Fitting In Short Story

In her youth, Clemencia struggles with not knowing which social and economic class she belongs to or her place in the community. As she recalls her family history and the culture of her parents, the gap between her father and her mother as well as how each of them grew up explains the disappointment in her mother’s marriage as neither parent meets the expectations and traditions they established and witnessed in youth. One statement the mother uses to describe the father is “Calidad. Quality” and even as her mother advises against marrying a Mexican, Clemencia manages to become involved with a man with an ego much like her father and she even speaks of his house and wardrobe just like her mother, as “Calidad. Quality” (Cisneros 81). Like her mother during her marriage to her

Jones contrasted the attitude of the daughter to the attitude of the mother. After they got rejected from the wrong school. The girl was worried that she could not go to school. She said “Mama, I can’t go to school?” (Jones, 1990’s, p. 1). After she said that, her mother replied, “One monkey don’t stop no show” (Jones, 1990’s, p.1). This shows that a parent will have a positive attitude and will keep trying for their kid no matter how many obstacles that will come in the way. The child is just worried that they might not be able to do something. There is a difference between the different schools that they go and check out. The first school that they mother wants the girl to go to, Seaton Elementary School, is not as big as the other school, which is Walker-Jones. The girl likes Walker-Jones because it is newer and it is larger. The mom does not really like it because it is not by the church that she goes to and it’s not the school she wanted her daughter to go to (Jones, 1990’s, p.1). But the mom deals with it because it is the school that her daughter can gto to. This shows that even though a parent may not agree with the school that their child has to go to, they deal with it because they just want the child to go to school and get an education. When they went to Seaton Elementary School, and they got rejected, the mother said, “I want her to go here” “If I’da wanted her someplace else, I’da took her there” (Jones, 1990’s, p. 1). This just shows that a parent

Examining “Claims” on another lever, one finds messages speaking out against the portrayal of a good woman in Puerto Rican societies. Women are expected to sacrifice every aspect of their own lives for their husbands and children. The Grandmother accepted her role in society, but always had dreams of claiming her own life. “Grandmother” made a promise when she was married, and she kept her promise. She raised five children and led a life committed to a husband who was expected by society to wander. But all along, Grandmother had dreamed of the day when she could secure her freedom. She dreamed of sleeping in her own bed and simply being herself. Her dream is finally realized in old age, as described in the poem. Grandmother “claimed the right” to be herself and live her life. Her days were constantly occupied by caring for her children and her nights were always invaded by her husband’s presence. Now that her family has all moved on, Grandmother has her house and her life for herself. Each right that she has claimed has multiple meanings about her life and society, her dreams and true personality.

Marin said that “she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house faraway.” (Cisneros,26-27) This mean she will change her life with man not her own. In this story’s background society is woman should work in a house and man should go outside and make money so this is like man should protect woman. Also, another character that similar with Marin is Rafaela. She is beautiful so her husband didn’t let her go outside of her house. Then, she never left outside and she just look outside through the window. This can be said that women rely on men and leave all responsibilities for men. In the past, this thought, same as them is very normal but as time passes, most people agree for gender equality. Then, literally, gender is being equal. But, Esperanza thought that woman should live in recognition of these thoughts and consider them after she met normal woman in that

Our families are the people we grew up around, whether they are our blood relatives or not. They are the people that make you who you are, though they might not always be around. In the story “House on Mango Street, Esperanza's family plays a huge role in shaping her identity. Throughout the story we are shown how her family, community, culture, and gender impacted her character and actions. In her community, there are Hispanic minorities and people who have lived more unfortunate lives. In fact, her family is a part of this group. Not only are people prejudiced against because of their culture, but the women face sexism from both outsiders and people in their community. Although our identities are influenced by a multitude of factors, the family we are surrounded by in our adolescence end up shaping our identities the most.

Sandra Cisneros faced many struggles with being the only daughter. She talks a lot about her dad not being interested in her. Never even bothering to mention having a daughter, only him having seven sons. When she would start writing, her dad wouldn’t waste a breath on asking her what she was writing about. Although, she was not too persuasive in her article. She did mention the struggles of being an only daughter, but only her own. She makes her father look like such a horrible, ignorant man. Only talking negatively about him, not sharing a single positive thing about him. A man who has never in his life done anything good for her. This is how she tries to get her point across. She tries to convince us her dad really doesn’t pay

Social standards may confine individuals from pursuing their own personal interests. Through the relationship between societal standards and individual interests, Sandra Cisneros’ short story, “Woman Hollering Creek,” introduces the roles of men and women in a Hispanic culture. The protagonist, Cleofilas Hernandez, is trapped in an abusive relationship with her newly-wed husband, Juan Pedro. However, Cleofilas tolerates the toxic relationship due to the social norms of her society, which reveals that the Hispanic culture revolves around a patriarchal society and that women have to be submissive to their husbands. As the story progresses, Cleofilas abandons the gender norm to lead an independent lifestyle.

The chief character of the story is Clemencia. Clementia is a US born Mexican-American woman. As opined by Clemencia herself, she is “vindictive and cruel, and…capable of anything” (Cisneros 68). At the same time Clemencia is a victim of racial bias. Involved in an unhappy marriage, her mother exhorted, “Never marry a Mexican” (Cisneros 68) and at the end of the affair with her beloved Drew, he confesses he could “never marry a Mexican” (80). Thus, Clemencia is a perpetrator of racial bias towards men of a Hispanic descent, “I never saw them. My mother did this to me” (69), while being a victim of racial bias herself. Although middle-class, she flees the comforts of a middle class life to live in a lower-class Latino neighborhood and sells her art among the upper-class. Hence, she also feels like she is, “Amphibious…a person who doesn’t belong to any class” (71). Clemencia is also a betrayer of women. Feeling betrayed and abandoned by her mother for marrying an Anglo man and betrayed by her ex-lover for ending the affair, Clemencia seeks gratification through her affairs with married men. The overall theme of Never Marry a Mexican is overcoming racial stigmas and finding the beauty in humanity.

This narrative speaks volumes about the author’s culture, which describes her religion, as well as the lifestyle of typical Hispanic families. In Latino or Chicano culture, we find that gender as well as religion plays a huge role in the lives of many individuals, causing them to shape a stereotypical kind of culture. Catholicism is one of the major forms of religion in Hispanic and Latin countries due to the influence from the Europeans. This made many of the Latin American Countries adopt this religious practice regardless of their belief. To this day, many practice Catholicism as a way to appeal to cultural norms. We see the importance of religion to the girl’s family, especially her father. Throughout the story we see the girl’s search for her own religious relationship through her abuela instead of the one forced upon her by her parents. The other influence that culture has is on gender roles within the family dynamic. Throughout the story we see the girl made fun of for her hands and for being different. This is because in latin culture girls are supposed to be dainty and gentle. They were not meant to be violent or rash, like the young teenage girl was. The gender roles constructed by culture were what her father tried to assign her into, and her mother enforcing them,

Women’s Escape into Misery Women’s need for male support and their husband’s constant degradation of them was a recurring theme in the book House on Mango Street. Many of Esperanza’s stories were about women’s dreams of marrying, the perfect husband and having the perfect family and home. Sally, Rafaela, and Minerva are women who gave me the impression of [damsel’s in distress].CLICHÉ, it’s ok though. It’s relevant They wished for a man to sweep them of their feet and rescue them from their present misery. These characters are inspiring and strong but they are unable to escape the repression of the surrounding environment. *Cisneros presents a rigid world in which they lived in, and left them no other hope but to get married.

Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” deals heavily with the concept of myth in literature, more specifically the myth La Malinche, which focuses on women, and how their lives are spun in the shadows on men (Fitts). Myths help power some of the beliefs of entire cultures or civilizations. She gives the reader the mind of a Mexican-American woman who seems traitorous to her friends, family and people she is close to. This causes destruction in her path in the form of love, power, heartbreak, hatred, and an intent to do harm to another, which are themes of myth in literature. The unreliable narrator of this story was created in this story with the purpose to show her confusion and what coming from two completely different

Currently Sandra Cisneros resides in San Antonio in a purple house and she describes herself as “nobody’s mother” and “nobody’s wife.” Both Frida Kahlo’s and Cynthia Y. Hernandez’s works convey the idea of having one’s culture limit one’s freedom and individuality. Cisneros and Esperanza are both victims of this idea and realize that the only way to live one’s life freely is to defy the roles and limitations created by one’s culture.

A life in the city of Seguin, Texas was not as easy as Cleofilas, the protagonist of the story thought it would be. The author, Cisneros describes the life women went through as a Latino wife through Cleofilas. Luckily, Cisneros is a Mexican-American herself and had provided the opportunity to see what life is like from two window of the different cultures. Also, it allowed her to write the story from a woman’s point of view, painting a vision of the types of problems many women went through as a Latino housewife. This allows readers to analyze the characters and events using a feminist critical view. In the short story “Women Hollering Creek” Sandra Cineros portrays the theme of expectation versus reality not only through cleofilas’s thoughts but also through her marriage and television in order to display how the hardship of women in a patriarchal society can destroy a woman’s life.

Her mother plays a huge role in her upbringing because she cheated on her father while he was sick. Although, her mom tells her to "never marry a Mexican," she intends to advise her little girl not to wed a man who experienced childhood in Mexico. Given the way of life conflict that the Mother experienced as a Mexican-American, she wishes for her little girl to wed somebody more Americanized, somebody who might offer her mo

The narrow futures of adult women shown in the novel are one way the author portrays female plight. The limitations characters face indicate the constructs of their unforgiving patriarchal environment. Adult women share the feeling of being trapped in their own marriages. The author represents isolation from the outside world in a metaphorical sense as, “waiting by the window” (Cisneros 11). Rafaela, a woman with an extremely controlling husband, illustrates how women in the novel are