A Mission to Gain Freedom from Oppression

Karizma Bowens

Professor Weinstein

ENG 12 (Section 40)

2 November 2016

A Mission to Gain Freedom from Oppression

In the short story, “The Daughter of Invention” by Julia Alvarez is about an immigrant family who comes to America to live and while here the children face troubles at school and home, the father owns a successful business, but fears anyone in a uniform, and the mother is on a mission to become a true American, which Alvarez examines through the theme freedom from oppression. Throughout the passage Alvarez shows the conflicts between the father and himself, father and his wife, father and his outspoken daughter and the father and authority.

        The Dominican Republic left serious scars on the father. After years of living under a dictatorship government he has not yet adjusted to the mindset that he is safe in America. One night when he is woken up by his wife’s squeal of excitement, which he thought was a cry for help he says, “Que pasa? Que pasa?” with terror in his voice and eyes like he had the day they left. He had reason to believe that she was in trouble because of the government they once lived under. In the Dominican Republic the father was being followed and watched so his first thought when he heard her yell was that she needed help, He was so frighten that when he reached for his glasses he knocked them all the way across the room. He remembers his wife’s scream from when they were in their old country and her scream that night brought back so many unwanted memories. These nightmares will haunt him until he can understand that in America we live under a democratic government, we believe in and rule by the saying of the people, for the people, by the people. Additionally, that we have the bill of rights and amendments which help the people have a say or have a right to have an opinion. As a man your duty is to protect and that is why he was on guard when he heard her. He is so severely scarred that he dreams of those long nights and awful days. In other words he wants to be free but he can’t because he won’t let himself. He is too afraid of punishment although he isn’t in the Dominican Republic anymore.

        There are many differences between an overly protective father and a father who wants to dictate their family’s lives. The father wants his child to accept and create an outstanding speech just not if it’ll cause her any harm. The narrator was given the task of creating and reciting a speech at the school assembly. She struggles to find something to talk about at first but as time narrowed down she got an idea and ran with it. When she finished the first person she read it to was her mother, who loved it dearly. The mother says, “That is a beautiful, beautiful speech, Cukita. I want your father to hear it before he goes to sleep. Then I will type it for you, all right.” This shows how supportive and proud her mother is of her. Also, this reveals that she is not afraid of the government unlike her husband and she wants her daughter to be like her. Before she reads the speech to her father he is excited to hear what she’d come up with and after she’s done reading, his facial expression went from happy to vexed. This demonstrates that he is furious with what he heard. The father whispers, “You will permit her to read that?” His anger reveals that he is remembering his days back when he was under a dictatorship government still resonate with him. The father is extremely upset and forbids her to repeat the speech again. This is not to say, that he doesn’t want her to speak her mind, but rather he is just very afraid of the actions that will be taken against his daughter if she goes to school and they hear the disrespect coming from her to authority. Back in the Dominican Republic, expressing yourself was not allowed and if there was evidence of this crime, that person would be punished severely. Her father is trying to protect his child by ripping up the evidence. The mother and daughter are in disbelief by his reaction. The mother loved the speech, the daughter loved the speech, why doesn’t the father? He is so terrified that she’ll be punished for the speech so he rips it up. As her father he protected her by doing this act, if he ripped it up she can’t be penalized. To put it another way he was getting rid of evidence. He knew that her speech would insult her teachers and couldn’t allow that to happen because he knows the punishment for stating your opinions, but he is in America and is failing to realize that every citizen has freedom of speech. Some readers may challenge my views by insisting that the father is showing actions of a dictator and not a protective parent. On one hand he is showing certain traits of a dictator, but on the other he is more focused on protecting his offspring rather than controlling.