The Kiss
Nichole Martin
ENG: Introduction to Literature
Corey King
January 6, 2014
I am writing about “The Kiss” which is about a woman named Julia Alverez who was born in New York, but spent her childhood in the Dominican Republic where she returns regularly to connect to her experimental roots. Her reflections on the differences between American and Dominican political perspectives and the expectations of women in both of these cultures stand out in her writing. (Alverez, 1991)
Alverez explores conflict in her family values, tracing the alienation and bitterness that clouded up the lives the lives of a father and his strong willed daughter. Which she took control of her own sexuality violating her father’s rules and Dominican Republic cultural tradition? In what was creating unresolved differences that, years later, she attempts to reconcile through the reunion with her father and a kiss. Clugston, 2010)
They were passionate women, but their devotions were like roots; they were sunk into the past towards the old man. So far ever night in November the daughters turned back into their father’s girls in the cramped living room, surrounded by the dark oversized furniture from the old house they grew up in. The father opened his arms wide and welcomed them in his broken English: “This is your home, and never should forget it.” Inside, the mother fussed at them about their sloppy clothes, their long loose hair, their looking tired, too skinny, to made up, and so on. “Come on Papi, his daughters coaxed him, as if it was a modesty of his, to perish, and they had to talk him into staying alive. (Alverez, 1991)
The Term Paper on Julia Alvarez Sisters Women Dominican
Growing up a bicultural woman has put a spotlight on Julia Alvarez's writing as it is a myriad of diverse issues and thoughts unique to her own personality that make her stand out. Feeling a lack of identity while living in the United States has forced Alvarez to immerse herself in reading and writing, a form of escape due to her being taunted by schoolgirls for her ethnicity and accent. She puts ...
The revolution in the cold country had failed. Most of his comrades had been killed or bought off. He had escaped to this country, and now it was every man for himself, so what he made was for his girls. The father never gave his daughters money when their husbands were around. “They might receive the wrong idea,” the father once said, and although none of the daughters knew specifically what the father meant, they all understood what he was saying to them. (Clungston, 2010)
His daughters had to put up with this kind of attitude in an unsympathetic era. They grew up in the sixties. Those days were the days when wearing jeans, hoop earrings, smoking a little dope, and sleeping with their classmates were considered political acts against the military. Standing up to their father was a different matter altogether. Even as grown women, they lowered their voices in their father’s earshot when alluding to their body’s pleasure. They were all Professional women too, all three of them with degrees on the wall. Among the four sisters she was considered the plain one, with her tall, big boned body, and large featured face. She was the one with “non-stop boyfriends,” her sisters joked not without wonder and a little envy. They admired her and were always asking her advice about men. The youngest daughter had been the first to leave home. She had taken a job as a secretary and was living at home because her father had threatened to disown her if she moved out on her own. (Clugston, 2010)
The father kept his revenge for months no one could mention the daughter’s name in his presence, although he kept calling them all “Sofia” and quickly correcting himself. When the daughter’s baby girl was born, his wife put her foot down. Let him carry his grudge to the grave, she was going to Michigan to see her first grandchild. The last minute, the father relented and went along, but he might as well have stayed away. He was grim and quite the whole time, but he might as well have stayed away. He was grim and silent the whole visit, no matter how hard Sofia and her sisters tried to engage him in conversation. The father refused to set foot in his daughter’s house. They rarely spoke; the father said public things to her in the same tone of voice he used with his sons-in-law. (Alverez, 1991)
The Essay on Unborn Child Life Daughter Father
From the earliest recorded history, in Biblical times, through the late eighteen hundreds, and even in many places today, the person with a disability of any kind, has been considered a "Dog of the Earth." Although it is much better today than it was one hundred years ago, there are still people who justify the slaughtering of an unborn child by claiming that he or she will have a life altering ...
The night of the party, the family ate an early dinner before the band and guests arrived. Each daughter toasted both carouses. The toasts the daughters had kept getting interrupted. Even so, their fathers eyes glazed over with tears more than once as the four girls went through their paces. The guests began to arrive; many with tales of how they’d gotten lost on the way, the suburbs were dark and intricate like mazes with their courts and cul-de-sacs. (Alverez, 1991)
In my conclusion, I talked about what the daughters went through growing up. The things that they went through with their father were he did not approve of what they did in their life. Then when his daughters got married he still did not except their relationships at all. Then one day he was somewhat ok with who his daughters decided to marry and have kids with them.
References
Clugston, R.W. (2010).
Journey into Literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint, Inc
Alverez, Julia (1991), How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, New York: Plum
