ONLY DAUGHTER

By SANDRA CISNEROS

Std. IX EnglishUnit IIChapter III

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Sandra Cisneros

Born December 20, 1954 (age 57)Chicago, Illinois

Occupation Novelist, poet, short story writer

Nationality USA

Ethnicity Mexican American

Notable work(s)

The House on Mango Street,Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories

Notable award(s)

American Book Award, Clay McDaniel Fellowship

SPOT LIGHT ON

• Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Tree (1984). She is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Cisneros has held a variety of professional positions, working as a teacher, a counselor, a college recruiter, a poet-in-the-schools, and an arts administrator, and has maintained a strong commitment to community and literary causes. In 1998 she established the Macondo Foundation.

• Cisneros currently resides in San Antonio, Texas.

Summary•

•

   The Story is about a young girl, growing as the only daughter of six other brothers. When growing up, the father includes her as one of his “Siete Niños,” (Seven Boys). She grows up near with her six brothers, and learns a lot about each other. She wants her father to understand that she is important also, but the father diverts his attention to her brothers. Then when she is in the 5th grade, she shares her dreams to go to college, and do something with her life. Her brothers all laugh at her. Her father says  while in college, she will find a husband there. … 

•

• The father’s judgment and the common stereotype states that Her destiny is to become a good “House Wife.” But after four years of college and some time at the undergraduate school, she still hasn't got a husband let alone a boyfriend. Her father says that she has wasted her education. She later says that she always was writing for her father, and writing for mainstream culture.

• Ten years went by, and now she is now a professional writer creating works of art. Her father has developed an unwell sickness. She gives her father some of her own story to read in Spanish (Father’s native language), and he likes it a lot. At the end of reading, the father becomes very proud of her daughter.

Elements of the Story

• Plot & Setting:  Takes place Chicago, Illinois in the mid to the late 20th century, in a household of nine including six brothers and one sister

• Crisis & Conflict: The girl trying to help her father believe that she is not a statistic of some common belief, or some stereotypical theory by becoming a renounced and professional author and writer

Types of conflict:

•  External Conflict (Self vs. Man) and Internal Conflict (Self and Society).

• In this case, the external conflict is between the Daughter and the Father, and the internal conflict is between the Protagonist (Daughter) and the societal stereotype of a woman.

• Resolution: At the end of the short story, the Daughter proves to her father that she didn’t waste her education and used it for a good purpose. Her father is indeed proud of her. 

• Point of view: The narrator is telling the story in First person, using the words “I, me, my.” 

• The narrator also describes and tells the story like she was the story. 

Character Analysis  • The Protagonist (Daughter) is a very intelligent,

independent, sophisticated, and very liberal young girl who wants to deserve her father’s respect and honor. 

• As being the only Daughter, she is the minority, and the irrelevant one in her siblings.

• The way people judge her and her personality in the beginning of the story tends to represent the stereotypical idea of women in general.

• She is a living example to those who beat the stereotype of the common “House Wife” and of those who challenged society’s thought

Theme

Even if you feel unappreciated by society and even disregarded and rejected because you are the minority of the crowd, at the end, your true colors will shine and people will respect you for the person you truly are…

Read to understand

• In a Mexican family, the sons are more useful than the daughters. They can get a job and provide for the family but the daughters are expected to stay home and cook and clean.

• She was the only daughter, therefore she wasn't allowed to play with her brothers because they were too embarrassed to be seen playing with a girl. Being the only daughter left her to be by herself to think about things and start writing.

• Because she could think and create things in her mind, she could write on paper to become a writer. He father expected her to go to college and find her husband.

• Because she was almost done with school and she had not found a husband. He thinks that college is for finding a husband not getting education. It allowed her to get her things done without her father bugging her about what she was doing.

• Atlast after her book he asks her where they could get more copies to give to the rest of the family.

COMPREHENSION - 1

As the only daughter in a family with six sons, Sandra Cisneros felt

• very special and privileged. 

• lonely and of less importance than her brothers.  

• she had to be an English teacher.  

• she could never have friends over to her house

2

Cisneros' father wanted his children to

• become rich and famous.  

• avoid jobs that required physical labor. 

• avoid going to college. 

• become writers.

3

For Cisneros' father, being an only daughter meant that Sandra's destiny was to become

• an English teacher. 

• a wife.  

• an engineer.  

• a nun.

4

Sandra Cisneros' father finally read one of her stories when

• her mother insisted that he do so.  

• Sandra got a high-paying publishing job.  

• Sandra came home for Christmas with a Spanish translation.  

• he got tired of watching television.

5

What did Sandra’s father say to indicate his pride in her work?

• He apologized for not acknowledging her before.  

• He wanted copies for all the relatives. 

• He asked her to autograph her story for him.  

• He offered to finance her next book.

Group questions

• 1) What upsets Cisneros about the relationship between her and her father? What kind of relationship, or reaction, does she want from her father?

• 2) In paragraph 3, how does Cisneros’s distinction between “only daughter” and “only a daughter” reveal much of what concerns her?

Contd…

• 3) What particular experience creates a significant improvement in this relationship? Why do you think this experience is so important not only to Cisneros but also to her father?

• 4) What does the author mean when she says in paragraph 5 that “I’m lucky my father believed daughters were meant for husbands. It meant it didn’t matter if I majored in something silly like English” ?

• 5) Do you think parents should make different plans and have different expectations for sons and daughters? Why or why not?

The End

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