![]() ![]() The feeling of alienation overcomes the protagonist of the poem she feels detached from reality and clings to her family clothing and familiar scenes of her past in an attempt to come to terms with her present life, a reflection for the most part of her lonely childhood. Paradoxically, her care and diligence seem to be unnoticed her housework is constantly taken for granted by her family, who apparently only establish communication with the narrator to scold and warn her of the possible consequences of getting distracted from her daily routine. The narrator highlights the importance of her task, her responsibility to her family, who are expecting her contribution to the domestic tasks, so that they can wear freshly ironed clothes every morning. ![]() Thus, the narrative voice does not complain about the absence of love in her family but their lack of time to express it, a working routine that makes her feel abandoned and alienated from the other members of the family. The second stanza recalls memories of an always busy mother, doing strenuous domestic work that occupies a precious time her daughter claims as hers. The memory of this narrator, undoubtedly Alvarez’s alter ego, moves to the fore images of her father’s back “cramped and worried with work,” of “the collapsed arms” waiting to be hugged by his loved ones in the first stanza or part of the poem. The clothes she irons still carry the imprint of overworked bodies, yelling for a long night’s rest and showing the history of a long life of effort and hard labor. The domestic scene is transformed into a time of longing and reflection upon the history written on the family’s bodies. She presses the wrinkles of her parents’ clothing, trying to liberate them from their problems, pains, and conflicts while she maps her childhood in a household too busy for love. These sketches deal exactly with doing the family housework: she sweeps, dusts, makes the beds, does laundry, and, in this story, irons the laundry of her family both literally and symbolically. ![]() The first part of Homecoming, entitled “Housekeeping,” to which “Ironing Their Clothes” belongs, is composed of sketches. Alvarez creates an alter ego to review her childhood, contemplating it from the distance that age provides. The collection is narrated by an adult female voice trying to recompose scenes from her childhood and coming to terms with current events in her present life. This poem-a short story in prose-first appeared in an issue of the journal 13th Moon, devoted to American women’s writing. “Ironing Their Clothes” belongs to Homecoming, the first poetry collection published by Julia Alvarez, a collection of narrative poems that focus on domestic life, where the author uses family images to reconstruct her family’s past. ![]() In 2013, she received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama.Analysis of Julia Alvarez’s Ironing Their Clothes Ten years later, the family was forced to flee to the United States because of her father’s involvement in a plot to overthrow the dictator, Trujillo.Īlvarez has written novels ( How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, ¡Yo!, In the Name of Salomé, Saving the World, Afterlife), collections of poems ( Homecoming, The Other Side/ El Otro Lado, The Woman I Kept to Myself), nonfiction ( Something to Declare, Once Upon A Quinceañera, and A Wedding in Haiti), and numerous books for young readers (including the Tía Lola Stories series, Before We Were Free, finding miracles, Return to Sender and Where Do They Go?).Īlvarez’s awards include the Pura Belpré and Américas Awards for her books for young readers, the Hispanic Heritage Award, and the F. Born in New York City in 1950, Julia Alvarez's parents returned to their native country, Dominican Republic, shortly after her birth. ![]()
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