Digging Julia Alvarez Analysis

Some discoveries may be the result of significant experiences that one undergoes. In moving on from these experiences, the discoveries can be provoked and have the ability to open the eyes of individuals. Gwen Harwood’s “Father and Child” explores the growth and maturation of a child. Harwood shows the juxtaposition between innocence and maturity and the way that discovering this deepens the perception one has of the world. The

Although the daughter’s shame in her mother is evident, she is also prideful of her as well. The strong love that the mother and daughter share is pervasive throughout the story. The story is being told by the daughter after she is all grown up. The fact that Jones uses such vivid detail on the mother’s preparation for her daughters first day of school shows that the daughter loved her mom and all that she did for her. The daughter recalls that her mother spent a lot of time preparing her when she says, “My mother has uncharacteristically spent nearly an hour on my hair that morning, plaiting and replaiting so that now my scalp tingles.” (Jones) She also remembers that her “pale green slip and underwear are new, the underwear having come three to a plastic package with a little girl on the front who appears to be dancing.” (Jones) The daughter having remembered details like these illustrate that she has an immense love and takes pride

The narration of the mother lecturing her daughter with commanding diction leads to the theme of women conforming to domesticity and if they don’t conform then they will lead a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive them. Women in the past believed that a woman’s role was that of a domesticated housewife. The narration of the third point of view in this story and the commanding diction of it places an importance in the reinforcement of this idea, that if a woman doesn’t follow social norms, she will eventually turn to a “slut” one that her family will be ashamed of. She must set the table for lunch and for breakfast that is “how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know [her] very well, and that it the way they won’t recognize immediately the slut that [the mother has] warned her against becoming.”(Kincaid 485) through her commanding diction, the mother is telling her daughter how to set a table, how to cook, she

Growing up Soto’s life at home wasn’t ideal and he never had high hopes for it. Soto’s family was Mexican American so he was born into a Chicano culture. Every one of their jobs, even his as a child, was some type of physical labor, “and he worked in the fields as an agricultural laborer and as a low-paid

Parental guidance plays a great role in shaping society. When children have the opportunity to grow to maturity with a parental figure, they find themselves better able to mature and become an integral part of society. Similarly, in the 20th century dystopian novels Lord of The Flies by William Golding and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the utilization of an absence of parental guiding figures in children’s lives allows each author to show that, should children lack such guidance, they have to acquire knowledge and mature on their own, which leads to problems later in the children’s lives.

Many people describe the role as a mother and a wife as something that is to be welcomed, a natural stage for women. However for the narrator, it changed from something seemingly beautiful to “old foul, bad...” Motherhood to her is then what creative women were to other people during the 19th century. Creativity was natural for the narrator, unlike motherhood; it was part of her being. Motherhood however, was a prison of domestic

The story is basically 2 pages of commands being told to one from another. At first, you could say the narrator was talking to a servant, telling them everything that they need to do. You might think this, until reading further that is. Shortly into the story it is very clear that these list of “commands” are being passed down from a mother to her daughter. Everything from “wash white clothes on Monday” (1) to “you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys” (10). It is very clear that the daughter is most likely a young curious teenager. She gets a lot of directions about housekeeping, but after a while you realize the point is not just about cleanliness, but about how to keep your reputation intact. As much as we would like to believe that people are not judging us by everything that we do, we realize that this story is more than a list of command on how to keep a clean house, but in fact how to keep a good social standing. By reading this story, you can tell that the mother is trying to make her daughter understand that she will be very successful in life if she maintains a sort of social class.

I believe that this quote told by Zoe that shows that she thinks wildness is defined as unusual. The reason I think this is because she says “ he’s one of us”. “ One of us” is relating to their family. Their family is very unusual. Zoe raising herself, Henry disappearing from being a heart doctor to being an artist, Wil being her unknown brother that she never knew about, and so on. I also believe that Zoe’s term of wildness is unusual because when she made that statue and they called it the “ Wild Thing”. The cat, in his perspective, explained that it resemble her. If she and Henry know that the statute resemble her they were exclaiming that she is a Wild Thing, and she has wildness inside of her. Therefore, I believe that Zoe thinks the term wildness means unusual.

From the start the girlchild was given gifts that stained in her mind as what she was suppose to become in life. With the little dolls, GE stoves and irons, and lipstick her parents put this ideal image of the perfect woman in her head. With these types of presents the girlchild is already learning her role in society.

Jose understands at a young age that in order to escape the indentured life of working in a sugar cane plantation like his ancestors before him, he must do something different. In the classroom, Jose is a very bright student as seen through his peers and especially his professor who eventually helped Jose get into a prestigious school because of his academic excellence. He assures his grandmother who is his sole provider and family that one day she’ll no longer have to work tirelessly in the sugar cane plantation. Jose dreams of taking work in a more profitable and higher field then the plantation his community is chained to all being done by attaining

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.

Childrearing is essentially a sociological term for how an individual is raised and brought up, from birth to early-adulthood. Each child is raised differently, using beliefs and values of parents/parental figures to shape their personality, attitudes, and lifestyle. In Annette Lareau’s Invisible Inequality, the four main aspects that anchor her article are the organization of daily life, language use, social connections, and interventions in institutions.

Inequalities between children and adults could be the laws protecting children from work, as Firestone and Holt see it not as protection but as a form of inequality as it is a way of making them more powerless and dependent to adult control. Another form of adult control taken to the extreme is the use of physical or mental force. These actions are seen as the ‘dark side’ of family where children are victims of oppression. Other inequalities are the parental control over children’s space, the control over children’s time, the control over children’s bodies and the control over children’s access to resources. These inequalities contradict ‘March of progress’ view and sees society not becoming child centered, but instead child oppressing.

The narrator also manifest idea of what it is to be women in this time period and what is expected from her. She reveals this by explaining how she is not what she should be. She comments on Janie and compares herself to her when she states, “she is perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for not better profession, I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!” (Gilman 545). This quote is informing the reader that the ‘perfect’ woman in this time is a housekeeper who sticks to traditional woman roles of housekeeping. This also shows how women are criticized for being writers and it is a profession that is unusual for a woman. In this story, the narrator also discusses how she in not happy in her marriage by stating

One major thing that affects our personal identity is the people around us, and the people that have the most effect on us is our family. The main character’s mother and grandmother pushes her to “act like a girl” Her mother pushes the ideals of girls upon her. “She was plotting now to get me to stay in the house more, although she knew I hated it (because she knew I hated it) and keep me from working for my father.” Her mother wants her to stay in the house to do work. At this point the main character doesn’t really realize that perhaps her mother is lonely and isn’t just pushing her to “act like a girl”. "And then I can use her more in the house," I heard my mother say."