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"It was the same mirror I'd gazed into as a child, then as a girl, then as a youth, half woman, half girl."

Educated by Tara Westover

  • What does "half woman" mean? (For example: A girl that has boyfriend?)

  • What does "half girl" mean?

Would you please explain it to me?

Note:

  • The speaker is about 25. She has a boyfriend but she is not married.

  • There is another text that contains the same phrase:

"The old man went back to his room and, sinking into his chair, covered his eyes with his hands and sat as if lost in thought—and memories. And, strangely enough, it was not of the young man he was thinking, but of a very beautiful woman, half woman, half girl, with black hair and brilliant eyes, with the blood of the South mantling in her cheeks, with the fire of the South, passionate, impetuous, uncontrollable, in eyes and cheek; a woman of fire and strong will, hard to understand, impossible to control; a woman to make or wreck a man's life. The woman whose vision rose before the old man, who sat, a bowed and desolate figure, in his chair, had wrecked his."

The Woman's Way (Esprios Classics) By Charles Garvice

Peace
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    Please consider making fewer, more significant edits. Every time you make a minor edit, it bumps your question to the top of the site. We'd like to do this a little bit less often, if possible. –  Jun 28 '18 at 13:24

4 Answers4

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The text has nothing to do with whether she has a spouse or boyfriend. She's referring to back to a past time when she was a youth, which is a noun meaning "a young person between adolescence and maturity."

The phrase "half woman, half girl" is a poetic way of saying that as a youth, she was not yet an adult, but not a child either. There were probably some ways in which she felt similar to an adult and other ways she felt similar to a child.

Canadian Yankee
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    It may have been clearer if the author had put it this way: ...then as a girl, then as a youth: half girl and half woman – Shawn V. Wilson Jun 19 '18 at 18:03
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    @Shawn V. Wilson: But when referring to individuals, "youth" is generally used only for young males. – jamesqf Jun 19 '18 at 18:29
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    @jamesqf Historically yes, but not so much in modern English. Google define and M-W both have examples using youth with females (possibly driven by the lack of a matching word to describe females at that age?). – user3067860 Jun 19 '18 at 18:36
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    I have never understood any gender to be implied by “youth.” I literally didn’t even know that was a thing. I grew up in the north-east United States. – KRyan Jun 19 '18 at 20:34
  • "Half-grown" might be a good alternative that means similar. – Michael Richardson Jun 19 '18 at 20:38
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    @MichaelRichardson "Half-grown" works, yes ; but "half [a], half [b]" is a common rhetorical pattern that most native speakers would be familiar with. – Canadian Yankee Jun 19 '18 at 21:20
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    @thb or maybe "youths" is just used for both genders now, so that comment got more votes because it's more accurate. – Kat Jun 20 '18 at 17:06
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    @thb While I definitely won't tell jamesqf he is wrong about his idio/dialect, I suspect the votes are 49 - 1 because many other native speakers disagree with him (as do I), and on an ELL site, it's important to let learners know that "youth" is definitely not males-only in many (most?) modern dialects of English. – Azor Ahai -him- Jun 20 '18 at 17:09
  • @jamesqf: I am defeated by Kat and Azor Ahai, who have replied in language more moderate than mine. I still think that you are right and they, mistaken, of course. One really ought to collect some quotes from Updike, Wolfe, Noonan, Orwell and so on, to illustrate the point, but I had better leave it there. – thb Jun 20 '18 at 18:07
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    @jamesqf Do you have a source for how often it is gendered vs not? I would say in my experience it is /generally/ not gendered in the past few decades, but of course it may not be the same everywhere. I agree with Azor Ahai that on ELL it's important to emphasize the most common usages, or at least try to identify which usages are more or less common, since English has so many traps for learners. – user3067860 Jun 20 '18 at 19:03
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    @user3067860 - Certainly in modern compound nouns, it seems to be always gender neutral: youth orchestras, youth centers, and church youth groups are all mixed-gender. – Canadian Yankee Jun 20 '18 at 19:23
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    @user3067860: Re "past few decades" and "most common usages", the point I have been trying to make is that as far as English literature (in the broad sense, not just what's considered "literature" by English professors) goes, most of it was written prior to the last few decades. So even if we accept that modern writing doesn't make a distinction, the most common usage is still the several centuries of prior writing. where not knowing the distinction could cause confusion. – jamesqf Jun 22 '18 at 04:18
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"Half woman" and "half girl" are not idioms or anything. She's trying to evoke a more literal meaning, using this "half X, half Y" construction similarly to how you could describe a mule as "half horse, half donkey" or a mermaid as "half woman, half fish". "Half woman, half girl" is one connected statement in which the narrator is describing herself as being somewhere between womanhood and girlhood but not quite fitting either (a feeling familiar to youth).

Sparksbet
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  • Not really like a mermaid, which has a dividing line between the fish part and the woman part, but yes, like a mule. Or perhaps, as you sometimes see written about emotions: e.g. "half excited, half scared". – Toby Speight Jun 20 '18 at 10:03
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    @TobySpeight The mermaid example was simply another example of how "half X, half Y" is used to indicate something that is two different things in equal measure, at it's used whether there is a dividing line or not. But yes. – Sparksbet Jun 20 '18 at 11:54
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Briefly, "half girl, half woman" practically equals Britney Spears' "not a girl, not yet a woman" which means that she has almost grown out of her childhood and she is no more a girl, but she hasn't yet become a woman. She is somewhere between still having something from a girl and already having something from a woman. Both the former and the latter can be perceived in many ways.

SovereignSun
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I do not think the expression implies that she is half one, half the other.

Instead it is a poetic device to describe someone at the cusp of adulthood, with the simultaneous qualities of both a woman and a girl. Someone who is physically beyond adolescence but without the wisdom and experiences that come with full adulthood. The awkward age girls, especially, face when they find themselves, still teens emotionally, trapped in an adult body.

The closest use of a similar metaphor that came to my mind was Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon," re-popularized in the Tarantino film Pulp Fiction.

English Major
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