Summary Of The Blue Estruaries By Julia Alvarez

In On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s *The Blue Estruaries, Julia Alvarez conveys the speakers discoveries of her own interests in poetry after she discovers a novel on poetry. However, the speaker doubts her abilities in the practice due to the hardships that result from her being a female. Through the use of diction and imagery, Alvarez successfully expresses the speakers realization of her interests in the matter and the immorality of shoplifting. Julia Alvarez introduces a speaker whom has recently discovered a novel that introduces her to poetry and her admiration for it. Imagery is utilized in the poem to reveal the speaker’s discovery such as when she compares it to a silence breaking, saying, “Page after page, your poems were stirring

Her infatuation with the cover as well as the imagery in the poem reveals to the speaker of their own talent in poetry. The imagery is used to further emphasize this with Alvarez describing “the swans dipped their alphabet necks in the blue black ink of the lake.” Other uses of imagery that reveal the speakers discovery as well as make the experience more meaningful to her includes “the words they swam over answered.” Imagery conveys the discovery of the

In the poem, during the first stanza while detailing the cover, the speaker begins to describe it by explaining what is not on the cover, saying “no blurbs by the big boys on back; no sassy, big haired picture to complicate the achievement; no mentors musing how they had discovered…” The repetition serves to enforce how unique this book was to the speaker. Another use of diction was line 36 when the speaker explains her doubts & worries about her lack of experience in her field, saying “my coming late into the foreign language”. In this example, foreign conveys her fears about her newly discovered field. When describing how her interest in poetry began to develop, the speaker uses words such as “breaking” and “shattering an old silence” to illustrate and distinguish just how distinct this experience has become for the speaker as well as the initial discovery of her talent, as she says “page after page, your poems were stirring my own poems - words rose, breaking the surface, shattering an old silence.” Further on, the speaker notes how her discovery of poetry has changed her and made her want to accept her poetic talents, saying “I held the book closed before me as if it were something else, a mirror reflecting someone I was becoming.” When she begins to consider on whether or not to shoplift, the speaker briefly addresses her thoughts for a moment, saying “I had no money,