Character Analysis Of Elena In The Tattooed Solider

In chapter three of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao author Junot Diaz delves into a theme of maternal love, the sacrifices a mother makes for the sake of her child, in his telling of the story of La Inca and Beli Cabral. The two relatives are introduced to motherhood under similar tragic circumstances, with their names adding on to the list of people wronged by the Dominican Republic’s oppressive Trujillo regime. However, when it comes to the protection of their children, neither mother conducts herself as a victim. Instead, in perhaps the most trying moments of their respective lives, both women act defiantly, spurred on by the desire to save their children from a nightmarish reality. Here lies a striking similarity between the two characters, their capacity to endure anything for their children. As such, the actions of La Inca and Beli Cabral are

In Sonia Nazario’s novel “Enrique’s Journey”, the main character, Enrique, has his mother leave him at a very young age. She must make the incredibly difficult decision of leaving her child to be able to fund his life. Throughout the novel, many adjectives are used to describe the poor conditions Lourdes had to go through just to try to make a little bit of money for her family. She receives one glimpse of hope through imagery of the United States. It is shown to us, the readers, through imagery and emotion how difficult the decision Lourdes make is for her.

Helena Maria Viramontes explores the cultural barriers and poor working conditions that Mexican migrant farm workers experience. The novel gives the reader a vivid look into the rural San Joaquin Valley through the eyes of Estrella in a further depiction of the lives and conditions of her family and migrant workers around her. Viramontes examines the daily struggle of migrant workers who have no other choice but to live in the labor camps under oppressive and sometimes life threatening conditions just to be afforded basic sustenance. It is seen where on more than one occasion the main character, Estrella, must confront the reality that many living things are suffering around her due to indigence, paired with other sources of distress that are ubiquitous in the impoverished environment.

Being a foreign born girl that belongs to a migrant can cause a hindrance on her growth, attitude, and personality. In the novel Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Maria Viramontes, Estrella appears to be rather frustrated until she accepts her battles with help from Perfecto Flores to gain self-confidence and a positive attitude. Viramontes utilizes an abundance of metaphors and specific details to convincingly persuade the reader that the battles that Estrella had to face in her novel but is worth noting that Viramontes offers a variant tone in the development of Estrella’s character in her novel, Under the Feet of Jesus.

She gets excited when boys look at her on the streets. But her illusion of true love is destroyed by sexual violence. Her friend Sally’s behaviour towards boys contributes to Esperanza’s caution and distance by dealing with the opposite sex, too. Nevertheless, Esperanza does not stop dreaming of leaning against a car with her boyfriend in a place where that does not bother anyone. But she has set her standards higher than most of the women around her. She do not search for a man to escape from this place, she has seen too many unhappy marriages. Ruthie exemplifies such an one. She has run away from her husband and seems to be mentally disturbed. The young Rafaela is locked up by her husband because of her beauty. Nevertheless the tragic event is Sally’s which ends in abuse. Sally, Esperanza’s friend, only wanted to dream and share her love like Esperanza. Hurt and beaten by her father who just wanted to prevent the familiy’s ruin by Sally. To escape, despite of her minority, she marries a salesman. But unlike her wish, the abuse continues.

To start off, the theme that females are looked down upon, taken advantage of, and the ones to blame in society is shown in the vignette Rafaela who drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays, through the literary element, characterization, and the literary theory, gender. The vignette Rafaela who drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays, features a woman named Rafaela who lives with her husband, who keeps her locked in their house. “Gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away because she is

She sometimes sits out by the creek and remembers her father telling her “I am your father, I will never abandon you.” (Cisneros 1) She remembers this only after she is a mother and this is when she realizes “How when a man and a woman love each other, sometimes that love sours. But a parent’s love for a child, a child’s for its parents, is another thing entirely.” (Cisneros 1) Surely by now she feels her love souring. She can not understand why Juan must drink all time and why he continues to beat after he promises that he will never do it again.

Mora uses “Elena” to demonstrate the hardships and cultural battle non-English speaking Americans face while raising their children. They feel they have to compete with American customs in order to have a relationship with them. Mora gives the reader plenty of visuals and symbolic meanings that let you see into the mind of Elena and her journey on learning English.

Mama Elena goes on, for better or worse, attempting the best she can to raise a family in the tumultuous time of the Mexican revolution. She struggles against her rebellious daughter in her own attempt to keep her family’s heritage and traditions alive. Not only does she raise a family but she also runs the ranch on which the live and on derive their sustenance. Early on in the novel we see that Esquivel presents a character that deserves the same amount of respect normally giving to a male character in this same role. By placing this normally male role in a woman Esquivel questions the typical role of the woman in a home of just raising children by bestowing additional responsibilities.

Elva’s compares her feelings of not belonging in the Anglo society with the old beggar woman inside the doors of a Mexican church: “I have felt like her before, as if I want to be in a place, but I don’t know if I belong. A beggar in a room full of

In both the Dominican Republic and America, the girl’s sexuality is oppressed by men who trick them into thinking they care. While on the Island, Sofia meets a guy who she loves more than anything. When the other sisters arrive, they realize that he is controlling her every action and thought. He tells her what to do and will not let her think for herself. Carla was exposed to a perverted man in a green car. This causes her to think that sexuality is a threat to society and a dangerous thing overall. She can’t figure out who she is because this man stripped her of her identity.

She is being raised in a world where women are expected to suffer silently and to be at the mercy of their men. However, men were not expected to return this slave-like behavior for the women. This setting of the novel allows the reader to see exactly how treacherous life can be. This suffering is so present in Estrella’s family’s lives, yet she somehow is able to bring the family along no matter how difficult the situation may be. She is still trapped in between two very different worlds: "She tried to remember which side she was on and which side of the wire mesh she was safe in" (59). Her mother may be taken over by a world of suffering, but she is not so beaten that she cannot pass some of her fighting

The author of this novel used her real life experiences in combination with the friendship that she experienced with Josefina Bórquez in order to create an experience for the reader that helped to justify and understand the life of a woman during the Mexican Revolution. Josefina lived her teenage years as a soldadera, a woman soldier in the Mexican Revolution. After the hardship she faced during wartime, she was subjected to a life of extreme poverty and oppression while living in the slums of Mexico City. The author, Elena Poniatowska, first interacted with Josefina in 1964 during a compilation of interviews that revealed her life story. This is where Josefina became the fictional character of Jesusa, the main character in the novel, Here’s To You, Jesusa!

As a woman, Angela Vicario is the epitome of a traditional Colombian woman. A traditional Colombian woman is expected to be virgins when they get married; but Vicario defys this social custom causing Vicario to get “softly pushed his wife into [her house] without speaking,” (46). These details emphasize the idea that women are given different standards than men. The details help highlight Marquez’s criticism of how the traditional Colombian woman is treated as and thought of as. From a very young age Vicario and her sisters were taught “how to do screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers and fancy candy, and write engagement announcements,” (31). These skills were taught to better prepare the girls for marriage; displaying the difference in gender roles. Marquez uses parallel structure to emphasize the amount of skills one has to learn before they can be considered as good and pure. Many years after Bayardo San Román returns Vicario she still does “machine embroidery with her friends just as before she had made cloth tulips and paper birds, but when her mother went to bed she would stay in her room until dawn writing letters with no future,” (93). The diction of the words “no future” and “still” suggest that Vicario’s life is stuck in

Sebastian is also characterized by generically female traits, as opposed to conventionally masculine ones. He is constantly rendered helpless and in need of saving or protection by his homoerotic love interest, Antonio, furthering establishing his femininity. He is unfamiliar and “skilless” in