The American Dream is an ideal that through hard work and dedication, everyone is given equal opportunity to achieve happiness and prosperity. This dream is seen in all shapes and sizes, and through Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and Something To Declare By Julia Alvarez, we are able to see many different types of these dreams play out. In Their Eyes Were Watching God’s first few chapters we are introduced to Janie’s first husband, Logan Killocks. Logan had asked for Janie’s hand in marriage because he wanted a wife, but love was not the main priority for him with this marriage. Unlike what Janie was hoping for, he was really marrying her because he needed her to cook, clean, and look after things inside of the house. His
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She walks us through memories of her as a child. Through these stories, we are able to get a glance of how her huge Dominican family functions. In Julia’s first short story, “Grandfather’s Blessing”, we meet Julia’s grandfather. He is the patriarch of their enormous family. Julia reiterates how she and her cousins would have a few short minutes of one on one time with their grandfather whenever they visited. The minutes were typically always spent the same way, their grandfather would ask what they were going to do when they grew up. Many of the grandsons would boast about how they were going to be an engineer just like their grandfather. The granddaughters would typically tell their grandfather that they wanted to be a teacher or some other thing that was suitable for a woman. Julia on the other hand was different she would tell him that she would like to be a bullfighter or a cowboy. Growing up Julia went through a plethora of ideas. When she shared those types of ideas with her grandfather Julia knew when he did not approve. Her grandfather said things like, “Bullfighter?!” (Alvarez 4) and would chuckle. When Julia entered her teens, almost every one of her ideas had been turned down and disputed by the family. One day, Julia was visiting some distant cousins when she heard about one of the cousins dreams to become a poet. This immediately fascinated her; she said, “I had never in the world considered that books had that kind of power” (Alvarez 8). Suddenly, she finally had a new idea for her future. The next time she saw her grandfather, she was ecstatic, and when she told him, his face lit up. Julia didn’t see the same face she was used to seeing when she told him her ideas. No, this time Julia saw approval. From this point in time, Julia knew her dream. She was going to be a
She walks us through memories of her as a child. Through these stories, we are able to get a glance of how her huge Dominican family functions. In Julia’s first short story, “Grandfather’s Blessing”, we meet Julia’s grandfather. He is the patriarch of their enormous family. Julia reiterates how she and her cousins would have a few short minutes of one on one time with their grandfather whenever they visited. The minutes were typically always spent the same way, their grandfather would ask what they were going to do when they grew up. Many of the grandsons would boast about how they were going to be an engineer just like their grandfather. The granddaughters would typically tell their grandfather that they wanted to be a teacher or some other thing that was suitable for a woman. Julia on the other hand was different she would tell him that she would like to be a bullfighter or a cowboy. Growing up Julia went through a plethora of ideas. When she shared those types of ideas with her grandfather Julia knew when he did not approve. Her grandfather said things like, “Bullfighter?!” (Alvarez 4) and would chuckle. When Julia entered her teens, almost every one of her ideas had been turned down and disputed by the family. One day, Julia was visiting some distant cousins when she heard about one of the cousins dreams to become a poet. This immediately fascinated her; she said, “I had never in the world considered that books had that kind of power” (Alvarez 8). Suddenly, she finally had a new idea for her future. The next time she saw her grandfather, she was ecstatic, and when she told him, his face lit up. Julia didn’t see the same face she was used to seeing when she told him her ideas. No, this time Julia saw approval. From this point in time, Julia knew her dream. She was going to be a