Characters

The main characters in the short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid are the mother and the daughter. The characters are not given names and are inspired by the author’s own relationship with her mother.

In the story, the mother’s voice is the dominant one while the daughter only intervenes twice. The mother offers the girl a long list of instructions and advice, while the daughter merely listens to her monologue and tries to defend herself from her mother’s accusations.

You can read a full analysis of the mother and the daughter on the following pages.

Extract

Here, you can read an extract from our study guide:

Overall, the daughter seems to be caught between two worlds and two cultures – the British one and the Antiguan one. On the one hand, she goes to Sunday school and she is expected to know how to set a table for tea (pp. 320-321, l. 26, l. 1), which are British customs. On the other hand, she sings suggestive native music, which clashes with the British way of life.