"Only Daughter" Response Questions

1. What distinction does Cisneros make between being “the only daughter” and “only a

daughter”? 

    For Cisneros, being the only daughter meant that she spent much time alone because her brothers did not want to play with a girl. While being only a daughter meant that her only expectation was to get married. She was not expected to excel on any other level like her brothers were.

2. What advantages does Cisneros see in being the only daughter?  In being only a daughter?

    The advantages of being the only daughter for Cisneros meant that she had time alone to spend on her writing and poems. Being only a daughter meant that she was able to go to college and her parents did not bother her too much about what she was studying.

3. Cisneros quotes her father several times…what do we learn about him from his words?

    The impression I have of Cisneros’s father is not that he does not care about his daughter, but that he is most proud of his sons. Maybe due to his culture it is natural to unintentionally ignore the female children of the family, and spend more time with the males to make sure that they do as they are told. Her father’s only concern for Cisneros was that she gets married, and so maybe he felt that he could not help with that matter, therefore he would not be too concerned with her.

4. Do you think Cisneros intends to convey a sympathetic or unsympathetic impression of her

father?  Explain.

    I do not think that she intended to portray her father in any particular light, but instead show him for how he really was. I think that he was a little more unsympathetic than he could have been, but the final reaction he gave Cisneros made up for the past.

5. Only Daughter” ends with the line: “Of all the wonderful things that happened to me last year,

that was the most wonderful”…what “wonderful thing” is Cisneros referring to?  Why do you

think this “thing” means so much to her?

    The “wonderful thing” that Cisneros refers to is when her father read her story, laughed in all the right places, and requested copies to give to relatives. From the time that she began writing, Cisneros wanted her father to take interest in her writings and poems, she wanted him to read them and enjoy them, but up until this time the only thing he cared about was when she was going to get married. I think that this particular time meant so much to her, because that is all she wanted, approval from her father.