Marcus, a freshman college student took expository writing course in spring 2013. After reading two essays, “Always Living in Spanish” by Marjorie Agosin and “Listening” by Eudora Welty, he discovered that both essays were rich in ideas, tones, and use of metaphors, rich descriptive sentences, cause, and effect among other stylistic devices. More so, Marcus determined that the essays had numerous similarities. However, Brian has to determine which of the two essays is better.
Marjorie Agosin’s “Always Living in Spanish” addresses the issue of identity in a foreign land. According to the essay, the author highlights the idea that culture can be viewed from different points of view. In the United States, factors of nationality, class, and race determine the definition of identity amongst many individuals. The author addresses all these factors affecting her because she finds it hard to uphold her identity upon arriving in the United States. Eudora Welty in her essay “Listening” emphasizes that literature made her what she eventually became and adds that literature has a unique way of connecting to every person depending on how one views it. The author’s emphasis comes apparent through the highlighting of a number of examples where literature has been instrumental in shaping her ideas and overall character. The main idea in this essay is to provide inspiration to the readers to form a relationship with literature for the accomplishment of the bigger advantages that literature can potentially accord any person.
Throughout the text, Eudora Welty employs an optimistic tone for the readers. This includes upcoming writers who have the will to learn the art of written literature. The setting, time, events, and characters of the story are all subject to the tone of the story. Marjorie Agosin’s “Always Living in Spanish” employs a regretful tone. At the beginning of the essay, the author categorically states that the English Language did not fit her themes and intuitive emotions that the Spanish language could conclusively fit and provide. The author writes that her family was “forced to live and speak in translation” (Agosin 117). Therefore, despite trying to write in English, the language did not convey her feelings and insights the way the Spanish language was able to; this shows some form of disappointment. Agosin wants her English audience to appreciate the beauty of her native Spanish language. She provides that, “the only way I could recover my usurped country and my Chilean childhood…the same way my grandparents had sung in their tongues in diasporic sites” (Agosin 117).
There are a number of similarities between the two essays. Both the two authors appreciate the importance of literature in their own contexts. Welty’s “Listening” focuses on the importance of written literature and the influences the readers to engage in reading and listening to literature. In the beginning of the text, Welty says her parents often read for her, and when she learnt to read by herself, she had experiences of all book; “…when I began reading to myself, there has never been a line that I didn’t hear” (Welty 29). These are similar sentiments aired by Marjorie Agosin. The feelings that are expressed in Agosin’s “Always Living in Spanish” are the author’s needs for the English readers to appreciate the importance of Spanish in written literature. Both authors advocate for the importance of literature but in different forms. While Welty speaks on the importance of general literature and the importance of listening and reading literature, Agosin highlights the importance of her literature in their original Spanish language. Additionally, Agosin prefers he literature to maintain their form in Spanish language; despite translators’ efforts to translate her works, once translated, the works do not fully convey the original intended meaning.
Despite the existent similarity between these two texts on addressing the importance of literature on different contexts, there are significant differences about the two texts. According to Agosin, she writes her literary works in the Spanish language to flashback the memories of her childhood days back in Chile. Agosin (23) says “for us, to write in Spanish is to always be in active pursuit of memory”. With using the word “us”, the author means and refers to all the writers from the Latin America whose writing language is Spanish. The people who could be pursuing their childhood memories are what Agosin refers to as “us”. The author uses the Spanish language to flashback the memories of their childhood in Chile. Conversely, Welty