Julia Alvarez writes her story in chronological order from the present to the part. This is the part that makes her story very confusing to understand and you will never know what comes next in the story. The first vignette does not reveal what happens in the story, so you need to read further to discover the Alvarez's purpose. You can't really predict what happens in the next part, which is kind of tricky. If you finish reading a vignette, you will need to go back and relate the parts back from the last vignette and then the meaning comes alive. This book is written very creatively and her use of reverse chronological order makes readers confused most of the time, but I think her purpose is that a book is not only to be read once. Alvarez wants us to read closely and understand what she is trying to tell the reader.
This book has weaknesses which makes the reader confused most of the time. The fact that it is written in chronological order is a weakness of this book because this leads off to many assumptions, and it surely made me quite confused. Another weakness about this book is about how she addresses the characters. The nicknames of the characters makes it confusing about who she is talking about and names for the characters often change and you will need to know each person's real name and their nicknames to not get confused. For example Yolanda is addressed as Yoyo in this passage, "This was Yoyo's time to herself, after she finished her homework, while her sisters were still downstairs watching TV in the basement," (Alvarez 136). Yolanda's name is written as Yoyo and you might get confused with who Yoyo is if you don't know their nickname. The abundance of characters in the book also makes it extremely confusing because it is usually not constant and it will change to another point of view without noticing. Other than the challenges that makes the book confusing, there is also good points to her writing.
Alvarez uses symbolism a lot to explain her purpose of the essay. Symbolism is used as you read along each story and it is up to you what you think that really means. When she uses symbolism in the beginning of her essay, for example the guavas that she craves for, "Yolanda keeps an eye out for guavas. Piled high on wooden stands are fruits Yolanda hasn't seen in years: pinkish-yellow mangoes, and tamarind pods oozing their rich sap, and small cashew fruits strung on a rope to keep them from bruising each other," (Alvarez 13). When at first when you read this, you might not think that guavas represent anything, nor the other foods that she saw, but as you read further on the meaning will start to come up. Guavas are used to represent her home in the Dominican Republic. She left her home when she was little and she is starting to forget the place that she grew up as a little kid. The guavas are used to help her remember the past and the days that she had spent in her home; to help her recover her memories as they are fading away. The other food that she sees around her represent the foods that she has not seen for such long time as she has spent her times in America that her taste of them is starting to come back. Such a small things as Guavas would have so much meaning and by examining the parts that build up each part, it will become more understandable.
Each and every part of this book has a purpose to it, and each story adds onto a time-line that connects each story together. Each of them has a connection to each other and because it is written in reverse chronological order, this is more challenging to understand. Don't look down on this book just because it is written in chronological order because it is not as easy to understand as you think it might be because the stories skip around going backwards. Julia Alvarez wants the reader to read this book over and over again. This book is not meant to be read once and this is probably her point in writing the book in reverse chronological order. She wants you to connect the events together when you read this book again because then you will know what happens and which vignette lead to this plot or problem.
This book is mostly about the four daughters and how they grew up as adults in the American society and adjusting to their surroundings. I thought that they each had many struggles when they moves on and each of them lives a different life. The outcomes of their struggles in America often relate to how they grew up as kids and their lack of experience in the world outside. Each of the girls path is different and each of them has a story to tell you; this is for you to find out.
For me the themes for this book include innocence, sexuality, and the dominance of men. The girls innocence in society often leaves them to be innocent about the culture and the people around them. As kids, they were not told about such things about society, so they often struggle through problems with their relationships with men. For this book, I also noticed that the men takes a lot of control over the women and the period of the story is still in the past, where women is still struggling to stand up for themselves. The daughter's dad will have a lot of control over the family and the daughters actions of what is right and wrong. There are lots of themes to be unraveled in this story, and it is for you to find out the rest.
This is a really great story when you understand Julia Alvarez's true intentions that she lead us up to. The story of four girls and their story line from the Dominican Republic to the American culture.
