A Brief Summary Of The Story Daughter Of Invention By Julia Alvarez

The world is full with so many different invention. Everywhere you look there is a new one or an old one sitting right in front of you. It is the ambition of many to be able to show the world what they can create, and those beings are known as inventors. Yet, inventors are always the people who create objects, they can also create a process. In some cases, those who invent, want to create something new to express themselves and to show their freedom. In the story Daughter of Invention by Julia Alvarez, Cukita is able to express that herself, and family, desire to have in America. Cukita moved traveled from the Dominican Republic with her family to live in America. They wanted to acquire work, freedom, and a voice. Throughout the book Daughter

While in reality, the story branches off from this determination of Cukita's mother. Her mother is a determined, unknown inventor who desires to create something that she can put her name on for all to see. From the start the author states, “She always invented at night… But in her lightened corner, like one devoted scholar burning the midnight oil, my mother was inventing, sheets pulled to her lap, pillows propped up behind her, her reading glasses riding the bridge of her nose like a schoolmarm’s” (Alvarez 1) Cukita’s mother would stay up, hours into the night, just to come up with and draw new inventions. She would look at all the inventions that Cukita’s father brought home, and then come up with more. She was very set-on finding an invention that she could create. And yet, she never made her inventions reality, only left them as drawings. At some point, when Cukita’s mother saw a new inventions that was like one she had mad, she began to realize that she could be successful, “She would have to start taking herself more seriously” (Alvarez 4). Although she was never able to create them, it shows that Cukita’s mom wanted to have a voice and she wanted to assure herself and others that she was free in

But, it is the beginning of a new challenge for herself. The weekend before she is supposed to give her speech, she has no idea what to write. She wanted to be able to express herself and give a voice to her freedom. Finally she has an idea late the night before, “I started to write, recklessly, three, five pages, looking up once only to see my father passing by the hall on tiptoe. When I was done, I read over my words, and my eyes filled. I Finally sounded like myself in English” (Alvarez 5). At this point of time, Cukita knows that she is allowed to say her mind, and that her opinions can be spoken to others. Cukita’s father on the other hand, does not know this, “By now, my father was truly furious. I suppose it was bad enough I was rebelling, but here was my mother joining forces with me… He snatched my speech out of my hands, held it before my panicking eyes, a vengeful, mad look in his own, and then once, twice, three, four, countless times, he tore my prize to shreds” (Alvarez 7). Her father believed that it was not showing appreciation at all, and that it was expressing a sort of bragging. Cukita’s father destroyed something that he thought to be disrespectful and that his daughter believed to be her voice and freedom. But Cukita did write it, and she was able to find herself, to show herself to her new