This very short story should be read out loud and listened to because the sound is very important. This is a monologue that would have been quite a funny dramatization of how a parent in Jamaica would teach her child. It is written in the form of one huge run-on sentence composed of phrases separated by semicolons. That tends to make use read it that way, with pauses, but no sentence-ending tones. We learn a great deal about the characters and the culture just from these lines, and it is repeated over and over about what kind of woman the girl will become. We can imagine someone dramatizing this piece, almost a parody of the main character. Even the title would be a sharply spoken attention-getting call: Girl! The main character speaks through the girl. All of the lines are memories, mostly of things her mother or grandmother said to her as she was growing up. This is quite a funny, yet poignant, story.
After just a short while the reader can hear the voice of the parent teaching and scolding. If the reader has ever heard a Caribbean accent in real life, on TV, or in the movies this monologue will take on that accent with a very sassy tone of voice as if it is a young girl or very young woman mocking her parent. We have all done this on occasion, mocked someone by repeating what they said in a very disrespectful tone of voice. Usually, we only use a phrase or two, likely picking a favorite, often repeated phrase of the person we are mocking.
This story sounds like a monologue that the speaker has pretty much perfected to entertain her friends. It reads like a video clip from Youtube. We can picture the speaker gesturing and making fun, walking with a sexy swing of the hips, then switching to a very exaggerated sedate posture for Sunday School. “on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”
In the entire story, only two lines seem to be from the girl who is speaking. One follows an accusing question: “is it true that you sing benna (calypso) in Sunday school? which is followed by an admonition a few lines later: “don’t sing benna on Sunday and never in Sunday School.” The ‘girl’ replies “but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school” From reading and understanding this short, we can imagine that the speaker’s tone of voice would change to dramatize that she has switched personas, and she would probably be making an ultra innocent face. Even the way she would say this line would convey the crossed fingers behind her back as she protests. The second line which is from the girl of the story is near the end when the parent says:” always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh”; and the girl asks: “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?” This second line sets up the hilarious ending to the story, which is: “you mean to say that after all, you are going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?” We can imagine the girl putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head with her eyes wide and exaggerated as she says this line.
The lessons of this story would cover years as the girl grew up. We see lines about everything we need to learn to get along in Jamaican society from home-making to personal hygiene, taking care of a man, keeping a man happy, controlling a man, fishing, and even how to feel about what you do. Peppered here and there are little odd statements that people learn from parents and repeat, like “don’t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all.” The things important to Jamaican society and culture are what is talked about in this story, and we learn that this girl is expected to grow up and marry, becoming a good wife. She has no other expectations.
It is interesting how the lessons at the end center upon how to be a happy wife, what to expect from a man, and what to do in return. She is also told that she can honorably give up on pleasing a man if it cannot be done. One very telling detail is the line: “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 story is funny, but it has a sad undertone, because we see this girl as talented, since it is she who has made up this monologue, yet we know that her life will be limited to the role described by these lines. The last line tells us what her expectations are in this culture and place since she has the choices only between becoming a wife and mother or becoming “the kind of woman the baker won’t let near the bread.” The second choice is mentioned over and over again throughout the monologue, whenever the parent uses the word “slut” as in the last time she uses it near the end, “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.”
In noticing that the author is female, we begin to think that this is her story and that she has risen above the choices she was given after all, so it has a happy ending. The girl of the monologue has grown into the author of this story, which is a world away from the future for which her parent was preparing her. In this way, this story is a wonderful story of triumph over very strong odds and we not only understand the author’s origins from it, but we see a little of her tremendous strength of character. We understand from the story that she still remembers this parent with love and that she has made a third choice which might even have pleased this parent since the baker will surely let her near the bread.