A Mother’s Melancholy

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The last few lines of the story accurately show how horrible the mother’s life was. The passage, “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?” (Girl, lines 44-48) shows that the mother’s appearance got her shunned from society. The advice before the passage also shows the daughter how to bully a man into staying and how to abort a baby. The mother’s old appearance got her kicked out of stores, including the bakery. So she whores herself out to a man, and becomes pregnant. The man becomes the girl’s father and the mother blackmails the man into marrying her to get his money, and tries to use a home remedy to abort the girl. However, the mother has a change of heart at the last minute and decides to keep the baby. Unfortunately, the mother sinks into a deep depression, which is only increased by her PTSD she received from her father’s abuse. She doesn’t want this to happen to the girl, but she does not know any other way to go about it, so she gives the girl the horrible guidance anyway.

The girl’s mother tries to provide and do what’s best for her, but due to her past, the mother goes about tings the utterly incorrect way. The situations the mother had to go through still haunt her, and because of this, she cannot give proper guidance to the girl as she ages. This only angers her more, due to her not knowing how to raise her child. Girl is just a cynical look into the troubled past of a young, confused mother.

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Work Cited

Kincaid, Jamaica. Girl. San Francisco: San Francisco Examiner, 1991. Print.