Essay on "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

I believe that any kind of writing is literature, weather it be a newspaper article, song lyrics, poems, or free writing. To me literature is anything that entertains, educates, or informs the reader or audience. Literature can share a person’s perspective or opinions on certain things with many people. It can also inspire change and can bring up questions or problems with possible solutions. I believe any kind of writing serves as a function of literature because it entertains the reader, and every piece of writing serves as entertainment, if it didn’t, nobody would be reading it in the first place. Literature to me is any form of writing, it does not matter if it is a seven hundred page novel or a poem consisting of two lines, if it entertains or informs I believe it is literature. Some may think that a piece of literature has to be a minimum amount of words or must be a certain genre. When our class read Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl", some people did not believe that piece to serve as a function of literature.

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When we were talking about Kincaid’s “Girl” in class a lot of mixed views were brought up. Some people thought that there was a mother teaching her daughter how to become a woman. Others thought that it was a woman who was thinking and reflecting of all the things that her mother had said to her when she was younger. Though many ideas were brought to mind, some people may not think that this story has functions of literature. I think it does serve as a function of literature, mainly because of the things I have already said about how any form of writing serves as a function of literature simply because it entertains, informs, or educates.

In Kincaid’s “Girl” the story seems like one long run-on sentence, though I still believe the story serves as a good function of literature. One of the lines states “This is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure its fresh; but what if the baker wont let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let feel the bread”(770). This is the part in the story in which some people think that there is one person reflecting on herself and others said that there are two people talking to each other.

I also think that this conversation between two people takes place over the span of one conversation, if you read it a few times you can probably understand it more clearly.

It might be hard to interpret how the girl reacts to the things her mother says. From my perspective I thought that the girl was probably in her early teenage years, and what her mother said was too much information for her to absorb, it seemed like she didn’t really know what all of the things her mother was telling her meant, or maybe even why her mother told her those things. I got a lot out of this story, it gave me a better knowledge of what a young girl might have been expected to become or grow into during the olden days.

I think that anything that consists of a sentence or more has a function of literature and should be considered true literature. I believe that literature comes in many forms, as I stated above, it can be anything from deepest of novels or short stories to the Kincaid’s “Girl”. “Girl” serves as a great function of literature; it makes the reader think and in intrigues the audience to continue reading. Again, I think that “Girl” serves as an excellent function of literature.

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