Welcome Back Everyone!
To follow up on my last post, A New Society and finally put a close to my commentary-trilogy posts on Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents today I will be telling you guys my final thoughts about the author’s techniques, the captivating theme, and my final thoughts on the novel.
Heart and Mind
The first thing that caught my attention while reading the novel is the change in narrator. The story is told by the perspectives on the Garcia sisters but mainly through the narration of Yolanda. In every chapter there is a change in the narrator of the story and it allows the reader to thoroughly understand the lives that all of the sisters lived with their family. Yolanda is the most frequent narrator out of of all of the characters, she tells the story in first person and lures the reader into her life by doing so. While Yolanda is narrating, the audience begins to sympathize with her, understand her problems, and agree with her points of view, all of which help develop an emotion bond with the character. A change in narration also establishes a strong change in tone. Each sister has a distinctively different personality which the audience can feel as the story switches the narration. With each chapter there is a new tone and mood of the novel which furthers the reader’s understanding of who the sisters are. As Alvarez chooses to change the narration, she also chooses to change the mood of the novel allowing the audience to form connection with each of the sisters and relating to some more than others. With the exception of one chapter, which was told by the maid, every chapter allows the reader learn about the family as if they were part of the family. Alvarez used this narration technique in order for the readers to not only understand the girls and their journeys but to feel part of it. The use of third person narration also allows the audience to look at the family with an outside perspective, allowing the audience to form their own thoughts on the family without having the constant biased opinions that they would typically form while hearing the story from the sisters directly.
By the story being told in a reversed chronological order it also lets the audience evaluate what events and situations where the ones that changed the sister’s lives and outlooks on the world. By starting at the end of their journey and working the way towards the start, Alvarez clearly establishes the character development for each sister. Starting at the end also adds curiosity in the reader’s mind to discover what their beginning was like. Telling the story from the end makes the audience more invested in the novel and intrigued to discover what their lives where like before. This technique makes it easier for the audience to critique the sisters, determine their major changing points, and reflect on their lives as the sisters do the same. These techniques allow the audience to not only feel intellectually invested in the story but also feel an emotional connection with the sisters.
Message
Photo By: Pixabay
This novel is a compelling story on the journey of self discovery. It follows the life of four sister who have been taken out of their home and brought into a new world in which they don’t understand the language, people, or culture. The author is able to compare the sister’s perspectives on the world and themselves from when they were young to when they became adults. Their journey of self discovery is focused especially on the cultural aspects that many modern Latino families currently struggle with. Finding the balance between staying true to your roots and adapting to a new place in one for which is very hard to find. The protagonist, Yolanda, goes through a rough journey of loving the Dominican Republic, then trying to remove it’s culture from her, but eventually realizing that it’s part of the woman that she became. Beyond a simple story of migration or coming of age, this novel encompasses the struggle and pressures that immigrant children face while trying to dominate two cultures. They feel the pressure to fit into their new society yet a responsibility (sometimes turned into guilt) of staying connected to their heritage. Finding this balance between two cultures, languages, and locations is a very difficult one to accomplish. The reader sees how living only in the Dominican Republic was easy for the girls because they only had to worry about adapting and fitting in into one culture. But once they have moved to the U.S the sisters feel the pressure of quickly conforming to their new country and culture. With a sense of rush to try to fit into the U.S, the sisters also rush to forget their Latino roots. As mentioned before, finding the balance between two cultures is hard but what becomes harder is the decision of which aspects on each culture to adapt to one’s life. For example, Yolanda soon realized that the way that her career in poetry advanced in the U.S was far more superior than how it would in the Dominican Republic, so aspects of jobs and educations she learned from the American lifestyle. But Yolanda also realized that with romance, she was Latina. She did not understand the American men nor did she feel as if they respected her, with her struggle between finding herself within those these two cultures she eventually understood that she was not ready for love.
Thoughts
Photo By: Pixabay
This novel demonstrated how important it is to find pride fro your culture and to embrace it because it truly becomes such a grand part of ones life. It’s trough culture that we learn our different customs and develop ideals about the world. Learning two cultures can be difficult for the personal growth of a person. Each culture around is the world is distinctively unique from one another and when having two or more cultures in one’s life it can be a challenge to determine what parts of each culture should be embraced. The struggle between having two cultures influence your life was the reason as to why I choose this novel. I personally struggled with finding pride in my Colombia heritage during the first few years of me moving to the U.S. The most important thing for me was to blend into the American culture and the struggles that the sisters faced by not knowing which cu,are should be more prominent in their lives, I faced as well. I really appreciated the authenticity of the text and how relatable these experiences were to my personal life. I think that there wasn’t something specific that I didn’t like about the novel (since I could so strongly relate to it) but I would like there to be more information of the specific differences between Latino culture and the American one. Finally, I would absolutely recommend this novel to all of you! This novel goes beyond a coming of age story, it shows the real difficulties that young kids have to faced when they are thrown into a new society and they struggle between not forgetting your past but embracing the future.
Be Effortless 