Literary Analysis "The Kiss"
The Kiss
In the story “The Kiss” by Julia Alvarez, we see a family with four daughters, a father and mother. The father, who is old-fashioned and strict, has his own ideas of what he wants from his daughters. The daughters except for Sofia, the youngest one, have always done what he has asked for. Sofia does not agree with her sisters and she does what she wants. She runs away with a man, a decision her father cannot forgive. Although Sofia tries to reconcile with her father with no luck, she lets her father know that she has her own way of thinking. No matter how much the father tries to change Sofia’s way of seeing life, in the end he could not. Trying to control a person does not guarantee that the other person will always do what we want.
The father of this story is a strong man, trying to control his daughters as if they were small kids. Even when they were grown-ups and married, he always tried to control them. “They would gather together, without husbands, would-be husbands, or bring-home work, the apartment was too small for everyone, the father argued.” (Alvarez 416)
His daughters will do anything to please their father. “Even after they’d been married and had their own families and often couldn’t make it for other occasions, the four daughters always came home for their father’s birthday.” (Alvarez 416) They were raised in an old fashion way, and they respect their father. “But standing up to their father was a different matter altogether. Even as grown women, they lowered their voices in their father’s earshot when alluding to their bodies’ pleasure.” (Alvarez 416)
Sofia was different she had her own way of living and did not agreed with her father. She ran away from her house and since then her relationship with her father was not good. Her father did not forgive her for what she did. “And yet, she of all the daughters, did not want to be the absent one because for the first time since she’d run off with her husband six years ago, she and her
In the story “The Kiss” by Julia Alvarez, we see a family with four daughters, a father and mother. The father, who is old-fashioned and strict, has his own ideas of what he wants from his daughters. The daughters except for Sofia, the youngest one, have always done what he has asked for. Sofia does not agree with her sisters and she does what she wants. She runs away with a man, a decision her father cannot forgive. Although Sofia tries to reconcile with her father with no luck, she lets her father know that she has her own way of thinking. No matter how much the father tries to change Sofia’s way of seeing life, in the end he could not. Trying to control a person does not guarantee that the other person will always do what we want.
The father of this story is a strong man, trying to control his daughters as if they were small kids. Even when they were grown-ups and married, he always tried to control them. “They would gather together, without husbands, would-be husbands, or bring-home work, the apartment was too small for everyone, the father argued.” (Alvarez 416)
His daughters will do anything to please their father. “Even after they’d been married and had their own families and often couldn’t make it for other occasions, the four daughters always came home for their father’s birthday.” (Alvarez 416) They were raised in an old fashion way, and they respect their father. “But standing up to their father was a different matter altogether. Even as grown women, they lowered their voices in their father’s earshot when alluding to their bodies’ pleasure.” (Alvarez 416)
Sofia was different she had her own way of living and did not agreed with her father. She ran away from her house and since then her relationship with her father was not good. Her father did not forgive her for what she did. “And yet, she of all the daughters, did not want to be the absent one because for the first time since she’d run off with her husband six years ago, she and her
Cited: Inc, 2008. Center. Gale. Cochise College. 11 Apr. 2011 <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=sier28590> Ed. Timoth B. Powll New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Universit Press, 1999