Exile By Cathy Song Analysis

Julia Alvarez and Cathy Song both convey the life of an immigrant and how they are a symbol of their cultures when discovering a new lifestyle in the United States. Even though both poems being set in the past, they have stories that the reader can relate to today. Whilst the authors portray the search for identity, they articulate the reason to leave their home, write in different formats, but have similar themes.
Alvarez and Song show the reasoning of why the characters left their homes, but these reasons contrast, showing the reader the variation in emotion. ‘Exile’ explained how Julia and her family had to leave the Dominican Republic randomly in the middle of the night and the title is called ‘Exile’ as they were banished from the country.
‘Exile’ starts with the title but before the poem even begins it starts with the setting and year to emphasise to the reader when the family was deported from the Dominican Republic, “Ciudad Trujillo, New York City, 1960” (Alvarez 434). This shows the reader how archaic the poem is and that Julia would never forget when this happened as it was such an impactful childhood memory. On the other hand, ‘Lost Sister’ is split into two sections of the poems which is labelled, ‘1’ and ‘2’ which draws attention to that there are two different people and their lives are contrasted dramatically. It urges the reader to really look at the differences as the author would not have put the numbers there. ‘Exile’ was written in a strict four line stanza, unlike ‘Lost Sister’ which was written in free verse. Song may have done this as the main character wanted to pour out her thoughts and feelings to the reader as she consecutively used enjambment. This can be powerful because the character’s mood slowly changes and becomes unhappy as she explains the differences of America from China. ‘Exile’, even though Alvarez used enjambment, she employed a stricter form. Alvarez does this because unlike Song’s main character, Julia may have felt a lot more emotions that she may have wanted to say everything on her mind to the reader, but then became empty with words to explain how she came to the United States. Through form, both Song and Alvarez create intense emotions with the characters but with different techniques, so the reader can feel what the characters felt in the