Julia Alvarez

1
Julia Alvarez

• Antojos
• Latin American Author

2
Background

• Born in NYC
• Raised in Dominican Republic until the age of
  10fled as political refugees
• Used writing as a way to find her cultural
  identity being uprooted so young

3
Works

• Volumes of poetry Homecoming (1984), The Other
  Side (1995), and The Woman I Kept to Myself
  (2004).
• Novels How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
  (1991), In the Time of the Butterflies (1994),
  Yo! (1997) and In the Name of Salomé (2000).
• Her fiction, like her poetry, deals with both the
  immigrant experience and her own bicultural
  identity.

4
Antojos

• Became the first chapter of How the Garcia Girls
  lost their Accents
• Antojos means cravings in Spanish
• Cravingconnotations?
• Why title it in Spanish and write it in English?

5
Setting

• A windy country road in the Dominican Republic.
  It is specific because this is about a journey
  that the main character takes and her cultural
  confusion which can only take place outside her
  home in a place that should be her home.
• Yolandas journeylike a windy country road

6
Tone

• The tone is elegiac/nostalgic longing for
  somethingmaybe a bit illusive and confused

7
Conflict

• Main conflict internal it is her struggle to
  find a closer connection with her homeland even
  though she feels somewhat alienated at times.
• Sub-conflicts
• Man vs. nature/technology she struggles to fix
  her car and remove herself from danger.

8
Literary Elements

• Flashback thinking about her home thinking
  about her time with her aunts
• Foreshadowing the bumpy road indicates something
  might happen
• Motif Palmolive
• Symbolism guavasantojospossession by an
  island spirit demanding its dueclue to the
  conflict

9
Theme

• Values are connected to culture and we need to
  focus in on the values that we really feel rather
  than ones we can never attain.
• Language is power
• Life is journey