In the short story, “Woman Hollering Creek”, Sandra Cisneros employs a traumatic setting to communicate how most women in the Hispanic culture are being treated and the machismo that is seen in the United States. To start with, Cisneros makes the setting traumatic to make the character come to life and live the experiences of the typical Hispanic woman in the U.S. She illustrates this and details the events of how the couple got together and formed a life. In chronograph order, Sandra leads up to climax, the fights and decisions, Cleofinas (The Character) has to make a plan in order to find a solution to get out of an intense marriage. Cisneros quotes, "demands each course of dinner be served on a separate plate like at his mother's, as soon as he gets home, on time or late, and who doesn't care at all for music or telenolevas or romance or roses or the moon floating pearly over the arroyo, or through the bedroom window for …show more content…
She does not have a car to drive. Cisneros describes how the setting is traumatic in the quote, “Nothing one could walk to, at any rate. Because the towns here are built so that you have to depend on husbands. Or you stay home. Or you drive. If you're rich enough to own, allowed to drive, your own car.” This explains why the setting is traumatic since she cannot enjoy her alone time with peace and the town is that small that you cannot do much forcing her to stay home. She also describes the setting to be traumatic since she says that you do not have any control of what you can do as a woman. She then also backs up her claim in this different quote, “Don't go out thereafter dark, mi'jita. Stay near the house. No es bueno para Ia salud. Mala suerte. Bad luck. Mal Aire. You'll get sick and the baby too.” This shows how traumatic the scenery gets since La Llorona (Sweeping Woman) in that town. She implies this to show how gloomy the town
In each of the issues presented in the book, from race, class, and religion, the women of these Arizona towns play an important role, thus it is safe to assume that it is Gordon’s intention to emphasize the women’s function. First, before being able to examine the women’s role in the titular abductions, it is important to note the women’s role in society. Gordon succinctly clarifies this role by writing, “Not only did men long for women, they longed for wives, and the presence of a few women only intensified that feeling.” Women were highly regarded in this society, as there were so few of them.
“Instead of story books read to us at night, we fell asleep to bursts of gunfire.” This quote really stood out to me; I cannot even imagine what life was like living in such an environment. The stories we hear on the internet and see in movies about gang violence, robberies, and shooting was what Mrs. Perez had to deal with in her everyday agenda. During her childhood she lived with her mother in a house filled with aunts, sisters, and cousins. “We had to watch for one another” she explained.
I was also able to understand Esperanza’s life more clearly in The House on Mango Street by learning more about her culture. In addition, I reflected on the gender roles in my own culture and gained more knowledge on how it affects my daily life. By exploring the reasons behind the several similarities and differences, it allowed me to make connections between my culture and Esperanza’s culture. In conclusion, learning more about gender roles in the Hispanic and Indian cultures has helped me become more internationally minded and knowledgeable on my own culture as well as another
Moreover, Sandra Cisneros is raising awareness of the hidden domestic abuse in families, and urging victims to stand up. Sandra Cisneros is raising awareness of domestic abuse and racism in society at large. By composing the characters in her text as victims, she is providing a realization of these issues still being current, and she is opening a door for these issues to be addressed. Students are assigned this book in schools and colleges because they need to be taught about the problems in society, so they can prevent
Back in the day men and women were not seen the same way as they are today. In the 1800s women were raised to obey their husbands at all times and blame themselves before they could blame another man. The protagonist in the stories “Woman Hollering Creek” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” were an example of that in their marriage. They were both married to controlling/abusive husbands. “Woman Hollering Creek” is about a girl who left Mexico to go to Texas after marrying her Husband.
Esperanza acquires a sense of who she is as a young woman. These characters aid in her decided stance on gender roles and how she wants to evade them as she starts to build her own life. Through Esperanza’s narration, the darkness that correlates with the roles of women is brought into light. The gender roles found in the book are still issues today. Such ideas ruin much of society because people have yet to question and altar them.
The novella The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is about how a young hispanic girl discovers her identity. Esperanza’s family moves to a poor, predominantly hispanic town in Chicago. As she adjusts to her new neighborhood, she learns from her neighbors and from her own experiences in this new town. In particular, her traumatizing experiences with sexual assault have impacted her. Esperanza’s identity as an independent hispanic girl is shaped by her experiences in sexual assault because it presents her with the dangers many minorities face.
Loss of Innocence In the book The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros demonstrates in her writing how a child can be forced to mature too rapidly. Esperanza encounters sexism, racism, and discrimination towards the poor that impacted her paradigm of the world around her. The motif occurring throughout the novel is how a young girl must become a woman before they are ready. In the chapter “The Monkey Garden”, Esperanza makes one of her final transitions into the woman, her environment forces her to be, this is shown by the change of her opinion of her shoes, the realization of woman accepting manipulation by men, and her loss of childlike interest in the Monkey Garden.
In the short story, “Mericans”, written by Sandra Cisneros, there are many underlying conflicts that surface throughout the story. The conflicts, in short, evolve around two very distinguished cultures. Furthermore, the clashing views regarding the two cultures cause a great amount of problems for many individuals in a society. The cultural differences can tremendously affect a society, as the clashing views can lead to a wide array of issues such as ethnocentrism, gender discrimination, stereotypes, as well as the health of many personal relationships. Cisneros begins to develop this conflict when the story’s narrator, Michele, describes the altar to La Divina Providencia in which the “awful grandmother” worships.
A texan woman, named Sandra Bearden was looking for a maid to complete housework and look after her son, so she traveled into a poor village in Mexico and met Maria. Maria, being only twelve years old, saw this as an opportunity to move to the U.S. and receive better education which produced a better life. Sadly, Maria’s dreams were crushed because Sandra began to take advantage of her both physically and mentally. Her punishments for not working included: pepper spray in the eyes, a bottle broken against her head, jamming garden tools up her private areas,
In Mexican American society , women are deemed inferior to men, evident in traditional family roles, the male is the head of the family who provides for the family , while the woman stays at home to look after the children she is expected to provide for her husband . In the third vignette of ‘The House on Mango Street’ titled ‘Boys and Girls’ the reader is informed of the division between men and women when Esperanza refers to herself and her sister Nenny , and her brothers, “They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls”. The male dominance begins at a very young age.
“Woman Hollering Creek” is a short story that was written by a Hispanic woman named Sandra Cisneros. Her stories are written in English but also use Spanish terms throughout the story. In the short story, Cisneros writes about a Mexican woman, Cleofilas Enriqueta DeLeon Hernandez, who moves from her hometown in Mexico and marries a U.S. citizen named Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez. The couple moves to Texas to begin a new life together. As years go by, Cleofilas gets abused by her husband and she decides to keep it a secret.
Additionally , the house that the narrator mentions is illustrated as “ mansion of gloom “ which might be a sign that the aura of the house has something dreadful in it. However , the Narrator reveals something important about his first impression for the house by saying “ I looked upon the scene before me , upon the mere house, upon the bleak walls , upon the vacant eye-like windows ( 3 ).To illustrate , the words such as “ air of heaven , silent tarn , mystic vapor “ used as a reinforcement for making the ambience of the house as gloomy. In fact , in the light of these facts , it could be said that the house has an darkness appearance which might be an indication of its mysterious atmosphere.
In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, the character of Mamacita has the strongest ties to her home she left, and perhaps the strongest desire to escape from Mango Street and return home. Mamacita is a woman with a husband and child, who moved to Chicago from a latin american country. She is somewhat overweight, doesn’t know much English, and stays mostly in her apartment for unknown reasons, singing songs from her native country and crying. Her husband fights with Mamacita, often over her desire to return, and her child is becoming assimilated into American society against her will. Because Mamacita has such strong ties to her heritage and origin, she clings to it tightly, resisting assimilation in any way possible, and highlights
“Maria Concepcion” is a short story by Katherine Anne Porter about a young Mexican peasant woman who kills a young girl who threatens her marriage, and thus wins back her husband and restores her universe to order. It is only after a cold act of murder that her world assumes its former balance. Being set in Mexico where women were under the impression to be submissive to men even when they are in the wrong of their actions. Women were not allowed to be in a position of dominance. Porter develops María Concepción into what could be called a powerful round character by contrasting her attitude in the first part of the story to the end of the story.