An Analysis Of Julia Alvarez's Daughter Of Invention

In Julia Alvarez’s short story “Daughter of Invention” the speaker needed to read and Write to save her life. In this character’s case, she needed to read and write to save her social life. In as an immigrant who moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States, she needs to become part of the culture of the country. Learning English and be able to speak the language well is important to being accepted into the culture. She described United States culture as hostile and “took root in the language” to help merge herself with the culture (). Without, learning the language, how to write she would be forever be shunned by the English speakers in the United States. This would make her life extremely difficult because in the United States

In “Daughter of Invention” the speaker was having trouble writing a speech that one of her teachers wanted her to give at an assembly. She was having trouble writing the speech so she read a Whitman poem that her father got her from a thrift store near his work (). She was inspired by the poem so she was able to right the whole speech that night. That was the first time that she ever full expressed herself while writing. The final and most obvious similarity between the two pieces of literature was that both speakers were bullied. Alexie stated in his essay that he “fought with my classmates on a daily basis” this was because his classmates did not like him participating in class because it made them feel stupid ( ). The speaker in “daughter of invention” had rocks thrown at her and her sisters because she was an immigrant (). Even with these similarities, the speakers were in situations that were different from each other’s. In the speaker in “Daughter of Invention” was an immigrant from The Dominican republic English was not here first

Also, in Alexie’s situation he’s expected to be mediocre by both students and teachers alike because he was a “dumb Indian” (). While the speaker in daughter mentioned was encouraged to share and read in front of the class by her teachers. Since, both of their School environments were different they each had a different schooling experience. Finally, they both grew up in different cultures. The Speaker in “Daughter of Invention” what is a Dominican- American, so she had the conflict between the Dominican culture where she was expected to be a housekeeper/mother and the American culture where she could be anything she wanted to be (). While Alexie grew up on a Native American reservation in the United States in a different culture then she did. These differences in their situations affected the meaning or reading and writing for both of the characters giving them a different Perspective on what the mean of reading and writing. The speaker in “daughter of invention” saw the meaning of writing as a way to express herself, while Alexie saw it as a chance to learn and get more intelligent. In daughter of invention, being from the Dominican Republic the speaker was expected grow up to be mother someday(). However, the American culture made her realize that she could be whatever she