Woman Hollering Creek Journey

Living in Mexico throughout her teen years was very rough. Unlike other teenagers where their parents constantly provide for their children, Marisela’s life was a lot different than the usual parent- child relationship. She lived with her Abuela ( Grandma) Lupe, along with her 3 brothers and sister. She constantly had to take care of her brothers and sister at such a young age, that she became the mother-like figure of the

In this essay, female oppression in La Casa de Bernarda Alba will be discussed and analyzed. However, in order to be able to understand the importance of this theme and the impact it has had on the play, one must first understand the role of female oppression in the Spanish society in the 1930s.

The character Clemencia for Never Marry A Mexican is just so refreshing and modern. A women of her words. Her fierceness and unique voices help me realizes that these invisible double standard gender stereotypes is only as strong as to how much I believe in them. Before reading this short story, I was indulge into a society where it 's a shame for women to think of men sexually let alone a marry man. I think it is a sign from society to pretty much wanting women to be pure and well behave. But, Clemencia she goes against that current. Her thoughts are liquid and they sting. They let the readers in and be apart of her brain as a spectator. She makes the reader, realizes how powerful she is and she is able to have that power because

Cleofilas feels that she could not do much, but she becomes hopeful about her situation. For instance, Cleofilas has to remind herself why she loves her husband when she is changing the baby’s Pampers, or when she is mopping the bathroom floor (Cisneros, 1991, p. 249). Cisneros emphasizes that many women who are controlled and abused often feel that they need to remind themselves why they married their husbands. Cisneros points out that when an individual loves someone they should not have to ask themselves why, nor worry so much about getting hurt.

She doesn't know being beaten by her husband is not a normal thing. She is living in the suburbs with her husband with neighbors who in their own way, are trapped as well. Cisneros also shows how life can be for Cleofilas when a mom is not present to guide heir, again, Cleofilas's only guide are the television series. "The creek, the televonelas and the border define the mythic spaces given to Cleofilas in her fantasies of escape from a battering husband."(Mullen 6) The town which Cisneros chose to have as the setting of the story, there isn't much for her to do;" in the town where she grew up, there isn't much to do except accompany the aunts and godmothers to the house of one or the other to play cards."(Cisneros 44) Using that, Cisneros helps the reader to get a taste of how the environment is. An environment which women don't have a say in, an environment where woman don't have the equal power as men; the environment Cleofilas was raised in.

You can see how Maria’s El Salvador is empty of people, full only of romantic ideas. Jose Luis’s image of El Salvador, in contrast, totally invokes manufactured weapons; violence. Maria’s “self-projection elides Jose Luis’s difference” and illustrates “how easy it is for the North American characters, including the big-hearted María, to consume a sensationalized, romanticized, or demonized version of the Salvadoran or Chicana in their midst” (Lomas 2006, 361). Marta Caminero-Santangelo writes: “The main thrust of the narrative of Mother Tongue ... continually ... destabilize[s] the grounds for ... a fantasy of connectedness by emphasizing the ways in which [Maria’s] experience as a Mexican American and José Luis’s experiences as a Salvadoran have created fundamentally different subjects” (Caminero-Santangelo 2001, 198). Similarly, Dalia Kandiyoti points out how Maria’s interactions with José Luis present her false assumptions concerning the supposed “seamlessness of the Latino-Latin American connection” (Kandiyoti 2004, 422). So the continual misinterpretations of José Luis and who he really is and has been through on Maria’s part really show how very far away her experiences as a middle-class, U.S.-born Chicana are from those of her Salvadoran lover. This tension and resistance continues throughout their relationship.

Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth

Thesis statement: Esperanza has a variety of female role models in her life. Many are trapped in abusive relationships, waiting for others to change their lives. Some are actively trying to change things on their own. Through these women and Esperanza’s reactions to them, Cisneros’ shows not only the hardships women face, but also explores their power to overcome them.

The author creates themes of commonality that are relatable to many in this story story. There is a crucial moment in rebellious child’s lives that pushes them to act out. For Lola this happens to be her mother and her battle with breast cancer, “with her cancer there wasn’t much she could do anymore” (Diaz 5). Lola,

In the story “Woman Hollering Creek” Sandra Cisneros explains the journey Cleofilas takes to escape her abusive husband, physically and emotionally. At the beginning of the story Cleofilas thought life was about finding your true love and living happily ever after. Then when she moved away, and her husband started beating her she realized life was more than living like this. The theme of the story is the feeling of disaffection or self-displacement. Cisneros uses the character Cleofilas to heighten the theme of the story. Cleofilas struggles to leave her husband, Juan because she feels that her father wouldn’t allow her to come back. At the end of the story she gets tired of the abuse and plans to

“Beautiful and Cruel” marks the beginning of Esperanza’s “own quiet war” against machismo (Hispanic culture powered by men). She refuses to neither tame herself nor wait for a husband, and this rebellion is reflected in her leaving the “table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros gives Esperanza a self-empowered voice and a desire for personal possessions, thing that she can call her own: Esperanza’s “power is her own (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros discusses two important themes: maintaining one’s own power and challenging the cultural and social expectations one is supposed to fulfill. Esperanza’s mission to create her own identity is manifest by her decision to not “lay (her) neck on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain (Cisneros 88).” Cisneros’ rough language and violent images of self-bondage reveal the contempt with which Esperanza views many of her peers whose only goal is to become a wife. To learn how to guard her power

To begin, the protagonist Clemencia is like a chameleon, who can blend into any social event and with any class of wealth when she says ““I’m amphibious. I’m a person who doesn’t belong to any class. The rich like to have me around because they envy my creativity; they know they can’t buy that. The poor don’t mind if I live in their neighborhood because they know I’m poor like they are, even if my education and the way I dress keeps us worlds apart”(Cisneros 71,72). Clemencia is a woman who knows how to talk and have a good time. By nature she is a very creative being who loves to impress by wearing the best clothes, and show off to anyone to make herself seem better than others. (Cisneros 71). Clemencia is poor and does not have much being that she works for the school system as a translator, and other various positions. But acts rich and very wealthy to all of her friends (Cisneros 72). This connects with the myth of La Malinche, of how the character is a bad woman who sleeps with lots of men.

The other main character of the story is Adelina a girl who leaves her home in California to go to Mexico. Adelina is driven out of the United States because her family won’t accept her relationship with her lover, so they both decide to go to Tijuana, a city in Mexico. Not much is said about Adelina’s experienced in the United States. What we do know is that she had a family that loved her, but she decided to leave it all behind to be together with her boyfriend Gerardo. In Mexico she finds nothing but shame and misery because Gerardo could not find a job and the only way for them to make money was for her to be a prostitute. Besides having to expose her body, Adelina, is physically and emotionally mistreated by her boyfriend until it finally leads to her death when she tells him that she is going back to the United States with Juana.

Cleofilas knows she can go home, her father as much told her so. She does not go for fear of shaming him. “But how could she go back there? What a disgrace. What would the neighbors say?” (Cisneros 3) She finally does go back with help from a woman she is put in contact with. This woman is like no other women Cleofilas has ever met. While they are driving out of Seguin, going over the creek “the driver opened her mouth and let out a yell as loud as

Clotilde Armenta is a unique woman in that she actively opposes societal values. She laments over “just how alone [women] are in the world” after witnessing the “height of machismo” infesting the town. Clotilde does have foresight into the murder, and is the only woman who tries to stop it. “For the love of God, leave him for later, if only out of respect for his grace the bishop”. She even physically stops Pedro, holding him by his collar. She understands that the Vicario brothers are desperately seeking for someone “who would do the favor of stopping them” from the “horrible duty that’s fallen upon them”. These two women suffer at the cost of the cultural traditions and irrational values, and the journey of each provides insight to the role