Only Daughter

 

Only Daughter

-         Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros is a writer who was born in Chicago in 1954. She grew up with her Mexican father, Mexican-American mother, and six brothers. As a young girl, she had few friends because her family moved frequently between Chicago and Mexico City. To ward off loneliness, she often read stories and wrote poetry. As a teenager, she continued to write but was careful to keep her work away from family members, who disapproved of her writing.

While in graduate school, Cisneros began to embrace her own cultural heritage and experiences. She learned that the people and events that had shaped her life were different from those that had influenced the lives of her classmates. This discovery helped her find her own literary voice—one that reflected her unique Mexican-American background. In 1984, Cisneros published The House on Mango Street—a series of prose articles told by a girl living in a Chicago neighborhood. Since then, she has continued to tell stories drawn from her personal history.

In “Only Daughter,” Cisneros describes her father’s ideas about the proper role of females. Coming from the culture of old Mexico, Cisneros’s father held the patriarchal beliefs of many traditional cultures—that is, he considered men as the heads of families and the leaders of society. According to his values, a woman is needed only to “become someone’s wife” and devote herself to her home and family.

Style and Voice

Sandra Cisneros is a contemporary writer who is known for her vibrant writing style. Her work is easily recognizable because of her distinctive voice. In literature, a voice is a writer’s use of language in a way that allows readers to “hear” a personality in his or her writing. In “Only Daughter,” Cisneros states:

At Christmas, I flew home to Chicago. The house was throbbing, same as always; hot tamales and sweet tamales hissing in my mother’s pressure cooker, and everybody—my mother, six brothers, wives, babies, aunts, cousins—talking too loud and at the same time. . . .

Cisneros’s use of conversational language, vivid images, and lyrical sentences gives readers a sense of her own lively spirit

Connotations

The images and feelings connected with a word are its connotations. Throbbing and pulsating both mean “beating,” but throbbing implies strength and energy, and pulsating implies regularity. How would pulsating change the meaning of line 75 if it were substituted for throbbing?

Imagery

Imagery is the descriptive words and phrases a writer uses to create a sensory experience for the reader. Reread lines 86–89, noting how Cisneros used vivid sensory images to allow the reader to visualize the father’s room. Why do you think Cisneros chose to relate these specific details of her father’s room to the reader?

# Text Criticism

“Only Daughter” was first published in Glamour, a monthly magazine that is read almost exclusively by women, many of whom are young and single. Does this information affect your understanding of Cisneros’s purpose for writing the personal essay? Explain your response.

# Examine Style and Voice

Cisneros’s writing style is often marked by a use of conversational language and fragmented sentences. How might your sense of Cisneros and her experiences be different if “Only Daughter” had been written with more formal words and sentence structures?

# Identify Theme

In “Only Daughter,” what theme about female roles does Cisneros communicate through her relationship with her father? Support your answer with evidence from the essay.