close reading

close reading

  • Submitted By: Amy-Zahrai
  • Date Submitted: 04/18/2016 10:53 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1065
  • Page: 5






Close Reading of a Poem
Amy Zahrai
ENG/125
April 11, 2016
Tara Webster
Close Reading of a Poem
Latina author Julia Alvarez, born in 1950 in New York of Dominican descent, has written fiction, poetry, and nonfictional prose. Her books include the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent (1991), which tells the story of four sisters and their parents who emigrate from the Dominican Republic to the United States; Something to Declare: Essays (1998); and Homecoming: New and Collected Poems (1996), which includes her first book, Homecoming (1984), as well as more recent work. The following poem is taken from that collection. My interpretation of the poet Julia Alvarez, thoughts on the poem (Woman’s Work). I believe the poet Julia Alvarez was trying to convey house work as a high art and it’s in the heart of the mother. Although at the time the daughter Julia Alvarez felt as if she was a prisoner of her mother’s house work. While her friends were outside having a good time. The mother would be teaching the daughter Julia Alvarez how house work is important and that it can be a form of high art. As the daughter Julia Alvarez became a young woman she became her mother’s child. So the thought behind the poet is that house work can be a form of high art. The mother teaches her daughter Julia Alvarez how important house work is and how you can put it in a positive form, such as high work of art. I believe the feelings Julia Alvarez was conveying was that she miss understood her mother’s point of view on the importance of working at home. Julia Alvarez was conveying how sad she was when she heard her friends outside having fun, felt as if she was a prisoner housebound and Julia Alvarez did not want to become her mother’s counterpart. Julia Alvarez believed that house work was not a high work of art. When Julia Alvarez became a young woman that is when her feelings changed. Julia Alvarez learnt the lesson...

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