Previous
Setting
Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Good Medicine:
Throughout the story, Mother is extremely judgmental towards what she sees as her daughter’s burgeoning promiscuity. She says repeatedly that the girl is “bent on becoming” a “slut,” an outcome she clearly condemns. From Mother's comments about women known for promiscuity, the reader might expect her to warn her daughter off of sex altogether. However, in an instance of situational irony, Mother gives her daughter advice on how to induce abortion:
This is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child.
Mother expects her daughter to transgress restrictive sexual norms, not just by having sex but by having autonomy over her own body, controlling the circumstances of childbirth. She meets the hypothetical of an unwanted child not with judgment but with a practical solution. The recipe for herbal abortion follows a series of recipes for food and cold medicine, implying that sex and abortion are natural and normal parts of life just like nourishment and illness. There is an ironic contradiction between the idealized social norm of chastity and the practical social ubiquity of abortion. This irony provides some insight into Mother as a character, as well. She is sympathetic to the girl, not just tyrannical. She enforces the same patriarchal restrictions that she experiences—not because they are easy for her to bear, but because she has internalized them.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Instructions:
A central irony at play in “Girl” is the idea that femininity is considered natural and innate but also seems to require an elaborate training manual of sorts (which the story itself functions as). The fact that Mother has to specifically tell her daughter how to behave as a girl contradicts her apparent investment in gender essentialism, or the idea that there are innate biological traits associated with a person's birth sex. This implied belief is observable when she says:
Don’t squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know.
The phrase "you know" indicates that this is self-evident information. If gender really did come with certain inherent traits, it would not be necessary for Mother to lay out intricate rules for her daughter. The story plays with this irony, ultimately inviting readers to consider the ways in which gender norms have been socially constructed—it is only because society has cultivated a specific set of gendered expectations that it's necessary for someone like Mother to teach her daughter how to be a girl. She sees these rules to womanhood as necessary for survival. Explaining them to her daughter is almost a mercy, a required kindness. And yet, her participation in patriarchy, by passing these norms on to her daughter, is precisely what perpetuates the patriarchy.
Related Themes:
