Antiguan-American novelist, Jamaica Kincaid, in her fiction poem, “Girl,” describes a conversation between a girl and her mother about the type of woman girl should strive to be. The purpose of the poem is to explain that there is more to life than what is expected of a woman in that particular time period. There is an insistent tone in the text coming from the mother, directed at the daughter as if your reputation as a woman is just black and white; you’re either respectable or considered a “slut”. Almost immediately, you can detect a disagreeing tone between the mother and child. The mother instructs the girl on how to act and how to do certain “housewife” chores correctly. She also explains how to act in public, insisting the way the
