Loss of Innocence

Bonjour all! C’est moi, Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen. Today is Tuesday, so you’ve probably already guessed it. Yep that’s right I am going to be talking about something related to innocence. Girl by Jamaica Kincaid was a very perplexing story to me. I didn’t quite understand it at first. It’d seemed like it was a mother scolding her daughter and sternly telling her what she needed to be doing. It kind of reminded me of my mother whenever she tells me to clean my room and get good grades. But then the mother in the story started to say stuff like to not be the “slut you are so bent on becoming.” Wow. I mean, my own mother can be critical of me sometimes but she has never called me a slut or anything like that. The overarching question for this story was something like whether or not the mother was [helpful or hurtful] to her daughter. Initially I had thought that whatever advice this mother was giving to her daughter was hurtful. What kind of mother accuses her daughter of wanting to be a slut? I had thought that the mother was limiting her daughter to fit into the same mold that she herself is in. However, as I was talking to the rest of the people in my group I realized that I had to rethink that. At the time period that this story was written in, the daughter probably didn’t have many options anyways, so in a way the mother was encouraging her daughter to be the best that she could be within her limited circumstances. Even with that in mind, the slut comments don’t seem very positive, but perhaps she means to say that she wishes that her daughter will be a respectable woman that the baker would let touch the bread.

It’d be a stretch to try and say that this story was an example of losing innocence. But well, I’m going to try anyways. I don’t think that anywhere in the story either of the characters losing innocence, however I do think that the mother was fighting for her daughter’s innocence. The mother in this story wanted to protect her daughter from the harsh realities of that time. Having dreams and aspirations in that time was basically impossible for a woman. Overcoming the obstacles set by society to keep woman subservient and submissive. The mother’s intention was to have her daughter realize this and work toward being the best that she and be within the circumstances. The mother wants her daughter to turn into a respectable lady even if she cannot rise up to be great, the mother hopes for her daughter to be great in her own right. Th-th-th-that’s all folks!

-Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen