Dusting

I chose Dusting by Julia Alvarez because it is about a young woman and her relationship with her mother. I unfortunately do not have a great relationship with my mother and I confide in my father for a lot of things. Alvarez describes the anger she feels about her mother erasing her mark in the world. She is upset with the fact that her mother doesn't strive to be something better in life than a housewife. She has dreams to be something big and something wonderful. The me in the poem is my need to strive to be something special. I want to be someone that people remember for my hard work and my personality. My mother encourages me to do the things that I want but holds me back sometimes and compares me to my sister. In the end it makes me want to do that much more to prove to her that we are both talented women. The poignancy in the poem lies in the last line and ending with the punch of the word anonymous. The wisdom that is lurking is whether she this occurrence actually happened or if she is just using it to represent the life her mother leads.