The Ideas in Sandra Cisneross Only Daughter and Deborah Tannens Sex, Lies, and Conversation - Essay Example

? The Ideas in Sandra Cisneros’s Only Daughter and Deborah Tannen’s Sex, Lies, and Conversation: A Comparison-Contrast Essay Word Count 044 (4 pages) I. Introduction/Thesis Statement Here it will be attempted to compare and contrast ideas in Sandra Cisneros’s essay Only Daughter with Deborah Tannen’s essay Sex, Lies, and Conversation—with regard to the following elements: the purpose of gender, the structure, and the purpose of the essays; the outcomes from the two stories; and how the action of writing assists with the development of identity or answering the question ‘why’? It has been noted that, although these articles both talk about somewhat differing topics, the topics breached are just similar enough to make a comparison-contrast. II. The Purpose of Gender, The Structure, and The Purpose of the Essays The purpose of gender plays different roles within Cisneros’s and Tannen’s pieces. Cisneros makes a big deal that she was the only daughter of a family of seven children. She desperately wanted to have her father be proud of what she did: writing. “I wanted my father to understand what it was I was scribbling, to introduce me as ‘My only daughter, the writer.’ Not as ‘This is only my daughter. She teaches.’ Es maestra— teacher. Not even profesora.”1? The structure of Cisneros’s story is short and to the point. The purpose of the essay is to show how Cisneros’s professional development progressed from being basically an unknown writer to, ten years later, having had a lot of success as a writer. The purpose of gender in Tannen’s essay is to show the difference in communication patterns between men and women. “The communication problems that endanger marriage can't be fixed by mechanical engineering. They require a new conceptual framework about the role of talk in human relationships.”2 Essentially, Tannen is saying we need to be able to rework the role of conversation between men and women. The structure of the essay begins by Tannen telling a story about how women talk less in public than in men. The purpose of the essay was to draw attention to why this mix-up in communications causes divorces. The explanation for the purpose of gender in these two essays is completely different betwixt the two—and the opposite sex (men) is mentioned in Cisneros’s piece but not nearly as much as in Tannen’s. The structure of the essays were different in that Cisneros’s piece was short and Tannen’s long. Both essays had a common purpose, however, which was to see the value in womens’ contributions. III. The Outcomes From the Two Stories ? The outcome from Sandra Cisneros’s story was her professional development. “Last year, after ten years of writing professionally, the financial rewards started to trickle in. My second National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. A guest professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. My book, which sold to a major New York publishing house.”3 The outcome for Tannen was talking about what bound women together: conversation. “For women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven.”4 The explanation that draws a line in the sand between these two different pieces is that Sandra Cisneros is talking about how she, as a writer, overcame her struggles in order to become a writer and to ultimately make her father proud—which was the sole greatest achievement that Cisneros found?worthwhile to achieve. The main attraction of Tannen’s article is that she is talking about how gender differences severely impair relationships and lead to divorce. In terms of theme, the outcomes from these two storied essays are vastly different. In fact, Tannen’s assertion at the end of her piece that people who cannot work things out should just get divorced, makes all of her prior assertions about relationships seem invalid—because she is advocating divorce. This proves that she doesn’t really value the male-female relationship enough to want to preserve it—and it sounds like she is a divorcee who is angry about the way things turned out in her own love life, possibly. This is a far cry than what Cisneros was writing about, which was more about coming of age as a woman. IV. How the Action of Writing Assists With the Development of Identity or Answering the Question “Why?” Sandra Cisneros’s identity is something that she obviously struggles with in this essay. "‘It was not until this moment when I separated myself, when I considered myself truly distinct, that my writing acquired a voice.’ In her poetry and stories, Mexican American author Sandra Cisneros writes about Mexican and Mexican American women who find strength to rise above the poor conditions of their lives.” The ‘why’ of what she does is writing….why write? She wrote because she had to do it to please her father. This is finally realized when Sandra shows her first published book to her father. “When [Sandra’s father] was finally finished [reading her piece], after what seemed like hours, my father looked up and asked: ‘Where can we get more copies of this for the relatives?’”5 Sandra Cisneros was to be seen and not heard. Similarly, in Tannen’s work, women were relegated to positions in public where they did not talk as much. This was seen as a divide between men and women, which she proffered in her article—that men needed to become more talkative and women needed to rely less on conversational cues. “[A]lthough American men tend to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home.”6 The why of Tannen’s article seems to be delving at why men and women are different. However, Cisneros simply accepts the fact that men and women are treated differently in society, but she shows it better and demonstrates that fact through her storytelling. The why of Cisneros’s article is more focused towards making her father recognize her value as a woman after all the years of having been called one of the seven hijos (literally “sons,” which can also mean “children,” male and female).?? V. Conclusion These two articles—one by Sandra Cisneros and one by Deborah Tannen—were both examined with regard to the following elements: the purpose of gender, the structure, and the purpose of the essays; the outcomes from the two stories; and how the action of writing assists with the development of identity or answering the question ‘why’? It was finally determined that Cisneros’s essay was more about the development of herself as a writer instead of being relegated to the assigned gender of being the “only daughter,” whereas Tannen mainly talks about the basically almost ‘cross-cultural’ relationship between men and women. WORKS CITED Cisneros, Sandra. Only Daughter. Retrieved 28 October 2011 at: . Sandra Cisneros. Retrieved 28 October 2011 at: . Tannen, Deborah. Sex, Lies, and Conversation. Retrieved 28 October 2011 at: . Read More