In Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, the author frequently uses conflicting desires, ambitions, obligations, and influences as a way of tearing the mind of a character into two, and causing them continuous struggle throughout the novel. As well, these conflicting forces often illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole, by revealing the theme of the novel through the characters’ resolution of their conflict. In particular, Pilar is often the victim of conflicting forces which cause her to struggle throughout much of the novel. The conflicting forces of a desire to reconnect with her Cuban grandmother and her mother’s harsh anti-Cuban influence illuminate the overall theme that once cannot be quick to pass judgment. Pilar’s connection …show more content…
This is seen when Pilar is describing her observations of Cuba and states, “The food is another story, though, it’s greasy as hell” (485). While this may seem like a subtle and trivial critique, it is the first one mentioned by Pilar and serves as an acknowledgment of Cuba’s imperfection. Another acknowledgment of Cuba’s flaws shortly follows when Pilar states, “I ask Abuela if I can paint whatever I want in Cuba and she says yes, as long as I don’t attack the state” (486). While there is no discernible critique present, it becomes obvious that Pilar is unhappy with her lack of artistic freedom. For a girl with a history of rebellious behavior such as creating punk art and running away from home, a lack of freedom to create what she wants is a hindrance to Pilar’s art and life, as she never fails to break societal norms. Pilar’s opinion of Cuba becomes more outright, as she states “I have to admit it’s much tougher here than I expected, but at least everyone seems to have the bare necessities” (486), and “I know now it’s where I belong—not instead of here, but more than here” (488). This admittance of Cuba’s imperfection and acceptance of her home in Brooklyn shows how once cannot be quick to pass judgment. Through her many conflicting opinions with her mother, Pilar often thought of Cuba as a utopia and was reluctant to believe its flaws pointed out by her mother. Instead, upon actually visiting Cuba for herself, Pilar finds that it is not an ideal society and that she fits in much better in the US. This theme was brought to light due to Pilar’s mental conflict, as her lack of actual experiences in Cuba as well as her desire to rebel against her mother’s views led her to a false idealistic view. As
It opens with her views on the United States after a year living there. Leila, the main character, says that life was very different than she had previously imagined. Leila claims that all the Americans judged her every second they got and made it hard for to express who she was comfortably. For example, “Outsiders [the antagonists] jerked their chins, looked at us, shook their heads. We heard things.”
She creates a façade of the Cuba in her dreams not knowing the actual reality of the revolution and why her mom despises it so much. Pilar even states “Yankee Doodle bakeries have become gathering places for these shady Cuban extremists who come all the way from New Jersey and the Bronx to talk their dinosaur politics and drink her killer espressos” (Garcia 177). She resents her mother’s extremist views because it forces her to hide her Cuban legacy. At this point, the biggest challenge for Pilar is to find a way to bring the two sides of her identity into balance so that she doesn't have to hide one side from public view. Pilar strongly believes that a return to Cuba will put all
In many instances, Pilar’s voice serves to question the clarity of the lens with which we see the world. Beginning as a child, Pilar seeks to discover a truth that goes beyond the superficial. She broaches the subject of image in the context of advertisements, saying, “I read somewhere that the woman who posed for it was three months pregnant at the time and that it was shaving cream, not whipped cream, she was suggestively dipping into her mouth” (197). Through the irony of this event, Garcia brings to light the fiction of image, and the way the realities we accept at face value, are often only shadows of what truly exists. The fiction of image, and of memory is something that Celia ponders as well.
In the novel George Washington Gomez, the main character Gualinto is born into the conflict between Seditionists and Texas Rangers already carrying the burden to become a leader of his people. The author, Americo Paredes constructed his masterpiece around the context and theme of a corrido, a sort of folk story although it is not a traditional corrido, but rather an anti-corrido. Paredes uses the tension between two cultures as a significant theme throughout the novel. Therefore, the novel is concerned with expressing a divided Mexican-American identity and responding to the economic and social changes associated with modernism.
She encounters many different men and situations that continuously make it harder and harder for her to work her way out of their rut and build a decent life in America. “There was no one to protect her, no one to care. All she could see was the image of those animals at the border, the half-a-gringo and his evil eyes and filthy insinuating fingers, the fat white man with his fat white hands, and she withdrew herself, dwelled there deep inside where nobody could touch her” (234). Very early on in this novel, America shows just how much she is willing to endure, in order to
She begins the essay by relating the story of how an Irishman serenaded her on a bus with a Spanish song because of her Puerto Rican appearance. Cofer then comments on the double-edged nature of the stereotypes her appearance elicits. “This is sometimes a very good thing—it may win you that extra minute of someone’s attention. But with some people, the same things can make you an island—not so much a tropical paradise as an Alcatraz, a place nobody wants to visit” (547). In this simile, Cofer compares the isolation that someone feels when others stereotype him/her to the confinement of the prison island of Alcatraz.
Lola takes advantage of her deteriorating mother whose illness represents the declining hold of the norms over Lola. Since her mom “will have trouble lifting her arms over her head for the rest of her life,” Lola is no longer afraid of the “hitting” and grabbing “by the throat” (415,419). As a child of a “Old World Dominican Mother” Lola must be surrounded by traditional values and beliefs that she does not want to claim, so “as soon as she became sick” Lola says, “I saw my chance and I’m not going to pretend or apologize; I saw my chance and I eventually took it” (416). When taking the opportunity to distinguish herself from the typical “Dominican daughter” or ‘Dominican slave,” she takes a cultural norm like long hair and decides to impulsively change it (416). Lola enjoyed the “feeling in [her] blood, the rattle” that she got when she told Karen to “cut my hair” (418).
In Maria Viramontes’ Under the Feet of Jesus Estrella is a confused, angry girl who is attempting to figure everything out. Estrella is unable to figure anything out without the help of Perfecto Flores, but with his help she is able to create some understanding about the importance of education and becomes less angry. Viramontes uses tone and figurative language to help show Estrella’s growth and development. The beginning of the passage has an angry tone.
In the story, “The Myth of a Latin Woman” is about the author Judith Ortiz Cofer talking about her life and growing up as a Puerto Rican girl. She talks about the struggles she had to go through, like always being under heavy surveillance by her family. She would be under their watch because she was a girl and was expected to protect her family’s honor and to behave like in her family’s terms “proper senorita”. I agree that she was forced to mature fast just at her teenage years; a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe Cofer could never act her age.
Pilar views her absence from Cuba from a place of psychological trauma, viewing her exiled state in the same way as her destiny: uncontrollable, regardless of her misunderstanding of the political turmoil and consequences associated with Cuba (Garcia 199). Because of this, Cuba’s absence—which is felt strongly by Pilar—becomes a source of paralysis for her; she is unable to form a stable, American identity, hyperaware of her liminality between being Cuban or American. This also causes estrangement within Pilar’s family, especially in consideration of her relationship with her mother. In fact, Pilar, in a state of confusion and desperation, remarks at one point in the novel, “I wonder how Mom could be Abuela Celia’s daughter. And what I’m doing as my mother’s daughter.
The novel ‘Nada’ written by Carmen Laforet is a twisted heart-breaking tale about a year in the life of the 18-year-old female protagonist Andrea. Throughout this year, Andrea spends in Barcelona with her relatives, she developed various relationships, both homosexual and heterosexual. For the purpose of this essay I will discuss Andrea’s highly affective homosexual relationships with her best friend Ena and her aunt Gloria and how she views and describes both woman differently. I will also briefly contrast her homosexual relationships with that of her heterosexual relationships with Pons and her uncle Román. I will begin with discussing Adrea’s relationship with Gloria, as this relationship began before her relationship with Ena did.