The Tone of Short Story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid 1978

RAHMAT SETIAWAN

092154030

THE TONE OF SHORT STORY “GIRL”

BY JAMAICA KINCAID

1978

            In the story “Girl”, there is a tone which is as the view or the point from the reader. The tone in the story is about beautiful, which is to girl especially. Beautiful here means that to be a beautiful girl, a girl should have a special thing except the beauty of physical. It can be built from the attitude, behavior, clothing, and many more. It refers to the first part of the story ‘Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweat oil; soak your little clothes right after you take them off’. Those phrases are showing the works of a girl that needs patience while she does. It is a natural rule for a girl to do and nobody makes. Jamaica Kincaid tried to show that a girl can be a beautiful girl if she can make an impression. How a girl does something can show how the girl is, such as speaking, sewing, speaking, smiling, and so on. Not only those, the clothing is also makes an impression to her. Because, it can make a bad sense to the girl if doesn’t wear bad cloth. It refers to ‘On Sunday tries to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming’. A girl will look beauty if she can place things in right places and times. But it is not only about placing; the things should be done carefully. So that is why, the girl will not get mistakes. The mistakes show the untidy, the improper, the indecent, the immoral, the messy, the sloppy, the merciless, and the careless. Those all, can crush the beauty of a girl. So important and needed the beautiful impression for a girl because a beautiful girl is a symbol of perfectness. Perfectness of the girl just rise after not doing any mistake and doing “the rule” of lady.