Mother-Daughter Conflict and Social Assimilation in Girl by Jamaica Kincaid essays

Mother-Daughter Conflict and Social Assimilation in Girl by Jamaica Kincaid essays Social values held to be important in human society are effectively portrayed in literature. Through literary works, individuals/writers are able to express their subjective interpretations of life and social reality as they experience it. Literature as the mirror of social reality is explicitly expressed in the literary work, Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. This literary work illustrate literature as a medium through which Kincaid was able to express her views about the values and norms imposed on women by the society, and sometimes, their own community and social group as well. In Girl, the theme of conflicts between a mother and her daughter and traditional and Western or modern values are portrayed by Kincaid's effective illustration of her relationship with her mother. Jamaica Kincaid, a contemporary American Caribbean writer, illustrates in her work the dynamics of human relationships among immigrants trying to assimilate with the dominantly Westernized English society. Written in 1978, Kincaid details in her short narrative, Girl, issues that the protagonist (or Kincaid) experiences as she and her mother's values clash against each other. In the narrative, the author enumerates the arguments, or facts of life, that her mother uses to her daughter in order to Kincaid to follow her mother's orders, especially when it comes to assuming the role and behavior that she must conduct in public. As the two begin their argument for and against Western culture, norms, and values, fallacies are evident, where the mother's arguments are usually grounded on beliefs that have no concrete or rational basis. This paper looks at the fallacies, ideologies that were illustrated in Girl to show superiority of Western culture (as portrayed by the mother) as both characters try to adjust and assimilate within their new modern English society. The first theme that emerges in the st...