Judith Ortiz Cofer's Volar

“Volar” is a short story about a Puerto Rican immigrant family written by Judith Ortiz Cofer. The family immigrates into the United States in order to have a supposed better life., The American dream is often defined as that dream of a land in which dreams come true, and unfortunately and ironically enough this isn’t the circumstance that this Puerto Rican family is facing. I will analyze literary elements of symbols by using the dreams of the protagonist, the little girl, from Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “Volar” to demonstrate the theme of the impossible dream; which is that American dream that she will never be able to achieve due to her family’s circumstances. When many people think of the American dream, they think of it as something concrete; meaning that if they work as hard as they can their work will pay off and they will be able to obtain a large amounts of money and other material

The most concrete dreams are of physical appearance. The little girl loves reading a comic book with a female character named Supergirl and has a dream that she, “…had long blond hair and could fly” (Par. ). In her dream, she would transform into what she sees as a beautiful and perfect girl who has long legs, large breasts, and straight, golden hair. The little girl is Hispanic so she has dark hair and skin, subconsciously the little girl pictures herself like this in her dreams in order to feel accepted in the new world she is being introduced to. However, she obviously can’t change her physical appearance to be that ideal beautiful image that she portrays so often in her dreams. Every morning, she awakens to find herself back in her bedroom in her own body, “…my tight curls still clinging to my head, skinny arms and legs and flat chest