Style Analysis of Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

The story Girl by Jamaica Kincaid is about a mother lecturing her daughter on the proper way of doing things—in washing clothes, cooking, decorum in front of men, sewing, ironing, and anything that has to do with a woman behaving properly and not “slut-like. ” Despite all the mother’s warnings, she thinks, in fact, even certain that the daughter would turn out to be a slut, that a baker will not even allow her to get near his or her bread. Style Analysis For starters, the text is shorter than your average short story with roughly 670 words; the entire text can be read within a minute, which makes it an interesting piece of writing.

The story is also written in a very unique style—with no narration and just composed entirely out of dialog (though the daughter only responded twice). Because about 90% of the text is instructions from the mother, it appears like a list form. Readers are bombarded immediately with the mother’s nagging tone, devoid of any background information. In her bold style, Kincaid may have split his critics into two—one is the traditional critic that would rather read a traditional style fiction, and the other is the new age critic, looking for something new.

The latter critic is better because even if the text can not be understood in the first reading, its style forces readers to take a second, third, and even more reading, and look at the story more critically. With that said, Kincaid’s style is effective, especially to more critical readers. It encourages in-depth thinking and analysis, which should be present in all literature. Reference Kincaid, J. (1991). “Girl” from At The Bottom of The River. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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