Lessons Of Love Judith Cofer Analysis

The warm fuzzy feelings, the constant daydreams of “what ifs” and the smiles that come after everything they say. Crushes tend to make your day better just by appearing in your everyday life, but they are called crushes for a reason. The sudden anguish you feel when you realize they don’t feel the same way about you is demoralizing. In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s short story “Lessons of Love,” she tells of the time where she met her first love who used the way she felt against her. Her momentary infatuation is one type of character used in the story to leave anticipating readers hoping for something to happen all the while epitomizing how your own fear can trick you into seeing things differently from what they really are. Judith Cofer also uses herself to portray the ordinary character who may or may not share characteristics with yourself as a reader, and an immigrant from Poland to represent envy and one’s insecurities. These characters describe the mindset of young Judith and many other people throughout the world.

“In my mind there was no doubt that he would never notice me…He could not see me because I was a skinny Puerto Rican girl, a freshman who did not belong to any group he associated with,” is how she described herself (Cofer 159). Fiction or nonfiction, the main character of an intimate love story is usually described as ordinary as possible. They’re someone that the audience can relate to and share similar characteristics. Since Judith Cofer was writing about herself, it more than likely wasn’t that hard to make up. She is an ordinary, everyday person and her readers can relate to the way she sees herself. People love to see the beauty in the things around them but often refuse to see it in