Volar Judith Ortiz Cofer Summary

Imagine being a young girl dreaming of becoming a woman and flying like a super hero over your neighborhood, seeing everything that happens at night. Then, you wake up to realize you are still a young girl sleeping in your room with white “princess” furniture. This is part of the narrator’s dream in the story “Volar” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, but what exactly does this dream mean? Many details can be interpreted by analyzing the character and theme, both by using the reader response approach and the psychological approach made, mostly developed by Sigmond Freud’s theories. In “Volar” the narrator is an older version of the character. She is an older woman, but her age is unknown; we do know the narrator is most likely out of adolescence because

I know the story takes place in the United States because the narrator mentions living in a “barrio”, the footnote of this word, in the story, explains that a “barrio” is a Spanish speaking neighborhood in the United States. So, the story does take place in a Spanish speaking neighborhood in the United States of America. Although the house the family lives in is not described in great detail the readers do know there is a cluttered alley outside of the kitchen window and the girl has a small room with white “princess” furniture. In “Volar” the narrator is reflecting back to her childhood (her twelve year old self), when she would collect comic books and loved to read the comic “Supergirl”. The young girl would have dreams about becoming “Supergirl”, her hair would turn from dark curly hair to blond and straight hair, she would gain muscle, grow taller and become a woman; basically the American dream of a woman. The girl, although never named, would dream of jumping out of a window and flying over her neighborhood (the barrio). She could now see everything happening by using her super powers and even play little tricks on people, like the landlord of her parents building. She would see the landlord counting his money and the girl would blow to create a wind

This is because the girl dreams of being a beautiful superhero. She dreams of flying and the mother even says “Oh, if only I could fly”, these both indicate very powerful situations. Also, I feel that as a little girl the character is left out a lot, like when her parents are talking in the mornings and she cannot get up until her mother comes to wake her. But, the girl mentions in her dreams that she can see everything that happens, maybe because she is now a woman and is not left out like she is in her real life. Lastly, she dreams of being a superhero with super powers, this shows she wants to be powerful, but cannot be in her waking life. I believe the vision the writer, Judith Ortiz Cofer, is trying to portray is women do want to be powerful. Both the daughter and the mother want to fly and do something more with their lives, but they cannot. I believe many women could relate to the story when it was written in the mid-twentieth century. This is because at the time women were expected to be housewives and not do many extraordinary things. Also, I believe many women wanted to do powerful things, like vote and get a job, and this was a time period when the view of women’s roles was