Question

But the spectre of delivering a speech brown-nosing the teachers jammed her imagination. At first she didn't want to and then she couldn't seem to write that speech. She should have thought of it as "a great honor," as her father called it. But she was mortified. She still had a slight accent, and she did not like to speak in public, subjecting herself to her classmates' ridicule. It also took no great figuring to see that to deliver a eulogy for a convent full of crazy, old, overweight nuns was no way to endear herself to her peers.

–“Daughter of Invention,”
Julia Alvarez

Read the passage about Yoyo. In two to three sentences, explain how language reveals a conflict she experiences.

Answer 1

The diction—words like “spectre,” “mortified,” and “jammed her imagination,” plus her refusal to praise “crazy, old, overweight nuns”—reveals Yoyo’s dread and moral distaste, showing a conflict between obligation and personal feeling. Her mention of a “slight accent” and fear of classmates’ ridicule further exposes the tension between accepting her father’s idea of a “great honor” and avoiding public humiliation.