Terence McCormick

Ms.Rosario Ms.Sterner

AP Lang+Comp

March 29th, 2018

Jamaica Kincaid in the short story, ​Girl​, claims that women are taught how to be

a “woman” in society and explains how their roles are and were in past history. Kincaid

writes in an aggressive tone for the readers. Kincaid supports their claim by illustrating

pathos and logos to show the current and past roles women had in society, and how

they rarely have any say in it. Kincaid’s purpose in writing this short story is to convince

the reader to see the unfairness women have to deal with so that the readers can see

the gender roles in society.

Kincaid in this short story uses rhetorical strategies a lot to push the importance

of the central idea. One of these rhetorical strategies she uses is and appeal to Pathos.

Pathos is used to persuade the audience using emotional statements and words, which

is highly effective in this story. One line Kincaid uses in the story states “On Sundays try

to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming;” By using the word

slut in her writing, she is using pathos to draw the reader in because of the effect the

word has in society. Kincaid also says in that statement “Try to walk like a lady” which is

furthering her central idea of how women are essentially forced by society to act
ladylike. Kincaid also repeats the word slut many more times throughout the story, and

in one of the lines she states “This is how to hem a dress when you see the hem

coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so

bent on becoming;” Again, she uses the word slut to essentially drill the word in your

head so when she uses it again it attracts the reader's attention to that line, which is

exactly what the case is with this statement. Kincaid says in the same line “This is how

to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down” showing that women usually are

told to conceal themselves to prevent themselves from looking like a “Slut” as she

states.

The more you read this story the more you see how Kincaid uses pathos in her

writing. A lot of it involves her using derogatory statements that men would use towards

women. One example of this form of writing is when she states “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.” Again, not only does Kincaid

use the word slut again, she also says that this is how you should act in the presence of

men so that you don’t look like a slut, essentially putting down the woman. Along with

that, the word slut is used once again, and for the same reason as the last times: to

make the line it’s associated with stand out. One more case of these certain statements

is stated towards the end of the story where Kincaid says “Be sure to wash every day,

even if it is with your own spit; Don’t squat down to play marbles--you are not a boy, you

know.” This statement being used shows the reader that society’s view on what women
should be and what they should do is based off of old standards, and believing that

women shouldn’t act like men is ignorant.

As you can see, Kincaid’s short story “Girl” is written in a way that uses rhetorical

shifts consisting mainly of pathos to grab the reader’s attention towards women’s rights

and to women’s roles in society and the unfairness in it. Kincaid also uses derogatory

sayings by using the word slut many times to use that word as a sort of key of

importance and to also bring attention to a specific part of the story.