Mimosa Essay, Research Paper

Separation from their original home was one of the many past events that caused tensions and turmoil between a father and his two daughters. While each individuals thoughts about each other fluxuated between both positive and negative, one thing remained constant through out the progression of the poem, the ever enduring presence of religion, faith and its beliefs.

Religion has always had a place in the life of Vito and his family, he had his own ways of using his faith to comfort himself as well as his own visions on what a heaven would be to him, while his daughter also held a strong faith in religion. Just as the weak Mimosa plant needs support to grow or face death, each of Vito?s daughters , especially Lucia, has attached themselves to a faith, a religion to support and help themselves through life. Vito like many,

have found a place for his faith. He believed that a true heaven would be back in his homeland, back in the garden that he cared for so dearly. This garden in fact acted like his own garden of Eden. For his character was like that of the tender Mimosa plant, which when faced with the slightest touch or trouble from an outside source, would recoil its leaves and take a defense position close to the garden that it grew within. Vito would retreat to this garden to escape the

troubles of the outside world when they became unbearable. He describes the garden to us as;

"The garden that kept them little children even as adults;"

This could be taken as that it did not actually affect Vito physically young but rather it altered him mentally. He would become like Adam and Eve before evil and like that of a young child, all ignorant of all troubles. Complexity and all other dilemma?s that plagued their lives. So in this garden he would escape his troubles through the means of ignoring them and not acknowledging their existence and thus a bit closer to peace, and less degrees of separation

between himself and his God.

Though his daughters once also joined him in his "light", in essence his garden, it is said that his daughter, Lucia (an cleaver metaphor of Lucifer?) Is that of a luckless fallen angle, refusing to join him in his light. Lucifer himself was a fallen angle, and now Lucia clutches to

religion in hopes to better express herself through one of the few things she does, poetry. Lucia explores many religions looking for this type of explanation and hope. She searches from Christianity to the ancient mythology. It is quit plausible that indirectly she is searching for a savior, searching for Jesus, which we gather from her faith to religion as well as when we are

told;

"I?m looking for a man…with the bare, splintered hands of a carpenter."

Jesus like his father was a carpenter and so this subtle detail is given to us about Lucia, he longing for a savior she no longer wants to be this fallen angle. She also wishes deep down to communicate with her own father, but she has accepted the idea of her father no able to understand her own "language" as well as the thought of him being a very quite man. But in truth Vito can speak this language of dreams, this language of poetry but believes that his

daughters are not wanting of his attention, as he was given two unfruitful daughters which the favorite ignores him and become scarce. We are made aware of his ability to understand his daughters in the verse;

"…he can talk to his children in the language in which they dream, but keeps that tongue in his pocket…"

But while Vito and Lucia dealt with each other and there own problems, Marta was trapped in what it seemed as an every growing stupor of bitterness. Constantly trying to win the affection of her father, who has given it all to his favorite Lucia. Marta felt resentment and hostility toward her sister Lucia and this resulted in her not wanting to have anything to do with her. Like a

rouge, Marta would reject the pass-me down?s from Lucia, obsessed with the thought of if she accepted these things that then she would become like Lucia and she would feel controlled and distant to herself….she wished to remain as herself and win the love of her father with what she was, not as a cheap imitation of his favorite child. Though she had her faith toward Christianity

and mocked Lucia for her exploration into other various religions, she herself eventually found herself unconsciously slowly becoming into what she has dreaded for so very long, she started to begin to be influenced by Lucia over time. Marta speaks of their mother and how she was an expert of love with the sacred heart of cupid. But Marta does not refer to Cupid by that name, bu

rather she refers to him as Eros, who is the Greek god of love. And from Lucia was it were she heard of the gods of mythology. This shows that though she shows utmost resentment toward her sister Lucia that the ideals that she holds dear are gradually affecting her. By the end of Marta?s ranting and raving (I?m sorry for putting it so bluntly but I found her monologue to be the least

interesting) she demands that she only wants her "fair share" (of attention) and she wishes to tell her father about her own rendition of Mimosa. It could be perceived that Mimosa is used as a metaphor as the troubles and misfortune that clutter one?s life. Vito tells us of a tenor singing

about Mimosa and the American moon, and soon afterwards he tells of the troubles that he endured in his life. He may see Mimosa as representing his own homeland and the moon representing their new home (this could also be to represent the Americanization of everything in that time, America taking over many things)which was strong while their home, represented by the Mimosa, is like the plant that represents it, so weak and short lived. And soon afterwards

he speaks of a world without Mimosa, thus a wish for a world without his troubles.

Vito and his daughters seem lost in their own worlds, Vito in his defensive garden with his dreams of a better home and life, Marta wanting the love and affection she has so longed for and Lucia clings to her faith in order to find meaning in herself and express herself through her

"understandable" poetry which seem to subtly imply her wishes towards a better life like that her father has longed for and wished for. Unfortunately all there fates would seem to nonetheless

continue to remain as is…in a constant stasis until either of them confront the other in which they need; Vito to his daughters, Marta to Vito and Lucia to her father and of course her God.

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