"My Daughter Smokes" is a short story written by Alice Walker. It is about the narrators experience and knowledge with cigarettes, and relating them to her daughter's problem with smoking. She touches on her history as well as witnessing her father's terrible death due to cigarettes. In reference to her past with smoking, Walker attempts to convince her daughter to quit.

At first, Walker talks about her eye witness of her father's addiction with cigarettes. She speaks about how he used to smoke Camels, the same kind her daughter smokes. Also that he used to even roll his own cigarettes before all the big companies came about. Her father became so unhealthy from smoking that he had to stop every couple times to breathe while going up the stairs. Eventually it became so bad that the "self-poisoning" ended and he died.

The narrator then goes on to say how she used to smoke. She started in the eleventh grade and preferred to smoke Kools, because her sister did. Her sister's "toxic darkened lips and gums" was what she thought to be cool back then. In actuality though, the mother's body could not cope with the smoke to well, and she ended up with a chronic soar throat. Being sick for so long was a good enough reason for ceasing her bad habit altogether.

After referring to her background of smoking, the mother then goes on to talk about her opinion on the subject. In awe that people did not know smoking was addicting in the past, she wondered if her father knew. Walker thinks of smoking as a way to

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"wheeze through" life and kill yourself. However, she does think that the tobacco plant itself does serve purposes, such as medicines, just as the Native Americans utilized. The tobacco today is so abused and treated with chemicals that it is highly lethal.

As closure, the narrator's daughter quit 3 months after reading the essay. There is way too high of a risk in smoking as it results in death, as shown by the father's situation. Knowing now how abused and mistreated tobacco is would make anyone want to quit. The mother even speaks of how every house should be smoke free because it harmful to everyone. Smoking is "self-battering that also batters those who must sit by it."