An Analysis of Julia Alvarez's The Daughter of Invention
Weiji Li
Essay
2/3/15
The Daughter of Invention "The Daughter of Invention" is one of the stories from the novel "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents "(1991), which relates the experiences of the author's experience of her family's immigration from Dominican Republic to America, the author, Julia Alveraz, uses her personal experience to show the intercultural idea of identity formation, the struggles an immigrant family do to the new culture, and the internal and external conflicts such as the change of people's minds, people's minds toward a new culture, and so on... As the narrator, Cukita, has emigrated to America, she faces internal conflict toward herself, she tries to become a real American girl, she tries to find her new identity in this new country, " We wanted to become Americans and my father and my mother, at first--would have none of it."(1079) "Here, we were trying to fit in America among Americans; we needed help figuring out who we were..." (1080) This quote shows that the narrator, Cukita has a strong desire to fit in the new country and find her identity. When the narrator is asked to give a speech in ninth grade, she gets inspiration from Whitman’s poem “ ‘He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.’ The poet’s words shocked and thrilled me.”(1082) “I finally sounded like myself in English!” Cukita finds her writing style by reading Whitman’s poem, she is influenced by the poem, and tries to break the traditional limitation, and writes her own speech and expresses her personal thought. Moreover, Cukita also faces external conflicts, her conflicts with the society and her parents, “Back in the Dminican Republic, I was a terrible student. No one could ever get me to sit down to a book.” (1081) This quote revels a contrast between the society of Dominican Republic and that of America, it also shows to readers that Cukita has totally different feeling after she lived in America, that is an example of her external
Essay
2/3/15
The Daughter of Invention "The Daughter of Invention" is one of the stories from the novel "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents "(1991), which relates the experiences of the author's experience of her family's immigration from Dominican Republic to America, the author, Julia Alveraz, uses her personal experience to show the intercultural idea of identity formation, the struggles an immigrant family do to the new culture, and the internal and external conflicts such as the change of people's minds, people's minds toward a new culture, and so on... As the narrator, Cukita, has emigrated to America, she faces internal conflict toward herself, she tries to become a real American girl, she tries to find her new identity in this new country, " We wanted to become Americans and my father and my mother, at first--would have none of it."(1079) "Here, we were trying to fit in America among Americans; we needed help figuring out who we were..." (1080) This quote shows that the narrator, Cukita has a strong desire to fit in the new country and find her identity. When the narrator is asked to give a speech in ninth grade, she gets inspiration from Whitman’s poem “ ‘He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.’ The poet’s words shocked and thrilled me.”(1082) “I finally sounded like myself in English!” Cukita finds her writing style by reading Whitman’s poem, she is influenced by the poem, and tries to break the traditional limitation, and writes her own speech and expresses her personal thought. Moreover, Cukita also faces external conflicts, her conflicts with the society and her parents, “Back in the Dminican Republic, I was a terrible student. No one could ever get me to sit down to a book.” (1081) This quote revels a contrast between the society of Dominican Republic and that of America, it also shows to readers that Cukita has totally different feeling after she lived in America, that is an example of her external