Women Hollering Creek Woman

In the story, Cleofilas has always thought that if a man ever strikes her, she would strike back. However, as the story progresses, Cleofilas starts to endure her husband’s abuse. The first time Juan Pedro hits her she is too surprised to even shed a tear or try to defend herself (Cisneros, 1991, p.249). Cisneros wants to address domestic violence because many women feel helpless when they are in controlling and abusive circumstances. Moreover, a controlling and abusive relationship causes a great deal of tension and unhappiness, which Cleofilas experiences throughout the story.

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.

Stereotypes are dangerous weapons in our society. “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” is a short essay in which the award winning poet and professor of English, Judith Ortiz Cofer, wishes to inform and persuade the audience that labels and stereotypes can be humiliating and hurtful. The author targets the general public, anyone that doesn’t understand that putting someone in a box because of a stereotype is wrong. Cofer starts out the essay by telling the reader a story with a drunk man who re-enacted “Maria” from the West Side Story, and how angry that made her feel. She continues by explaining how she grew up in the United States being a Puerto Rican girl trying to fit in, but always being labeled as an island girl. Cofer carries on by explaining why Latin people get dressed and act a certain way. Then she recalls some more stereotypical incidents.

Clo grew up in a time when the gender roles for Mexican women were more traditional and her father really only expected her to get married and not much else. Her father actually arranged for her to be married to a wealthy man that was her father’s age. All Clo wanted to do was go to art school in Paris but her father ignored her pleas. On the day of the wedding, Clo came down the stairs naked and embarrassed her father so much so that he sent her away to the art school in Paris with money to help keep her away.

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

hese women from the book “ Women Hollering Creek”, were abused and taken advantage of their own men. Sandra Cisneros explores the stories “Never marry a mexican”, Woman Hollering Creek”, and “One holy night”. The women in this stories made a mistake by being with the wrong men in their life. They became careless when they met their own men. These girls have lost their respect for themselves. They have destroyed their own self, for the guy who never really loves them. No one stood up for their rights as a woman. Love and hate made these women vulnerable.

Cisneros’ family bounced back and forth between Mexico and the United States for most of her youth, which led to firsthand experience in the difficulties of growing up as a multicultural person (Doyle. 54-55). As an adult, she settled in San Antonio, Texas, but that feeling of not belonging to either culture never left her. She drew on this feeling as inspiration for many works, including “Woman Hollering Creek,” a short story about a Mexican woman, named Cleofilas, brought to live in the United States by her new husband. She is excited to leave her lazy brothers and old-fashioned father behind, and dreams of the endless possibilities that

Writing in the 20th century was great deal harder for a Chicano then it was for a typical American at this time. Although that did not stop this author, Sandra Cisneros. One of her famous novels, Woman Hollering Creek was a prime example of how a combined culture: Mexican-Americans, could show their pride and identity in this century. In conjunction, gave the opportunity for women to speak their voice and forever change the culture of Latino/a markets. Not only did it express identity/gender roles of women and relationships, but using these relationships to combine the cultures of Mexican and American into a hybrid breed. This novel, should have been a view-point for the future to show that there is more to life than just gender and race.

The book Woman Hollering Creek, by Sandra Cisneros highlights many examples of “everyday verbal mythology” in the Hispanic culture, literacy and language as sites of conflict build up. The violence in lack of translation, interpretation by translators, culture betrayal and existence of encoded language only familiar to insiders are some of the issues that seems not to appeal to the translators.

Women abuse is still a current topic in our society. “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros explores this theme and gives a pattern that is followed by most abused women today. In this reading, Cleofilas’s expectation of a perfect telenovela marriage is ruined by the reality of her abusive husband Juan Pedro. When Cleofila got married, she did not know that she was walking into a trap, a prison filled with pain and bitterness. Cleofila will go out her comfort zone, away from her brothers and father who before she left, promised to never abandon her.

A Marriage and Culture with Abuse. Cisneros’ story in “Woman Hollering Creek” illustrates the following themes: marriage, culture, and abuse. Marriage and culture are something that cannot ignore from society. Most marriages and cultures in the world deal with abuse as the story described. The abusive behavior of Juan Pedro to Cleofilas in their marriage and culture lead to their separation in marriage and Cleofilas's freedom.

Sandra Cisnero is a well-known novelist within the Latino community, most famously for her best-selling novel titled the House On Mango Street. The House On Mango Street is based on a coming of age story, where the main character struggles to discover her own identity due to her culture's emphasis on male dominance. Misogyny has been part of Latin tradition for the past years, but life in modern society doesn’t mean that it has completely disappeared. Cisnero intention is to spread awareness by displaying the gender roles her culture tolerates for females.

The narrative, “Only daughter”, by Sandra Cisneros, describes the hurdles that she needed to overcome in-order to be acknowledged by her family and peers. Within the Mexican culture, girls are considered second class and have

As a young girl, much of Cleófilas’ ideas of marriage are based upon what she sees on television. She yearns for “passion in its purest crystalline essence. The kind books and songs and telenovas describe when one finds, finally, the great love of one’s life, and does whatever one can, must do, at whatever the cost” (2772). She sees love as an ideal that can withstand every hardship of life and worth whatever cost she must pay. There is only one great love for her and she thinks, “to suffer for love is good. The pain all sweet somehow. In the end” (2773). She also has visions of what life in the U.S. will be for her as a married woman. Even the name of the town she moves to gives her fantasies as she thinks, “Seguín, Tejas. A nice sterling ring to it. The tinkle of money. She would get to wear outfits like the women on the tele… And have a lovely house” (2773). Crossing the creek on the way to her new home, she laughs at its’ name, believing it to have “Such a funny name for a creek so pretty and full of happily

Women in a typical Hispanic culture usually desire an image they want or expect based on the media. For example, when it comes to relationships the media portrays the ideal image of a marriage and then women have an expectation, as in the short story “Woman Hollering Creek” , by Sandra Cisneros. Cleofilas, the Protagonist, moves from her known household in Mexico to Seguin, Texas to get married to Juan Pedro. Her hometown in Mexico is very similar to where she is now in Seguin. Cleofilas meet two people in the neighborhood, Dolores and Soledad, who depended on their husbands for everything so when they lost their husbands it had a major impact on them. On the other hand, Cleofilas also meet two other women that are completely different from Dolores and Soledad because Felice and Graciela do not have to depend on men for anything. In addition, Felice and Graciela have a huge impact in Cleofilas’ life because they are able to help her escape her miserable marriage. Cleofilas bases her whole life on a Mexican romantic telenovela, but instead her whole marriage is a catastrophe because her husband abuses her. In Cleofilas new town there is a creek called “Woman Hollering Creek” that runs from her new hometown to the city. The creek has a symbolic meaning for all the women that she meet throughout her journey of realisation because her whole life is based on it being like a telenovela, but at the end it all changes. Cleofilas realises her life would not be like a telenovela and