syn. admiring, caring, fond, devoted
From Sandra Cisneros' "Only Daughter"
I'm not sure if it was because my story was translated into Spanish, or because it was published in Mexico, or perhaps because my story dealt with Tepeyac, the colonia my father was raised in, but at any rate, my father punched the mute button on his remote control and read my story.
I sat on the bed next to my father and waited. He read it very slowly. As if he were reading each line over and over. He laughed at all the right places and read lines he liked out loud. He pointed and asked questions: "Is this So-and-so?" "Yes," I said. He kept reading.
When he was finally finished, after what seemed like hours, my father looked up and asked: "Where can we get more copies of this for the relatives?"
Of all the wonderful things that happened to me last year, that was the most wonderful.
Sandra Cisneros, as she overcomes her struggle as the only daughter in a Mexican family of six sons, affectionately describes the first time she makes her father proud as a writer. At first, Cisneros' tone seems angry, because she assumes her father wants to read her story for selfish reasons. However, her attitude surely and pleasantly changes as she observes her father, noting that he reads her story "as if he were reading each line over and over" and that he "laughed at all the right places", according to her. These detections slowly change Cisneros' opinion of her father; at first she thinks he is sexist and unappreciative, but she realizes he is actually overjoyed at her accomplishments. Her recognition is confirmed in the second to last sentence, when her father is so proud that he wants all the relatives to read his daughter's story. An obvious rush of affection is present in the last sentence of the passage and of the story, when Cisneros happily admits that this new connection with her father was the "most wonderful" of "all the wonderful things" that had happened to her in the past year. An underlying admiration and respect for her father is also present throughout this passage in her four-time repetition of the clarification "my father", although a simple "he" is sufficient. This personalization adds to the fond tone of the passage.
Cisneros, Sandra. "Only Daughter." The Bedford Reader. Ed. X. J. Kennedy,
Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's,
2002. 568-571.