The poem "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid
With this poem we are going to focus on voice. Voice is made up of a number of features.
You will need to consider the voice of this narrator when you read it.
You will be reading this poem into garage band.
Decide how it should be read.
The key to reading as performance is volume, tone, and emphasis.
Are some words elongated by you for emphasis and meaning?
Are they shortened? Why.
How does tone, emphasis, and volume effect meaning and message?
Consider who the narrator is and how the narrator may be expressing feeling and information and how.
- Are they angry, bitter;
- Are they laughing and making fun of their mother?
- Are they tired and worn out with this person?
- What is their emotional tone?
Use the following terms to inform and support your interpretation:
Dialect A particular variety of language spoken in one place by a distinct group of people. A dialect reflects the colloquialisms, grammatical constructions, distinctive vocabulary, and pronunciations that are typical of a region. At times writers use dialect to establish or emphasize settings as well as to develop characters.
Diction An author’s choice of words based on their correctness, clarity, or effectiveness.
Mood The feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader. The use of connotation, details, dialogue, imagery, figurative language, foreshadowing, setting, and rhythm can help establish mood.
Point of view The vantage point from which a story is told. In the first person or narrative point of view, the story is told by one of the characters. In the third person or omniscient point of view, someone outside the story tells the story.
Prose Writing or speaking in the usual or ordinary form. Prose becomes poetic when it takes on rhythm and rhyme.
Rhythm The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Poets use rhythm to bring out the musical quality of language, to emphasize ideas, to create mood, to unify a work, or to heighten emotional response.
Style The particular way a piece of literature is written. Not only what is said but also how it is said, style is the writer’s unique way of communicating ideas. Elements contributing to style include word choice, sentence length, tone, figurative language, and use of dialogue. See Diction, Imagery, Tone
Subtext An underlying, often distinct theme in a piece of writing or conversation.
Symbolism In literature, the serious and extensive use of symbols.
Text features Various ways of manipulating and placing text to draw attention to or emphasize certain points or ideas in narrative (e.g. bolding or boxing questions, italicizing key vocabulary, listing, bulleting, numbering).
Text structure The organizational pattern an author uses to structure the ideas in a text (e.g. cause/effect, compare/contrast, description, problem/solution, sequential, goal/action/outcome, concept/definition, proposition/support).
Theme A central idea or abstract concept that is made concrete through representation in person, action, and image. Theme is not simply a subject or an activity, vice for instance, but a proposition, such as “Vice seems more interesting than virtue but turns out to be destructive.” Sometimes the theme is directly stated in the work, and sometimes it is given indirectly. There may be more than one theme in a given work. See Main idea, Thesis, Moral
Thesis An attitude or position taken by a writer or speaker with the purpose of proving or supporting it. See Theme, Main idea
Tone An expression of a writer’s attitude toward a subject. Unlike mood, which is intended to shape the reader’s emotional response, tone reflects the feelings of the writer. Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, playful, ironic, bitter, or objective. See Mood, Style
Topic The meaning a literary work refers to, stated in a phrase or word. See Theme
Girl
by Jamaica Kincaid
Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don't sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn't speak to wharbfflies will follow you; but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease; this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease; this is how you grow okrbafar from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marbles you are not a boy, you know; don't pick people's flowers you might catch something; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?
Welcome to the house of Fun. . . here to tell you some tales of the ordinary and make some music for your pleasure. When you listen to this album, you can find summer, winter, spring, and fall--needless to say, well seasoned.
