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The Narrative Style of Jamaica Kincaid


            The story being analyzed, for narration, in this paper is author Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl". The simplest way to understand narration is to read a story and understand the way it was being told. This story, "Girl", is basically a set of instructions from a mother to her daughter. But, the way the instructions are given is what makes the story. In fact, it does not make a story it makes a tirade, a rant. By definition, a tirade is a long, violent, angry speech. In this story, which is not much of a story, tirading is exactly what the mother is doing. The mother is giving a long, angry speech to the daughter about how to, essentially, act like her. The directions are given to the daughter in a demanding way and the daughter only interjects to say something twice. Even after the daughter says what she says, the mother does not acknowledge it and continues to give her instructions. .
             The story is very interesting because there is no action, of any sort, being performed by any of the characters in this story. The story is just orders given from mother to daughter. And the daughter is a hidden figure; everything about the daughter is suppressed. The audience does not know anything, such as what she wants, how she thinks, her interest, etc. Nobody knows. So, the audience may take what the mother says as accurate and fact. In actuality, there could be two narrators for this one story. The mother, who is physically speaking and giving the directions, and the daughter, who is receiving and interpreting the directions given. We, as the readers, are getting the story from the daughter's point of view, hence the daughter is the protagonist of the story because she is the main person in this story. .
             From the mother's narration and point of view, the mother believes she can save and protect her daughter from living an unkempt and disrespected life. This is understandable because no mother wants their daughter, or any child for that matter, to end up living in worse circumstances than they were brought up in.


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