Exploring the key questions in HUM
(ACMA01H3)
Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl”
1. Critic Suzanne Freeman has suggested that “What Kincaid has to tell me, she tells, with her singsong style, in a series of images that are as sweet and mysterious as the secrets that children whisper in your ear.” Following on Freeman’s observation, characterize Kincaid’s style. What are its specific components? In what ways is the story “sweet and mysterious”? How does Kincaid convey so much in such a short space?
-I do not think there is obvious hint making us know who is daughter and what she does in the story. I consider this story is about mother and daughter and mother's reaction. There is only one narrator, so we cannot distinguish clearly of the characters.
2. What is the effect of fairly precise household rules alternating with comments such as “on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”? What do you think of the mother? What do you think of the daughter? What do your answers to these questions suggest about the nature of this mother-daughter relationship?
-This story shows people that the mother is a feminist and she forces her daughter to listen to her. The mother is very mighty and the daughter has no freedom to do anything, she seems very "poor". Their relationship is very different from other mother and daughter because mother controls everything. It is not fair in their family.
3. What do you see as the central conflict in the story?
-I think the central conflict in this story is that the daughter has to do everything her mother asks to do.
4. Some of the advice given seems like it could never have been spoken, but only inferred: “this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely.” Consider the story as a form of interior monologue instead of a record of the mother’s actual voice. If the story is an interior monologue and not a dialogue, how does this change in voice/point of view affect the story’s meaning?
-It may change the personality of the mother and it makes the story softer-tone than the original one. It would show people another relationship between mother and daughter and feminism would be reduced.
5. Discuss the implications of the line, “this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child.” What do you think of the mother offering this advice to her daughter?
-The mother is a very selfish person. She may not like children and she does not want her daughter has a children. This mother might take medicine before the girl was born but he failed to do so.
6. Consider gender. Is it possible to re-imagine the story as advice from father to son? What does this in turn suggest about expectations placed on women versus those placed on men?
-It may have more things to let people think. If there was a father, the situation may be more serious. In today's society, father is a role to rule children and they generally give more direction to their children. Father controls more than mother and son can be "poorer" than girls.
David Foster Wallace, "Burned Children"
1. Analyze and discuss the story’s style in terms of “hysterical realism”—the use of extravagant language in the treatment of everyday events. In what specific ways does Wallace construct sentences to heighten the story’s horror?
-David Foster Wallace writes this article with descriptive language and he divides long sentences to short sentences to reinforce the horror of the story.
2. Analyze the function of the door that Daddy is hanging at the beginning of the story. How does it work stylistically to help Wallace pace his narrative? How does it also serve a symbolic function?
-I think the door is used to describe that baby's parents are nervous to their baby. And the pace of the door pushes the plots to reach the climax which is the baby is dead.
3. In focusing on the father’s actions, Wallace doesn’t describe the accident that scalds the toddler. Why do you think he leave this out of the story?
-To leave out the accident make people to think about more of parents' emotion at that moment. To better express the parents are painful and helpless.
4. Analyze the story’s ending, beginning with the sentence, “If you’ve never wept and want to, have a child.” Characterize the voice of this narrator. Is he sympathetic, cynical, or even cruel? What do you think of his attitude?
-I think he is sympathetic because a baby is dead and he should be sad about it. And the emotion is hard to express.
5. Discuss the life of the toddler after it grows up. How do you interpret the phrase “and saw the state of what was there”? What has happened to him? How do you interpret the phrase “and lived its life untenanted”? Is the toddler dead or alive? Or, is the story about a metaphoric or spiritual death?
-The phrase “and saw the state of what was there”? can be understood as the baby is dead and it is free after it leaves world.
6. What does the story’s title mean? Here are some of the meanings of incarnation and related words:
incarnation – a new personification of a familiar idea; “the embodiment of hope”; “the incarnation of evil”; “the very avatar of cunning”
avatar, embodiment;
personification – a person who represents an abstract quality; “she is the personification of optimism”;
deification – an embodiment of the qualities of a god; “the capitalists’ deification of capital”;
reincarnation – embodiment in a new form (especially the reappearance or a person in another form); “his reincarnation as a lion”
Incarnation – (Christianity) the Christian doctrine of the union of God and man in the person of Jesus Christ
incarnation – time passed in a particular bodily form; “he believes that his life will be better in his next incarnation”
incarnation – the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc.
-It attracts people's attention to the death of the children.
7. Despite the horror of the story, is it worthwhile to read? If so, what did you get out of the story that has meaning for you?
I believe the story is worthwhile to read because it shows parents' love to their children. But this story shows more of father than mother, which gives people an idea of father's love that is less described than mother's love. Parents' love is the greatest in the world.