Only Daughter

Style and Structure

1.     Where does Cisneros interrupt a narrative passage to comment on or analyze events? What does this strategy accomplish?

The author interrupts the narrative to reflect quite often throughout the essay: after talking about her brothers shunning her as a child; after discussing her father's views on her college education; after describing her father's reaction to her early writing. She follows many of her paragraphs with a brief analysis.
This strategy helps the reader to understand why these details are important. Her additional comments give the reader insight to how these moments impacted her emotionally and developmentally, and their long-term effects on her life. 

2.     Are the episodes in this essay presented in chronological order? Explain.

As the transitional expressions show, episodes are generally presented in chronological order.

3.     What transitional expressions does Cisneros use to introduce new episodes?

Cisneros has mostly used time indicated transitions: Once, several years ago, ever since, when I was in grade fifth, Last year, after ten years of writing professionally, and At Christmas.

4.     Cisneros quotes her father several times. What do we learn about him from his words?

When Cisneros quotes her father, she humanizes him by allowing him to reveal his pride in his sons, his hard physical work and desire for an easier life for his children. She also lets us see his doggedness (determination) in reading her story once presented to him in Spanish, and lets us hear his desire to share the copies of that story with relatives.

5.     Why does Cisneros devote so much space to describing her father in paragraphs 17-21? How does this portrait compare to the one she presents in paragraphs 9-11?

The details describing Cisneros’ father in paragraphs 17-21 focus on evidence of his mortality. Although she says he recovered from a stroke he had two years earlier, the bland food, his horizontal position, the vials of pills, etc. these details contrast strongly with details of her father’s mobility in paragraphs 9-11.

 Only Daughter

Purpose and Audience

1.     Although Cisneros uses many Spanish words in her essay, in most cases she defines or explains these words. What does this decision tell you about her purpose and her audience?

Ans: 

It is normal for Cisneros, as being a Mexican daughter to use many Spanish words in her writing as per needed. Spanish being her first language is sure to be portrayed in her writings and we can see a lot of such words. Those words are usually explained or defined in English again because her readers are not Spanish readers only and she has become an international writer. So in order to make her writing meaningful she uses Spanish words and to make her writing clear to understand and meaningful she again explains the Spanish words. Specially, the audience of this writing are those Mexican fathers who cannot read English but they can read Spanish language in general.

 

 

2.     What is Cisneros’ thesis? What incidents and details support this thesis?

Ans:

Cisneros’ thesis is gender inequality within her culture. Being only daughter of a working-class Mexican father and Mexican-American mother, she had to do every house chores. Many details support her thesis, her father’s pride of having six sons. Her brothers always left her alone at home. Her father believed that she would find herself a suitable husband in college. Her father never believed in her success just being a daughter. …

 

 

3.     Do you think Cisneros intends to convey a sympathetic or unsympathetic expression of her father? Explain.

Ans:

Her father, although being a conservative Mexican father, allowed her to attend college and encouraged her in her writings. He never neglected her in her moments of life. He was a different dad as compared to other Mexican dads of her times where gender inequality prevailed. So her father was always sympathetic rather than being unsympathetic. 

Furthermore, in this essay, Cisneros presents her father as sympathetic in a sense she finds him as a hardworking man who loved his family and homeland. He wanted his children no to be poor. He affirmed her writings.