Hold the mayonnaise--Julia Alvarez - Essay Example

14 November Hold the Mayonnaise- Julia Alvarez: This paper is primarily based on anautobiographical essay written by Julia Alvarez and titled “Hold the Mayonnaise”. In this essay, Alvarez offers the readers an insightful look into her personal life based on her new life involving her husband and his two young daughters, while basing her account on the estrangement she felt from her stepdaughters. This estrangement she recalls of developing from the younger members of her new family was due to the difference between Alvarez’s own cultural background and her stepdaughters’ lifestyles.

Basically, the essay provides information as to how Alvarez managed in narrowing the distance between herself and her husband’s daughters though they happened to have nothing in common. Interestingly, mayonnaise seems to form the bone of contention in this autobiographical essay because while it was especially admired by her stepdaughters, it was equally detested by her. Had she been just like her stepdaughters, tall, strapping, and particularly fond of making mayonnaise an essential ingredient of everyday meal, no problems would have occurred.

But, as she herself had been around a stepmother in her childhood years, Alvarez had eventually developed a unique ability to show real understanding and compassion towards her stepdaughters’ needs and requirements. The point is that the author could still have had certain complex difficulties with her stepdaughters even if she herself would have been a mayonnaise-lover just like her husband’s young daughters. The thing which actually made the difference and created a relation based on mutual understanding and harmony between herself and her stepdaughters was Alvarez’s genuine willingness to understand her stepdaughters’ pain and myriad problems.

This can be judged by her own words, “And I understand, more than I’d like to sometimes, my stepdaughters’ pain” (Alvarez). That changed the whole scenario and ruled out virtually all difficulties, including the juvenile mayonnaise issue.