"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid shows us the suffocating reinforcement of gender norms through a claustrophobic and domineering style. The memory of the mother of an unnamed girl allows us to experience the exponentially growing expectations of childhood, and subsequently of early womanhood. Although the mother ultimately wants nothing but the best for her daughter, her increasing interference ends up feeling smothering rather than maternal. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay “The Girl” often uses a paradoxical tone to highlight how the mother dispensing her advice feels less interested in building character than in upholding society's norms of how to be a woman. The Mother's advice seems to jump between stoic and practical advice like “this is how you sweep an entire house; this is how you sweep a yard” and crass accusations like “like the slut you want so badly to be.” This strident and erratic tone is intended to make us question how appropriate the mother's advice is, can we really trust the advice of a mother who three times in the excerpt accuses her daughter of being promiscuous simply for not having met all the standards she had established for her? ? The frequent use of words and phrases such as "always", "here's how" and "make sure" maintains a commanding tone throughout the piece, there is little to no leeway for the daughter in interpreting the advice. There is no doubt that the Mother wants to maintain constant discipline in the Girl's daily life, but the tone makes it clear that her standards have become repressive. But the almost impossible standards imposed by the Mother can also be reflected in the very form of the piece; written as one huge, singular paragraph, Kincaid leaves little room for the reader to breathe. With no descriptive prose or paragraphs, and relying solely on a single sequence of linked dialogue, it's essentially like a bunch of commands you're trying to regurgitate from memory. Added to this is the constant repetition of the phrase “here's how” in lines like “here's how to sew on a button; here's how to make a buttonhole for the button you just sewed on” adds a mechanical touch to the advice, as if the Mother were coding a piece of software instead of teaching advice to a human being. The advice is further denaturalized by the order in which it is presented, in which lines of advice are grouped together by topic (such as cooking, hosting, sewing) rather than in chorological order with respect to the girl's life. This further dehumanized the advice to feel like an instruction sheet rather than a piece calling for motherly care. The utilitarian structure of the piece, combined with the constant reiteration of commands, not only reinforces how rigid and unwavering the mother's parenting habits are, but also how gender roles can seem regimental and impersonal. Furthermore, Kincaid shows the uneven dynamic in the relationship between the two through ensuring that the Mother's voice dominates the excerpt. The Mother's dialogue makes up the vast majority, while the Girl receives only two lines of dialogue. These lines also have no agency, they are both responses to the mother, as seen in “but I don't sing benna at all on Sundays and never in Sunday school”. When you take into account the fact that the mother doesn't even dignify the response with an answer, this demonstrates an unfair power dynamic between the two. Nothing is learned from the mother through the daughter. Nor does she seem willing to entertain her daughter's questions as seen in "but what if the baker doesn't let me taste the bread?" and his response “you mean that basically you will be.