In “Girl,” a woman's domestic duties are the predominant representations of her social and bodily subjugation. The girl's mother reels off domestic tasks to represent instructions on how to be the “girl” idealized by the protagonist's culture and society. The mother's advice: “this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep an entire house; this is how you sweep a yard” (Kincaid), is described as suffocating for a young, impressionable girl. In female society, seemingly every girl is destined to lose against the overwhelming cultural pressures that shape her destiny, including the protagonist. This theme is also woven through the specific regional foods faced by the girl's mother, with food becoming a vehicle to shackle the girl to the ideals of previous generations and shackle her to her future slave in a cult of domesticity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay From “salted fish” to “pumpkin pancakes” (Kincaid), food is a representation of her mother's domestic accomplishments that she wants her daughter to carry forward for their own future family. As the girl presumably follows her mother's path, the story illustrates the form that post-colonization slavery of girls takes in Caribbean culture. By highlighting cultural stereotypes of what women and girls should look like, Kincaid shows the harm society does to girls through the imposition of rigid domestic standards. Another story, "Mack!", uses humor extensively to satirize the typical American sense of masculinity and to highlight the dark spots of the protagonist's hyper-gendered culture. Overall, the unnamed narrator's life represents that of the average traditional American family - nice house in the suburbs, dutiful wife who takes care of the children, gives the man some freedom and cooks him dinner - a perfectly ordinary existence in the our company. Thus, the occurrence of some of the most disturbing parts of the story – its perverse gender ideals, the violence propagated by the narrator, and his subsequent delirium – highlight the pervasive sense of misogyny generated by the protagonist's culture and surroundings. The narrator shouts, "We must kill him!" (Winnette) after discovering that his lover is pregnant, before letting her speak, illustrating how bodily autonomy ties into traditional ideals of masculinity in American culture. The protagonist's bloody fight with his lover's boyfriend, in which he proclaims his sperm, "the united postal service of pregnancy" (Winnette), also illustrates the gendered dichotomy of bodily autonomy within the narrator's culture: the men have the choice to argue. outside, but the woman cannot choose whether to abort her baby. Semen is seen as a symbol of this bodily autonomy associated with men; through the lens of the narrator's toxic masculinity, men are the architects of life simply because of their sperm, while women are relegated to receiving fertility objects, as well as sexual and domestic objects. The protagonist of "Mack!" he has both a wife and a mistress in Dallas; he sees the women in his life as two-dimensional symbols: one for family, one for fun. The narrator's polarized views on gender also affect his subconscious, as he battles emotional instability and insecurities after his girlfriend leaves him. Unable to face his true feelings, the main character's distorted sense of masculinity creates emotional barriers to accepting his life;.