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    The Girl Who Can Critical Analysis

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    Harshika Arora
    The story follows 7-year-old Adjoa and her perceptions of her mother and grandmother's behaviors and silences. Adjoa finds her grandmother's reactions confusing at times. The usage of a child narrator limits what can be described since Adjoa doesn't have the vocabulary to fully analyze the implications of her observations. Adjoa absorbs more than she expresses about the world of adults.

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    The Girl Who Can Critical Analysis

    Uploaded by

    Harshika Arora
    186 views1 page
    The story follows 7-year-old Adjoa and her perceptions of her mother and grandmother's behaviors and silences. Adjoa finds her grandmother's reactions confusing at times. The usage of a child narrator limits what can be described since Adjoa doesn't have the vocabulary to fully analyze the implications of her observations. Adjoa absorbs more than she expresses about the world of adults.

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    The story follows 7-year-old Adjoa and her perceptions of her mother and grandmother's behaviors and silences. Adjoa finds her grandmother's reactions confusing at times. The usage of a child narrator limits what can be described since Adjoa doesn't have the vocabulary to fully analyze the implications of her observations. Adjoa absorbs more than she expresses about the world of adults.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    186 views1 page

    The Girl Who Can Critical Analysis

    Uploaded by

    Harshika Arora
    The story follows 7-year-old Adjoa and her perceptions of her mother and grandmother's behaviors and silences. Adjoa finds her grandmother's reactions confusing at times. The usage of a child narrator limits what can be described since Adjoa doesn't have the vocabulary to fully analyze the implications of her observations. Adjoa absorbs more than she expresses about the world of adults.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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     The Girl Who Can and Other Stories is Aidoo’s second book of short stories published in 1997.

    The anthology has stories with strong female protagonists. There are various issues and
    concerns addressed in all the stories. Most of them deal with maternity and reproductive issues,
    feminism, societal definitions of gender roles, misogyny, influence of postcolonialism etc. Most
    of the stories are written in a clear and conversational prose, drawing from the oral literary
    tradition of the Fanti people. The conversational writing style of Aidoo enables us to witness the
    lives of the characters very closely.
     Written in first person narrative, it deals with the life of a seven years old girl, Adjoa who lives in
    a house with her mother whom she calls Maami and her grandmother whom she calls Nana.
    Adjoa is a bright young girl who finds it hard to express herself without being silenced or
    ridiculed. She is often perplexed at the duality of Nana’s approach. She is either met with a
    shocked Nana who forbids her from repeating her statements sometimes, and other times she
    finds Nana racked with laughter over their childlike innocence and repeats them to her friends
    and neighbours. Young Adjoa is confused at this hypocrisy of the grown-ups. Her thoughts are
    stifled as she doesn’t know if she should express herself or be quiet.
     the usage of the child narrator limits the narrative since she can’t describe her mother’s
    silences. She articulates the incomprehensible silences within the context of her mother’s
    supposed failures in marriage and birthing a girl with thin legs. She understands the implications
    of the hushed protests and defeated tones, but she doesn’t possess the requisite socio-political
    vocabulary to analyze them. ‘By making the girl-child the narrative voice in this story, Aidoo
    makes the reclaiming of voice for girl-children a universal prerogative.
     Adjoa is the narrator but she isn’t ubiquitous. She sees and remarks upon looks, silences, and
    sounds of her family life but leaves her mother’s and grandmother’s thoughts to speculation.
    The girl child navigates the world of adults and absorbs more than she expresses. Her silent
    remarks to herself about the elders’ambiguous behaviours are reminiscent of the universal
    childhood experiences.
     Maami’s silence serves dual purpose. It demonstrates her own marginalization within the small
    family headed by a rigid Nana. At the same time, her small voice gives her daughter moral
    strength and encourages her to ask inconvenient questions. Her opinions are truncated and
    denied by the constant reminder of her unfortunate past. Women who don’t fit neatly into the
    socially prescribed roles are deliberately silenced and pushed to the margins. Adjoa’s defiance is
    a disruption of Maami’s silence. She speaks for herself and her gagged mother. Education and
    athletic ability empower her to speak out.
     The long walk from home to school and back is the confluence of grandmother’s tradition and
    Adjoa’s modernity. The novelty of running brings with it a sense of introspection of the
    traditional structures of culture.

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