“First muse” tell us about he life in The Dominican Republic. She starts to read The Thousand and One Nights book under her bed. She saw her self reflected in the dark haired almond-eyed girl on the book cover. Alvarez identify with the bright ambitious girl stuck in a kingdom that didn’t think females were very important. Scheherazade gave Alvarez the courage to explore the power of storytelling.
When Alvarez came to the United States it was very difficult for her especially as a child who got teased on the playground for her accent. As the tine went be Alvarez became a writer. She got married like Scheherazade and used to tell stories to her husband just like her “Muse”” Scheherazade.
Alvarez read the story and saw her self in Scheherazade story. The author says, “Scheherazade could have been a Dominican girl dark haired, almond eyed, with color in her skin”. Alvarez said that because during the story she compared her life with Scheherazade while reading the Thousand and One Night. Alvarez was living under a dictatorship. According to the author ‘we were living in a dictatorship, complete with spies, late-night disappearances, torture,
And death” She said this because she didn’t have a pleasant life under the dictatorship. A lot of violence, this connects to Scheherazade’s life because they both were living under a dictatorship. The sultan of Persia would marry a new woman then killed it, and in “First muse” the dictator would kill anybody that conspires against him. Alvarez and Scheherazade had a similar life.
Alvarez used to skip school to read. According to the author “here I am under this bed in the middle of a school day”. The reason she was hiding under the bed was to avoid having to go to school. She said school was deadly and boring. What she was learning in school had nothing to do with the dangerous world around her. She felt that the book of Scheherazade had similarities to her life like dictatorship and a lot of danger. Also the book The Thousand and One Night was about dictatorship just like the life she was living. Alvarez left to the United States with her family.
According to the author “ Looking back now, I can see that my path as a writer began in that playground” She started writing ever since the boys in the playground bullied her
because she didn’t speak English. That pushed her to start writing, and that was how she was going to revenge them. This connects with Scheherazade because she used to write stories to her husband to make him stop killing woman.
After Alvarez got divorced twice happiness surprised her. According to the author “ I found a true companero for the women I had become” Alvarez finally found a partner, she told stories to him over the night just like Scheherazade did with the king. Alvarez saw Scheherazade reflection everywhere.
“First muse” by Julia Alvarez is important because it shows people that woman can become someone important. Woman is not always good to just stay home. Those women can stop the violence against woman. Just like Scheherazade did.
