Necklines

 

Within the extensive list of responsibilities and restrictions of Girl, it is chastity and conservativeness that springs up time and time again. The mention of an unhemmed dress is small, but significant; so much of the prose is tied up in how not to act that the physical presentation is largely overlooked, yet this comes in one of the repetitive warnings against being a slut: “this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are bent on becoming.” (Kincaid).

Though cleavage had been fashionable—and at some points in history, elegant—it was unbecoming of a wife, what the girl in Kincaid’s poem is groomed to be. The clear line drawn between the faithful, dutiful wife and the ‘slut’ she seems destined to be falls along the hem of her dress.

This image of the pure wife seems at odds with the later lesson, “this is how to throw away a child before it even becomes a child.” (Kincaid). The chastity that is informed by the high neckline of a dress is not guaranteed, and the label of ‘slut’ irrelevant. The role and appearance the girl must take on cannot keep her safe, and she must learn survival as well as aesthetic.

In Girl, the two are almost symbiotic—these skills will make you a proper wife and being a proper wife will keep you alive. The high neckline of a hemmed dress becomes more than just a scold, it becomes life-sustaining.