"The Changeling" by Judith Ortiz Cofer

Judith Ortiz Cofer is a Puerto Rican author who was born in 1952. She has written poems and short stories with an emphasis on woman's rights and the Latino culture. Cofer frequently uses her own experiences in combination with her imagination in order to create a unique perspective.

The Changeling
Judith Ortiz Cofer

As a young girl
vying for my father's attention,
I invented a game that made him look up
from his reading and shake his head
as if both baffled and amused.

In my brother's closet, I'd change
into his dungarees -- the rough material
molding me into boy shape; hide
my long hair under an army helmet
he'd been given by Father, and emerge
transformed into the legendary Ché
of grown-up talk.

Strutting around the room,
I'd tell of life in the mountains,
of carnage and rivers of blood,
and of manly feasts with rum and music
to celebrate victories para la libertad.
He would listen with a smile
to my tales of battles and brotherhood
until Mother called us to dinner.

She was not amused
by my transformations, sternly forbidding me
from sitting down with them as a man.
She'd order me back to the dark cubicle
that smelled of adventure, to shed
my costume, to braid my hair furiously
with blind hands, and to return invisible,
as myself,
to the real world of her kitchen.


In "The Changeling" by Judith Ortiz Cofer, Cofer appears to use herself as the speaker and writes from her childhood growing up in Puerto Rico. Her desperate attempts to gain the attention of her father are only outweighed by her mother's disapproval her the way she goes about it. Cofer uses role playing in order to grab attention of her father by taking on a persona of a Cuban revolutionist. In this way Cofer serves as a model for how many young girls must act in order to feel like they truly belong in the world. Her father fails to acknowledge her even on a basic level without her feigning the identity of something more amusing than herself. 

In being from the perspective of Cofer, it is made evident that she has figured out who she has to be around the different members of her family. Her father only will recognize her when she takes on other figures while her mother refuses to serve her dinner until she removes her latest costume. The internal conflict that Cofer experienced is similar to what many young girls feel on a daily basis, having to act like someone other than themselves in order to be treated with respect from certain people. In my opinion, I believe that the mother in the poem recognizes this trend and tries to set her straight by making her remove the outfit. She has lived through that situation before and gives her best attempt to try and keep her daughter on the path of being herself. "The real world of the kitchen," is what lies beyond the walls of childhood and Cofer's mother is only trying to prepare her daughter for what is to come while Cofer has to invent "a game that made him lift up from his reading," in order to illicit a response from her father.