Coming from a long line of storytellers, Puerto Rican Judith Ortiz Cofer was destined to be the author of numerous poems, short stories, and autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction novels. Using both memory and imagination, with the main focus of her writing on the Latino culture and women's issues, she ingeniously intertwines her personal life and her public writings by portraying her family's relationships.
The Changeling
Judith Ortiz Cofer
As a young girl
vying for my father's attention,
I invented a game that made him look up
from his reading and shake his head
as if both baffled and amused.
In my brother's closet, I'd change
into his dungarees -- the rough material
molding me into boy shape; hide
my long hair under an army helmet
he'd been given by Father, and emerge
transformed into the legendary Ché
of grown-up talk.
Strutting around the room,
I'd tell of life in the mountains,
of carnage and rivers of blood,
and of manly feasts with rum and music
to celebrate victories para la libertad.
He would listen with a smile
to my tales of battles and brotherhood
until Mother called us to dinner.
She was not amused
by my transformations, sternly forbidding me
from sitting down with them as a man.
She'd order me back to the dark cubicle
that smelled of adventure, to shed
my costume, to braid my hair furiously
with blind hands, and to return invisible,
as myself,
to the real world of her kitchen.
Reflection:
In this poem, Judith Ortiz Cofer speaks of early her
childhood in Puerto Rico. She introduces herself as a young girl who vied for
her father’s attention. Right away, we begin to understand and identify
ourselves with young Cofer. Is she is the youngest child who fights to be
noticed? Or is she an only child who loves to be the center of attention? Our
questions are soon answered. In the
beginning of the second stanza, Cofer mentions her brother who she is clearly
jealous of. So much so that she invented a game of sneaking in her his closet
and changing into the dungarees and army helmet both given to him by their father.
Wishing they were her own, Cofer uses these articles to get her father to
notice her. Desperate to be treated with the same attention as her brother, she
hides her long hair under the helmet, molds “into boy shape” and “struts around
the room” pretending that she witnessed and endured the same hardships of war
that her father did. Unfortunately, Cofer relays that her father never
connected with her. Instead of giving her the manly attention she yearned for,
he would only “listen with a smile” and “shake his head as if both baffled and
amused” at her desperate attempts. In the final stanza, Cofer speaks of her
mother’s disapproval of her game. Young Cofer was never allowed to behave in
such a boyish way at the dinner table. She was “ordered back to the dark
cubicle that smelled of adventure” where she was forced to strip off her
costume, braid her hair, and “return invisible to the real world of her
kitchen.” At the mention of her mother’s reaction to her antics, we learn that
Cofer is furious with her mother’s rules and dismissive of her mother’s opinion
of her. By not getting the approval she seeks from either of her parents, we
see Cofer as a desperate young girl. Because she never mentions direct contact
with her brother, we view her as a dejected child who will not give up in her
attempt to fit in with the males of the household.
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