Comparing Bingual by Rhina P. Espaillat and Bilingual Sestine by Julia Alvarez

Bilingual / Bilingüe, by Rhina P. Espaillat, and Bilingual Sestine, by Julia Alvarez, are two poems that explore the struggles that come with being bilingual. In this paragraph, the authors’ conflict with the two languages, and the tone of their poems will be compared and contrasted. In Bilingual / Bilingüe, Espaillat faces an outer conflict between wanting to learn English and her father’s desires on focus on Spanish. In the first stanza she writes, “My father liked them separate... as if aware that words might cut in two his daughter's heart... and lock the alien part.” Personification, “words might cut into [her] heart”, and the metaphor, “lock the alien part,” portray that her father fears learning a foreign language will overpower her native tongue till it establishes into her heart, and makes her forget her origin. This conflict interferes with her interest in being bilingual. In Bilingual Sestine, Alvarez witnesses an inner conflict with English and Spanish. She mentions how words like “cama, aposento, suenos in nombres ... [she] can’t translate from Spanish.” The deliberate use of Spanish words emphasize her point about how words only have a full meaning in Spanish and cannot be translated, whilst also making the reader understand her struggle with a foreign language. This supports her inner conflict about bilingualism being challenging. Furthermore, Espaillat's tone shifts from solemn to rebellious to content. She introduces her conflict in a serious, perhaps even dismal tone. However, her tone shifts to rebellious when she asks, “who can divide the world... from any child?”, and mentions how “late, in bed, [she] hoarded secret syllables.” meaning that she went against barriers to do what she was interested in. The poem ends with a content tone, as although she became bilingual, “still [her] heart was one” and that “[she’d] like to think [her father] knew that,” meaning that her identity wasn’t altered as she kept English and Spanish sides of her separate. This gradual change of tone portrays her to have a positive view towards being bilingualism. In contrast, Alvarez had a mostly bewildered tone throughout. She mentions that, “English [doubles] the world with synonyms... dizzying array of words —the world was simple and intact in Spanish—”, explaining that she prefers her native tongue more and that she struggles to manage between two opposing worlds of English and Spanish. Her overall tone between bilingualism is more negative. To conclude, in Espaillat’s poem, she faces an outer conflict with her father on trying to learn two languages, and maintains a positive tone to imply that you can be bilingual and still retain your cultural identity. Whereas, in Alvarez’s poem, she faces an inner conflict between her English and Spanish identity, and holds a negative tone as she finds the two to be so opposing, in language and culture, that she cannot maintain both of them.