The Weeping Woman
(La Llorona)
by Joe Hayes
This is a story that my culture has been telling to our children for hundreds of years. Many years ago in a humble little village there lived a gorgeous girl named Maria some say she was the most beautiful girl in the southwest .Maria thought she was better than everyone else.
As Maria grew older, just like most people say with age came beauty and in Marias case her beauty increased. When she was a young woman, she would not even look at the young men from her village. They weren't good enough for her! Maria would say, "I will marry the most handsome man in the world." And then one day, into Maria's village rode a man who seemed to be just the one she had been talking about. He was a dashing young
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He would try to talk to her and she would ignore him and just turn his head. He would grab his guitar and played outside her window and sing songs to her and she would just listen from her bed. He would buy her expensive jewelry and she wouldn’t accept them and he would try and try and …show more content…
She also began to feel anger toward her children, because he paid attention to them, but just ignored her. One evening, as Maria was strolling with her two children on the shady pathway near the river, the ranchero came by in a carriage. An elegant lady sat on the seat beside him. He stopped and spoke to his children, but he didn't even look at Maria. He whipped the horses on up the street. When she saw that, a terrible rage filled Maria, and it all turned against her children.The story says that in her anger Maria grabbed her two children and threw them into the river! But as they disappeared down the stream, she realized what she had done! She ran down the bank of the river, reaching out her arms to them. But they were long gone. The next morning, a drifter told the villagers that a gorgeous woman lay dead on the bank of the river. That is where they found Maria, and they laid her to rest where she had
As the words of our founding fathers, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the American dream that many pursue, whether immigrated to the United States or born here. Within Demetria Martinez’s book, Mother Tongue, a novel, the character named Jose Luis flees from El Salvador to the United States in order to escape it’s brutal civil war. His choice to flee El Salvador and enter the United States under a false name places him in a difficult situation, both in his moral abandonment of his home country El Salvador, and for crossing the United States border illegally. The position of Jose Luis can be dissected into the need for borders, the asylum process into the U.S., the reason why politicians reject immigration, and the potential
Oscar Casares was born and raised in the southern town of Brownsville, Texas; also the setting of his short story “Mrs. Perez”, which captures the life of an elderly woman who discovers a new life- literally and figuratively- after her husband’s death. Casares uses the story structure of flashback as a style element to influence the interpretation of the story. The author’s style can be seen in the story’s flashback which shows the time sequence jump from present day, to a time in Mrs. Perez’ past. “After the girls started school, Lola found a job as a receptionist at a doctor's office”.
Broken shards in Nemecia’s soul glued together with hope that she may be the light in the world her family dreams for her to be. Throughout Nemecia life her family desperately tries to heal her by helping her forget her broken past. In the story, Nemecia by Kirstin Valdez Quade the theme broken piece may never be truly fixed but hope always glimmers through is revealed by using metaphors throughout the story.
Maria is a religious mother of six who throughout the book she is very close minded and unwilling to change her plans or way of life no matter the influence. Maria is a member of the Luna, a family of religious farmers and as such she wants Antonio to become the next educated priest to guide the Luna in the future. She finds comfort in the steady life of farming and finds her husband 's ideals to be idiotic and unrealistic. When arguing about their land, Gabriel sees it as a symbol of freedom but Maria says in retort “It is worthless! Look
Equally important, that night Cortes was advised that one of the women given to him spoke "Mexican.” Nonetheless, Marina saw her chance at a better life by devoting herself to Cortez by becoming his interpreter. In spite of her many hardships, she had risen to the occasion and seized the opportunity, making herself an invaluable member of the expedition. Furthermore, Marina proved to be one of Cortes' greatest assets. While it may be true that she was a loyal follower of Cortes, Marina showed sympathy towards the conquered races.
First, Soto uses symbolism to convey the theme that you should enjoy the process of growing up instead of acting older out of pride. When Maria is home alone, she gets ready to go to the mall and look at boys. “She went through her mother’s closet to borrow a pair of shoes”. The shoes symbolize her want to be a grown woman. She grabs the shoes from her mother's closet showing maturity.
How do you build to the next issue she addresses, though? Surprisingly, you meet it head on the way the author chooses to, but unlike the Mexican culture works up to it. Anzaldúa has no qualms in exploring her homosexuality and the male/female identity. Raised a Catholic, she made the choice to be homosexual, she declares. She recognizes that in some it is genetically inherent and that can be understood, but her Catholicism makes it a choice.
This applied theory paper will analyze both the macro and micro analysis of the Novel, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman (Fadiman, 1997). In the book “The Spirit Catches You and Falls Down”, the character Lia illness resulted in a cultural divide between the Hmong culture and the American culture. Throughout this paper both the conflict theory and the family systems theory will be used to examine themes of behaviors among the characters in the text. The family and medical team use the applications of a number of different social work theories to navigate through her illness implementing a number of different strategies to nurse her to health. The author Fadiman explores the Lee’s family
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman, is the story of two very different cultures lacking understanding for one another leading to a tragedy due to cultural incompetence. Today in America there are very many different cultures. Health care providers need to be aware of cultural diversity and sensitivity when caring for patients. If a health care provider is not sensitive towards a patient’s culture it can cause a relationship of mistrust to form, lead to barriers in the plan of care, and increase health care cost. The current guidelines to promote cultural competence in the clinical setting include completing a cultural diversity self-assessment, identify the need of the population served, evaluate barriers in the community and practice, educate staff to cultural diversities, schedule longer appointments, clarify limitations, and identify alternatives offered (Cash & Glass, 2014).
The relationship between Mariam and Laila grows overtime into an unbreakable love. Mariam is a vulnerable character that experienced hardships and negativity throughout her life. Her reliance on faith and religion gave her hope. Laila however, has had a positive upbringing from modern parents. Her education is what made her a strong and intelligent girl. Their personalities contrast to bring the best out of each other. However at first, in fear of being overshadowed by Laila, Mariam says “If [Laila] thinks [she] can use [her] looks to get rid of me, [she is] wrong. [Mariam] was here first. [She] won't be thrown out” (225). As Mariam has never been a priority to anyone in her life she was very defensive over her role in the house. As jealousy embarked upon Mariam,
In the book “Unbearable lightness: a story of loss and gain”, author Portia De Rossi takes her audience through her life explaining how she dealt with Anorexia and Bulimia while trying to achieve her dreams in the public eye. She takes you into her mind and lets you know her thoughts and goals. She shares what herself and thousands of other people struggle through everyday. She explains how her constant need for perfection almost ruined her life.
The narrator states that “it was [Maria] who did away with my generation’s virginity” (65). Garcia Marquez uses a hyperbole to portray how crucial Maria Cervantes’s contradictory role is in the men’s lives. She embraces her sexuality and is very open. In addition she also “taught [the men] much more than [they] should have learned, but she taught us above all that there’s no place in life sadder than an empty bed” (65). She reinforces the idea that sexuality should not be repressed because that would only bring on loneliness and despair. She recognizes the “disorder of love” that the townspeople live with because of repressed sexuality. The narrator describes Santiago Nasar’s passionate relationship with Maria Cervantes. He describes their relationship like “a falcon who chases a warlike crane” and that the falcon can only “hope for a life of pain” (65). The author uses a metaphor to compare Maria to a warlike crane in order to show her power and grace. The crane is a bird that stands tall and may look elegant and enticing but because Maria is “a warlike crane” she is able to stand up and fight for herself while still maintaining her grace. Another aspect of her independence would be that she stands alone in her battle against society. Garcia Marquez gives her these headstrong qualities to show how she follows her own path and goes against the town’s beliefs without showing any signs of stopping and to show that
When Maria was wondering why the South African men were scared of them, it was clear how sheltered and brainwashed she was. It was then that she realized how unexposed she was and began to become more involved in the efforts to make a change.
Maria was the last of five children. Her oldest sister died of Typhus, one sister became a teacher and a brother and a sister both became physicians. Her family was not very rich, but education was
Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri, is a writer,and she is known for many auto-biographical novels and she also writes poetry and essays. She also loved to study music, dance,and drama. From 1963 to 1966 Angelou was involved in the black civil rights movement. Maya Angelou wrote this specific poem called; “Phenomenal Women”. Angelou has a very creative way of saying things throughout her poem. Angelou talks about a woman in the poem that talks about herself a lot she repeats the phrase“ I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman that's me”( Angelou) therefore Angelou might be this person in her poem. Angelou is trying to show the reader that you need to have more confidence in your own person instead of worrying about others judgment.