The Only Daughter Summary Essay

In the story “The Only Daughter,” by Sandra Cisneros, the author describes how being the only daughter in a family with six sons made her the person who she is today. This story begins by the author explaining how she grew up spending a lot of time alone because she had six brothers and none of them wanted to play with a girl. This helped to develop her as a writer because it allowed her to spend time alone to think, read, and write. The author describes how she is part of a large working-class Mexican-American family, and how tradition and culture is very important to her father. The author was born in Chicago, and then they moved to Mexico City during her childhood because her father was homesick, but eventually moved back to Chicago. As she grew up and went to college to get an education, her father’s main concern was for her to find a husband. He was disappointed that his daughter did not marry, and he was not interested in or proud of her writing. This upsets the author, and she describes how she is constantly looking for her father’s approval. Every story she writes, she wishes he would read and be proud of her. After she develops her career and becomes successful, she returns to her parents’ home for a holiday dinner with her family. On this day, she brings her father a copy of one of her stories that has been translated into Spanish, because he does not read English. The author is surprised when her father carefully and slowly reads the story. When he is finished, the father appears to be happy and proud of the daughter, even asking “Where can we get more copies of this for the relatives?”. This makes the author extremely happy and satisfied because she has finally gained her father’s respect and approval, and she says that this is the “most wonderful” thing she could have asked for. This story shows how being the only daughter in a family with six sons made her the person she is today, because she worked hard to get the approval of her family.