Dusting by Julia Alvarez

Each morning I wrote my name

On the dusty cabinet, then crossed

The dining table in script, scrawled

In capitals on the backs of chairs,

Practicing signatures like scales

While mother followed, squirting

Linseed from a burping can

Into a crumpled-up flannel.

She erased my fingerprints

From the bookshelf and rocker,

Polished mirrors on the desk

Scribbled with my alphabets.

My name was swallowed in the towel

With which she jeweled the table tops.

The grain surfaced in the oak

And the pine grew luminous.

But I refused with every mark

To be like her, anonymous.

By Julia Alvarez

Analysis:

The poem is about a young girl who tries to leave imprints on the dusty objects in her house but are wiped away by her mother. The word dusting, means to wipe the dust off the furniture in the house but in the poem, it actually means that the young girl in the poem want to be different from her mother, erasing her mothers accomplishments and accomplish different things. Lines 17-18  “But I refused with every mark

To be like her, anonymous.“ shows us what the girl thinks about her mother’s achievements. She believes that her mother has obtained what other people would have obtained, however, her mothers achievements are like glass to her, transparent. S he does not want to be like her mother, thats why she leaves her. We will stop at nothing to be better than the other, no matter what the setbacks are thrown at us, we would never let them break us. She also scribbles the words in capital letters and she does it every morning, this shows that the young girl does not want to be like her mother and is very strong-willed not to be like her mother.

 The second stanza talks about the contradicting things that both the young girl and her mother want. From lines 12-13 Scribbled with my alphabets.

My name was swallowed in the towel. The young girls wants to accomplish different things from her mother and expresses this by keeping on scribbling things on the furniture but her mother wants  the young girl to be like her mother and shows this by keeping on cleaning away the scribbles the young girl made on the furniture. Many parents want their child to be like themselves as they believe that the child can do better that way. The child is then not able to choose their own path which they like but instead they have to follow their parents. The child would feel that their freedom has been taken away from them and the will not perform well in their studies. I believe that all parents should let their child choose what their child really wants and not force them to do something. To sum this poem up, I think it is about a young girl who wants to be different from her mother by accomplishing different things but the mother wants the young girl to be like her mother