English Literature

While modern society has come a long way in challenging gender and racial stereotypes, the socially approved roles of women versus men as well as black versus white, are still alive in the experiences of individuals even today. Jamaica Kincaid s running monologue of advice, delivered from mother to daughter and showing the sharp lines of division that define woman s role in the world, illustrates a young woman s growing awareness of the hypocrisies that govern her existence in the world. Brent Staples s experiences as a black man, confronting all too often the fear created from stereotypes of violence and crime wrongfully attached to the black race, mirrors Kincaid s essay of the inequality that still pervades the psyche of contemporary society. While one essay concentrates on the role that gender plays in the rules of society and the other deals with race as a creator and a product of fear, both show how society s perception of the self can seek to redefine the individual.

In  Girl  Kincaid constructs her story in such a way that the reader is placed in the perspective of the young girl, there is a feeling of sitting off to the side of an older woman who gives sideways commands that have little rational but a lot of conviction. The narrator, the motherly figure, rattles off a list of the proper way to do certain chores, to socialize, to interact with men, and other domestic and social tasks.  A girl is to keep up after herself and to employ practicality rather than idealism to move through her day,  soak your clothes after you take them off when you buy cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn t have gum on it, because that way it won t hold up well after the wash  (Kincaid, 53). At the same time as she is being lectured on the values of performing her household chores, the  girl  is being lectured on how to be a woman within the confines of her social situation. The speaker seems to have little interest in the girl s own happiness but is instead concentrated on the need of a girl to act within a certain set of rules,  on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming  (53). The latter half of this line is important as Kincaid repeats it throughout the story, to show how sex and sexuality have a big influence on the lives of women in modern society. More importantly it draws attention to the unequal view of sexuality between genders if the narrator were speaking to a son, it is unlikely that first of all the story would read as a list of chores and secondly that sexuality would be addressed at all. Boys, as a rule, are given more freedom to explore themselves within this context, without being judged a  slut.  The idea that the girl s mother expects her daughter to become a slut runs throughout but it is not an actual accusation so much as a warning of things to come if she does not follow her mother s advice. In the black and white view of the narrator, a woman is either good or a slut, there is no in-between.

There are but a couple instances in the story when the girl answers back both are simply minor protests. Warned by her mother not to  sing benna in Sunday school  (53), the girl protests in what seems a meek tone,  but I don t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school  (53). It is not the tone but rather the infrequency of the girl s voice in the story that implies a meek acceptance to the lessons taught by her mother. This is no weak woman, the narrator she has the knowledge and strength of her own experience and conflicts. Through her directives, she shows a kind of absolute power and confidence in the herself and her place in the world.  Some of her advice equally contradicts the inferior position of femininity she seems to preach. While in one instance she is telling the girl,  don t squat down to play marbles   you are not a boy, you know  (54) and showing her differing ideas of behavior for men and women, she later describes to her daughter the covert power of feminine manipulation. In dealing with men, the narrator tells the girl,  this is how to bully a man this is how a man bullies you this is how to love a man, and if that doesn t work there are other ways  (54). While woman may be restricted by the roles assigned to them in society, she still retains a power than runs throughout the whole narrative in the strong voice of the mother. The second and last response from the girl seems only minor, and like the protestation concerning benna is delivered in a passive tone, concerns the baker but is a lead in for the exasperated conclusion of a mother who has just lectured her daughter to little avail. The girl asks in response to her mother s advice to squeeze the bread,  what if the baker won t let me feel the bread  (54). Reading this comment in her stark understanding of the world, where a daughter is either saint or sinner, the mother responds,  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  (54). This is, of course, simply another way of repeating her line about the girl becoming a slut. What is important is that this is not the mere tough love of mother to daughter but is indicative of an entire idea running beneath the surface of society. This mother, clinging to the gender roles of the past, is continuing the tradition with her own daughter. Where tradition fails shame and guilt take over.

While Brent Staples essay is neither about gender, it is about his relationship to the world around him. Staples essay describes his experiences living as a black man in society and how the perceptions of that society are based more on stereotypes than actual people. Beginning his essay with,  My first victim was a woman,  he denotes feelings of irritation in the tone of sarcasm and the play on words and perception (40). Having been perceived the enemy though he walks at a distance from the woman, Staples is aware that the fear of such people is neither practical nor respectful of his individuality. Like the female role described in  Girl,  society has placed Staples within the role of intimidator simply because of the color of his skin. The woman does not merely express her fear in body language but actually physically flees from the danger she believes to be inherent in a sole black man walking at night. Such a reaction creates conflicting and broiling emotions in Staples, and he notes,  I was surprised, embarrassed and dismayed all at one. Her flight  made me feel like an accomplice to tyranny  (40). He has unwittingly fallen into a role created and propagated by a society that fails to understand his own personal identity and that of African Americans in general.

Up until this point, Staples had not experienced this type of reaction from another but it is a reaction he will become all too familiar with as his life progresses,  In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear  (41). It is a language of the body, that is seen in the quickly retreating steps of the lone female  victim and in the  thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver   black, white, male or female   hammering down the locks  (41) of their car doors against him as he crosses the street. More importantly it is a language spoken without prompting from Staples and is simply a reaction to his race. In these beholders, he is broken down to a base image that has very little to do with Staples own actions,  As a boy ... I came to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on. I chose, perhaps unconsciously, to remain a shadow   timid, but a survivor  (41).. As the mother figure in  Girl  sees women as falling into two categories, either slut or saint, Staples comes to the realization that a black man walking alone at night fits into only one category regardless of his own personal inclinations. In a society where people lock their doors against him, cross to the other side of the street when they see him walking toward them, he has no choice in his public role. Even in the work environment, he is mistaken for a burglar and on the street he encounters not only fearful pedestrians but overzealous police. Staples notes that he has learned to cope with the unreasonable fear he seems to inspire,  I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal. Not to do so would surely have led to madness  (42). He takes precautions against the assumptions of society, in his dress and more tellingly through humming classical melodies as he walks alone. A lone criminal humming strains from Vivaldi is so at odds with societys image of danger that it in effect dismantles the entire theory upon which it is based. Staples calls this his  equivalent of the cowbell hikers wear when they are in bear country  (42).

At the heart of both story and essay is the idea that while we struggle against the roles defined and enforced by society it seems to ultimately be a struggle of futility. Kincaids  Girl  will always find herself under the loving and judgmental eye of a maternal force that adheres to and propagates the traditional role of women. Similarly, Staples essay in not about overcoming the racism at the heart of his own experiences of being made a criminal by association but instead he adapts to it. Both show how important the roles assigned to us in life can be in who we become and how we are perceived by the world at large.