As time passes, all human beings inevitably grow up and encounter the transition from childhood to adulthood. This transition is often referred to as the “coming of age” narrative, and it is a theme transcending literature of all time and space. As a generalized concept, everyone experiences the same coming of age story. We all mature physically and our role in society changes as we progress into the next stage of our lives. Yet, each person’s coming of age story is dramatically different due to our unique personalities and environments. The people we are surrounded by and in close relationships with heavily influence our development throughout our lifetime. At the peak of our adolescence and the beginning of our youthful adulthood, these people become even more instrumental in our lives. Mothers are key figures who shape everyone’s “coming of age” story through the relationship we maintain with them and the morals and values they pass onto us. The social, economic, political, and historical context of an individual’s environment is crucial in the development of their coming of age narrative. These aspects of society are important as they create social norms and gender roles. With these considerations in mind, I will examine these factors in their relation to the development of the “coming of age” theme within the novel Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid and the poem “Womanhood” by Catherine Anderson. Both pieces of literature center around young teenage girls who experience “becoming women” in different circumstances and environments.
In Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, Annie is strongly influenced by the relationship she has with her mother. This reflects on Annie’s coming of age because Annie needed to stop idealizing and strongly associating with her mother and face a period of rejection to separate from her mother in order to develop her individuality. To this point, Annie’s worldview has been largely manipulated by her mother’s opinions and this raises conflicts as Annie matures sexually and develops opposing views. Since Annie was a small child, she had been raised with strict views on what a proper lady looks and acts like. As Annie matures into a teenager, she starts to rebel with behavior that causes her mother to label her a slut. In this particular incident, Annie’s mother reprimands Annie for conducting herself improperly when speaking with young men in the street. Kincaid writes,
…it was filled with the word “slut,” and it was pouring in through my eyes, my ears, my nostrils, my mouth. As if to save myself, I turned to her and said, “Well, like father like son, like mother like daughter.” At that, everything stopped. The whole earth fell silent. The two black things joined together in the middle of the room separated, hers going to her, mine coming back to me. (Kincaid 102)
This passage reveals Annie’s emotions first hand. The way the word slut pours through her various facial features creates the imagery of overwhelmment. Annie cannot comprehend the anger her mother projects onto her by saying she behaved like a slut. Kincaid’s authorial choice of highlighting the word slut and using repetition to point out the “pouring in through my eyes, my ears, my nostrils, my mouth” serves to focus the reader’s attention on this specific fragment. Annie’s senses become overpowered by the feeling of anger, resentment, and disbelief. In response to this, she becomes defensive and tries to harm her mother in return. Kincaid writes “As if to save myself,” to show that Annie doesn’t truly wish to harm her mother, she just wants to defend her own honor. Therefore, Annie says “like mother like daughter.” This phrase is arguably the best arrangement of four words that describe Annie’s relationship with her mother. Her mother has passed down her objectifying perspective of women onto Annie, and even as Annie tries to rebel through her own “unladylike behavior,” we see that traditional views have become ingrained into her subconscious when she regards her mother with distance and disrespect after catching her parents have sex in a previous chapter.
As Annie’s mother becomes unapproachable and cold, Annie imitates the same behavior towards her mother. This is due to the damaging nature of their relationship in which her mother stops behaving in a loving and nurturing manner, while Annie longs for a childlike closeness with her mother. Unconsciously and unintentionally, Annie becomes very similar to her mother. The importance of this phrase is enforced as Annie states, “..everything stopped. The whole earth fell silent.” This juxtaposition of a climactic moment and the silent stillness that comes afterward serves to further enforce the significance of this dispute. Annie concludes this moment by saying, “The two black things joined together in the middle of the room separated, hers going to her, mine coming back to me.” This line is important as it shows how just like those “two black things,” Annie grows further apart from her mother. Without reaching any agreement or understanding, their mother-daughter relationship becomes cold and loveless.
Annie’s mother treats Annie with distance once Annie begins to undergo puberty. This is due to the stigmatization of female sexuality within Caribbean culture. According to Helen Pyne Timothy, the author of “Adolescent Rebellion and Gender Relations in At the Bottom of the River and Annie John”, “Kincaid’s message seems to indict the Caribbean mother: she doesn’t know how to communicate openly about the girl’s development into a sexual being.” This demonstrates how the social and gender norms of an adolescent’s environment impact their transition into adulthood. The setting of Annie John is Antigua, a British colony during the setting of the novel. Historical context is an important factor as it provides a frame of reference which explains Annie’s mother’s perception that good manners, purity, Christianity, Sunday school, and piano lessons are key towards properly fulfilling the role of an adult woman in a European context. These underlying social standards cause Annie to become rebellious against “her mother’s notions of respectability” (Timothy 240), after realizing that her mother doesn’t fully embody the chaste virtues she tries to exert onto Annie.
Catherine Anderson’s “Womanhood” is a poem describing a 15 year old girl’s coming of age story. Due to the girl’s socioeconomic position, her experience of entering adulthood centers around her entry into the workforce of a sweatshop. The poem contains vivid imagery of the happy carefree way the girl listens to music on the radio, along with the bright colors of the textiles. These bright and positive images are used to juxtapose against the silence inside the mill gate and the darkness inside the factory building, which symbolize her bleak future. The last stanza mentions the girl’s mother, who shares the same job and is burdened by the oppressive conditions of working in the sweatshop. It states:
Her entry into womanhood / will be like all the other girls’— / a cigarette and a joke. / as she strides up with the rest / to a brick factory (…) When she enters, / and the millgate closes, / final as a slap, / there will be silence. (…) 200 porch size rugs behind her before she can stop / to reach up, like her mother, / and pick the lint / out of her hair. (Anderson 7-11, 15-18, 28-32)
In this poem, the girl’s entry into womanhood is synonymous to the job she begins in the “brick factory.” Anderson states that “it will be like all the other girls’,” which is important because it further shows the reader the environment the girl is brought up in. In her neighborhood, there aren’t any choices for young women to choose the path they would like to lead into adulthood. The sweatshop is the only option they have, so they are all forced to take it. Beginning to work in the factory is also shown to be irrevocable, as the closing of the millgate is said to be “final as a slap.” The use of the word “slap” can also be used to allude to the abuse and maltreatment of workers that occurs often in sweatshops. Silence which engulfs the inside of the factory can be seen as synonymous to the lack of voice/lack of control the women have over their lives. This idea is further enforced as in the last lines of the poem where we see that her mother works in the same sweatshop. Her mother is a demonstration of what the girl’s future will become. The coming of age theme is developed in this way as Anderson displays the realities the girl must face and the new responsibilities she steps into.
Similarly to the coming of age present in Annie John, Anderson’s “Womanhood” refers to sexual maturity as a key aspect of entering womanhood. Without directly stating it, there are many allusions to sex within the poem