Question

How would "Girl” be different if it were called "Boy”? Discuss the cultural assumptions behind your response.

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"Girl" would be different if it were called "Boy" because it would highlight attributes that society values in men rather than women. Bret Anthony Johnston's "Boy" was written as a response and companion piece to "Girl" and emphasizes the values of courage, stoicism, and practicality as quintessentially masculine.

Answer

There is no doubt that many responses to Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" have been composed in literature and creative writing classes. One response which has been published and is now often studied alongside Kincaid's piece is Bret Anthony Johnston's "Boy." This piece, which is in a similar form to Kincaid's origina, and might be called a short story, a poem, or a dramatic monologue, is attached below.
"Girl" instructs the addressee in the arts of domesticity, cooking and cleaning, how to behave around men, and, most crucially, maintaining a good reputation. For a girl in a traditional society, this means creating an appearance (which is more important than the reality) of purity and respectability. Johnston's "Boy begins,

Twist your fist when you connect and tear the other man’s skin; aim for the bridge of his nose, his throat

This may seem to be the opposite of the advice given to the girl, but this is only the case in the sense that male and female are seen as opposite sexes with opposing social roles. The speaker of "Boy" is instructing the boy to safeguard his reputation with violence. Just as the worst insult for a girl is "slut," a word Kincaid repeats as an awful warning, the boy is told that he must avoid becoming a "coward" at all costs. The speaker emphasizes the values of courage, stoicism, and practical skills.
Your response, of course, might be quite different from Johnston's, but the cultural assumptions in his "Boy" are a precise mirror of those made by the speaker in Kincaid's "Girl," making "Boy" a useful starting point or companion piece.

Answer

Structurally, we could infer that a short story titled "Boy" would look completely different. If you recall, the actual short story, "Girl," is written as one dense paragraph of directives given by a mother to help her socioeconomically disadvantaged daughter in a patriarchal society. Because the daughter effectively has no voice in this culture, she has little to no voice even as the subordinate to her mother; when she does speak, it appears as slight interjections in italics, effectively lost in her mother's desperate rant to protect her daughter from mistakes that would lessen her status in their culture.
However, in a short story titled, "Boy," it is likely the structure would appear as a dialogue rather than a directive. Multiple paragraphs would be present, as well as dialogue tags and quotation marks, making it evident who is speaking and that it is an equal exchange. Even if the socioeconomic status of the "boy" in this imagined story was the same as the girl in the actual story, his status as a male would still gain him the right to a conversation, rather than a command. At the very least, in a situation where he would be commanded, he would be afforded the honor of quotation marks and a separate paragraph.

Answer

If "Girl" were actually called "Boy," I think we would be shocked by the kinds of instructions that the speaker offers the "girl" to whom she speaks. The speaker addresses how and when to wash clothes, how to cook certain foods, how to eat politely, how to "walk like a lady and not like [a] slut," how to sew, how to keep a house clean, how to set a table, how to stretch one's domestic resources, and so on and so forth regarding many responsibilities often considered to be "women's work." Further, the speaker is apparently gravely concerned about the titular girl's sexual reputation and making sure that she does not behave in a way that would be sexually shameful. We do not typically hear people speaking to boys like this, so we might actually assume that the "Boy" of the title is the speaker, rather than the person being spoken to. With the title "Girl," we assume the person being spoken to is a girl, but with the title "Boy," we would probably think that the boy is the speaker, because no one would say these things to a boy.

Answer

The short piece "Girl," by Jamaica Kincaid, is all about the expectations and roles of women, as well as young girls becoming women, in a patriarchal society. If the piece were named "Boy," the expectations and instructions would be completely different, and I suspect, less accusatory and careful.
"Girl" begins with an unidentified narrator, who is presumably an older woman and probably a female relative of the titular "Girl," listing instructions for domestic chores. For example, white clothes are washed on Monday and colored clothes on Tuesday. As the narrator continues through these basic tasks, she peppers her advice and commands with more pointed remarks about the girl's sexuality:

on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming...
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...

These instructions are only relevant to girls becoming women. Boys would not have been told this same advice. The classic double standard demands that girls/women preserve their purity and their reputations, while boys are allowed to gain "experience" before marriage. A boy would not be called "a slut" or warned against becoming one. The advice from this older female narrator sounds harsh, but the fact is that the girl probably needs to marry to secure a livelihood for herself, and if she has the reputation of a "slut," she will not be able to find a proper husband.
The whole of "Girl" combines instructions for domestic life along with warnings against sexuality. These tasks would only be performed by women, who would also be the ones so concerned about their sexual purity. Therefore, a similar piece entitled "Boy" would be completely different from what we see in "Girl."

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How would "Girl” be different if it were called "Boy”? Discuss the cultural assumptions behind your response.

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