The book YO by julia alvarez - Essay Example

Because her family members and a couple of her friends are incapable of doing anything but rail at their depiction in the “fiction story”, they each find an opportunity to redeem their images by telling their own tales and giving their sincere opinions about Yo. They give tales about her not mincing to reveal how she was always deceitful, how she stole the plot for a story from a fellow scholar (plagiarist) and not forgetting how her professor endlessly struggled to stop her from destroying her life and talent.

In Alvarez’s Yo, she narrates Yolanda’s story through different characters, while Yo is given no slightest chance to shield herself from all the “venoms” spat in her way. It is quite paradoxical in that the novel initially has Yo as the central focus and her family and close friends, who become angry when she publishes information about them, consequently uncovering private life of each one of them. Different characters are striving to set the story straight and portray the exact Yolanda Garcia they know.

Yo’s mother is depicted saying that Yo’s murky tales have endangered her life. The family is quite infuriated, especially because their associates and acquaintances keep asking them which character corresponds to them in the book. Yolanda’s mother is ominous to take legal action against her while her sisters vehemently avoid talking to her. It is true that Yo-yo loves telling stories as is confirmed by her teacher but it is this attitude that glides her into trouble. With rumors of disappearing friends, house apprehension in the middle of the night, narrow escapes as well as stories of torture chambers, Yo’s family had a reason to worry about their father’s subversive activities, let alone the likelihood of snooping Yo narrating her “stories” to the authorities.

Yo’s parents make known to her that her stories could end their lives. Did they imagine that telling Yo that her story could spell their destiny would be a punch line to the narrator? Even after leaving for the United States, Yo’s mother cannot disentangle her self from her worries about Yo’s stories. Why the visit by a case worker in school? Was Yo unleashing something about the family behind doors? Well, perhaps it is Yo’s strategy of making her family to bite a humble pie. Lou Castellucci is another character that exposes Yo true identity in self defense.

He is Yo’s student, pursuing a writing course. In the entire course, Yo criticized Castellucci’s writing. However, she motivated and assisted him to improve. Yo was very happy by the end of the course, particularly by the stories Lou could write. She takes Lou’s story and refurbishes it by changing the characters and also altered the sport from bawling to baseball. This brings out the nature of Yo as a great plagiarist. Professor Garfield is one individual who never ditched Yo. College professor is destined to reiterate the phrase “once in a career comes a student” (Alvarez 1997, pg 73) in trying to assist Yo to get through with her doctoral program in order to uncurl her already tainted life.

In many occasions, Yo would ask for his approvals or any form of assistance to bring her life back on to the right track. In fact, the professor would never let her down. Garfield got inspired by Yo and had gigantic dreams for her than she held for herself. As a tradition, many teachers usually give up on students who quit