for logical inconsistencies, which, in turn, prevents questions about the instructions. Along with every other societal expectation put upon the female gender, the mother in Jamaica Kincaid’s short story, “Girl,” stresses to her daughter the importance of making sure that she stays clean and healthy. So, on top of their responsibilities of making sure that every task in their homes was completed on a daily basis (clothes washed, clothes dried, ironing done, table set, food caught, children and husband fed, house cleaned, outside swept, plants grown, sewing and hemming done) and that their sexual modesty was fully maintained, male-dominated society required that women also maintain a standard of cleanliness and health. In the story, the mother commands of her daughter, “soak your little cloths right after you take them off,” “don’t eat fruits in the street—flies will follow you,” and “be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit” (Kincaid 53-54). Based on the aforementioned responsibilities that are given to the female gender by society, it is blatantly evident why women’s cleanliness and health would be a subsequent imperative. If the women are sick or in any kind of condition which prohibits them from performing their numerous tasks and duties, who would step in and assume their daily responsibilities, if men take no part in them? Women employed by society cannot call in sick to work. The cleanliness and good health of females ensures their ability to continue performing their assigned roles. Carol Bailey comments on the idea of a woman’s life performance in Kincaid’s “Girl.” Bailey explains that, in Kincaid’s short story, “the emphasis on performative acts reiterates the inextricable link between gender and performance” (Bailey 106). Her argument is that in the society of Kincaid’s world, a woman’s gender and what they do are deeply
Earley 7 connected and intertwined with one another, making gender the center of their identities and making it a mission of society to ensure that women live up to the expectations that are attached to their gender. In “Girl,” the minimal opportunity for the daughter to respond to her mother’s list of requirements indicates that the manner in which she is supposed to live her life is one that is void of any sort of choice, and the daughter’s lack of opportunity to respond to her mother represents the lack of opportunity for women to question the job positions they are expected to fill, and the roles they are expected to play, in society. The girl’s mother and society expect her to fulfill her role and carry out the responsibilities without question. In the entirety of the short story, the girl can barely get a word in edgewise, and she only speaks twice. The girl’s spoken words are written in italics to show readers a change in the person who is speaking. The first time she is able to speak, she defends herself, saying, “but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school” (Kincaid 54). This response is not verbally taken into account by the girl’s mother, and she simply continues listing her instructions that make up a woman’s to-do list of life, which implies that society will not care if you defend yourself against the accusations of society, because the worst will always be expected, even from the girl’s mother. The second, and last, time that the daughter speaks in the short story is when she responds to her mother’s final command, asking, “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?” (Kincaid 54). This question represents the girl’s curiosity of what will happen if she does not live up to society’s expectations of her, and the last line of the text is her mother’s reply, which is, “you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?” (Kincaid 54). This shows the mother’s surprise that, after hearing her specific demands, her daughter would think to question her, because this means she is questioning the standards that patriarchal society sets for
Earley 8 women. The lack of choices given to the girl and her defiant response reflect true aspects of Jamaica Kincaid’s life. In an interview with Moira Ferguson, when asked about the motivation behind “Girl,” Kincaid’s connection to the girl is evident in her statement, “Well, it is my mother's voice exactly over many years. There are two times that I talked in my life as a child, as a powerless person,” (Ferguson 168). Kincaid’s connection to the girl is also made clear in “The Long Road from Antigua to Vermont,” when James Robert Saunders says that Kincaid is “the kind of woman who speaks her mind, regardless of who might be offended,” which is represented by the girl’s responses to her mother (1). Jamaica Kincaid has implanted her own personal memories and experiences in her writing. Essentially, for Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” is an expository, truthful reflection of her voiceless past as a girl with no choice about how to live her life in Caribbean society. Instead, it was dictated to her by her mother, whose commands echo socially engrained gender ideals. In just a one page short story, Jamaica Kincaid is able to capture numerous layers of gendered expectations, how women should carry them out, and patriarchal society’s overwhelming presence and influence in women’s lives. When human beings are born into the world, they inherently possess value and natural identity. However, when it comes to the lives of many women in many societies around the world, their identities have been pre-determined and assigned to them based on their gender, and any choice of how to live the lives that they may have had otherwise is eliminated. If a woman questions society’s expectations, she is treated as defiant. This essentially transforms the identity of the female gender into the role of a scrutinized employee for society with a list of tasks that they are responsible for performing in order to be viewed as desirable, hirable, acceptable. The commanding voice of the girl’s mother in Jamaica Kincaid’s short, but profound story, “Girl,” shows a mother giving commands to her daughter,
Earley 9 yet these are really society’s demands of the female gender as a whole. According to the text, as well as other research, Caribbean society wants women to have the skill set required for employment in their gendered roles. These expectations are rooted in the belief that an individual’s gender and their purpose in life are firmly attached and interlocked with one another. Jamaica Kincaid’s work allows the narrow treatment of women as employees for society to be read as a reality, rather than simply characters is a work of fiction. Jamaica Kincaid’s technique breaks down the wall of fantasy between the reader and the text, and offers connection between the reader and real-world issues.
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Works Cited Bailey, Carol. “Performance and the Gendered Body in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” and Oonya Kempadoo’s Buxton Spice.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. 10.2 (2010): 106-123. Web. Buckner, Brittnay. “Singular Beast: A Conversation with Jamaica Kincaid.” Callaloo 31.2 (2008): 461-69. Web. Nov. 3 2014. Ferguson, Moira. “A Lot of Memory: An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid.” Kenyon Review. 16.1 (1994): 163-188. Web. Kincaid, Jamaica. “Girl.” Reading and Writing about Literature: A Portable Guide 3rd Edition. Ed. Janet E. Gardner. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2013. 53-54. Print. Saunders, James Robert. “Jamaica Kincaid: The Long Road from Antigua to Vermont.” Hollins Critic 50.1 (2013): 1+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Nov. 2014. Simmons, Diane. “The Rhythm of Reality in the Works of Jamaica Kincaid.” World Literature Today. 68.3 (1994): 466-472. Web. Stuart, Sheila. “Female-Headed Families: A Comparative Perspective of the Caribbean and the Developed World.” Gender and Development 4.2 (1996): 28-34. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.
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