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Judith Ortiz Cofen's The Changeling

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The fate of a woman

From the beginning of a girl's life she is told what she can and cannot do. In Judith Ortiz Cofen's “The Changeling” and in Mary Lady Chudleighs “To the Ladies” a young Spanish woman and a wealthy older woman resist society's restrictions on women.

In “The Changeling” the narrator is a young Spanish girl who makes up a “game/” to try to gain her father's attention. She is jealous of all of the attention that her father shows her brother. The narrator defies the typical female role and expectations by taking her brothers army helmet, knickers, and other play clothes, and dressing up in them. She pretends to “emerge

transformed into the legendary Ché of grown-up talk. /” Although this captures her father's attention for a few minutes, and even makes him …show more content…

The little girl's mother, as well as a lot of other people during this time, believe that a girl's place is in the kitchen helping her mother with things such as cooking, cleaning and setting the table. This poem is sad, the fact that a little girl is bound only to “girl toys:”, “cooking”, and “cleaning” is infuriating. Little girls are being limited to only “girl things” and aren't being allowed to use their imaginations and play how they want to play. It’s sad that a girl as young as her at this time will not be able to experience new things that she might enjoy because she's stuck “in the real world of her kitchen/”

In Mary Lady Chudleighs poem, “To The Ladies” Lady Chudleigh is very unhappy with her marriage. She believes “Wife and servant are the same/” The way her husband treats her and what her husband expects of her makes her feel this way. She is expected to “obey/” everything her “husband/” asks of her. She is not allowed to think for herself, laugh at anything she wants to laugh at, or speak to who she wishes to speak to, unless her husband “allows” her to. She sees herself as a white female slave, not a wife, not some one that is truly loved by her significant

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