Questioning whether the environment you grow up in alters the mentality you develop as you become older has never been more appropriate for Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros, a Latina, feminist, and poet, grew up in a low-income community in Chicago, Illinois, born into a home with a Mexican father, Chicano mother, and six brothers. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, but as a child continuously moved back and forth from Chicago to Mexico. She declares that, as a child, she was not content with her Chicago community; defining it as an unfortunate portion of town deprived of wildlife and splendor. Cisneros found her escape in books,which pursued her to receive a B.A. in English at Loyola University of Chicago. She communicated to the public that she …show more content…
By living in a male dominated household, this stimulated her use of feminist Latina character. Along with her Hispanic heritage, it influenced her to combine English and Spanish, which she uses as foundation for her stories (poems). In her poem Loose Woman, a poem in the collection of its self titled book “Loose Women”, Cisneros boldly shouts her thoughts out loud about the perception of women writers. Thus, establishing a strong feminist tone present within her poems such as Loose Woman, unlike other women writers who tend to associate themselves with the traditional style of subdued tones and underlying messages. In this poem you get the sense that Cisneros is being attacked about who she is, correlating back to her childhood having had struggled with her personal identity, moving back and forth between her Mexican side and the side that resides in the States. In lines, “ They call me..”, Cisneros end them in many variations such as “A beast, a bitch, a witch, and a macha”. The use of the word 'beast' implies that because she is a woman writing in such bold fashions she is seen as a beast. Yet could similarly imply that because she is a woman of color, a woman of Mexican descent, that her choice of diction is animalistic and archaic in contrast to a Caucasian woman writing such daring pieces around the time frame of 1994 . The word “macha” is also a personal stab at Chicana …show more content…
Her works thus often present a picture of Latino life from a point of view that reveals aspects that ordinarily might be hidden. For example, in “Los Boxers,” the poem begins with a child dropping and breaking a bottle of soda, setting up a situation in which the mother, cleans up the glass and mops away the spill, while the man watches and lectures. He never thinks of helping her; in his culture, this is unthinkable, even for a man who has learned to do his own laundry. In the context of traditional Latino culture, it is ideal that the woman passively serves men, obeying her father and then her husband, giving her life to housekeeping and motherhood. Cisneros beautifully tackles the traditional Mexican household where it has been rooted for many generations that the woman is subjective to the head male of the household. That she never question her duty as a mother, wife, or daughter. Cisneros invites her audience to witness what occurs within the those four walls. By letting her characters speak, readers are encouraged to explore implicit meanings of the presented
The poet Rosario Castellanos challenges the belief of the patriarchal couple as she writes about the potential of women to be more than just a domestic worker. In her poem “Poesía no eres tú”, she counters the idea of women written in the poem by Bécquer “Rimas”. A woman is more than just physical beauty. A woman is valued by her skills and intellect, characteristics that are often oppressed by men.
Contreras’s writings exhibited issues that were of great concern to women. She explored single parenthood, violence, both physical a psychological against women, lesbianism, and growing old. On the contrary, she used her stories to depict the weakness of men. Her writings included sterility, jealousy, and homosexuality amongst the male sex. Her stories revealed a distinctive concern for emotions and psychological motivation. Emotions such as terror that many women are exposed to in their relations with men are prevalent in her literary works.
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago and grew up in Illinois. She was the only girl in a family of seven. Cisneros is noted for her collection of poems and books that concentrate on the Chicano experience in the United States. In her writings, Cisneros explores and transcends borders of location, ethnicity, gender and language. Cisneros writes in lyrical yet deceptively simple language. She makes the invisible visible by centering on the lives of Chicanos--their relationships with their families, their religion, their art, and their politics.
Symbolism is the key to understanding Sandra Cisneros’ novel, “The House on Mango Street”. By unraveling the symbolism, the reader truly exposes the role of not only Latina women but women of any background. Esperanza, a girl from a Mexican background living in Chicago, writes down what she witnesses while growing up. As a result of her sheltered upbringing, Esperanza hardly comprehends the actions that take place around her, but what she did understand she wrote in her journal. Cisneros used this technique of the point of view of a child, to her advantage by giving the readers enough information of what is taking place on Mango Street so that they can gather the pieces of the puzzle a get the big picture.
By educating herself she was able to form her own opinion and no longer be ignorant to the problem of how women are judge by their appearance in Western cultures. By posing the rhetorical question “what is more liberating” (Ridley 448), she is able to get her readers to see what she has discovered. Cisneros also learned that despite the fact that she did not take the path that her father desired, he was still proud of all of her accomplishments. After reading her work for the first time her father asked “where can I get more copies” (Cisneros 369), showing her that he wanted to show others and brag about his only daughters accomplishments. Tan shifts tones throughout the paper but ends with a straightforward tone saying “there are still plenty of other books on the shelf. Choose what you like” (Tan 4), she explains that as a reader an individual has the right to form their own opinion of her writing but if they do not like it they do not have to read it because she writes for her own pleasure and no one else’s. All of the women took separate approaches to dealing with their issues but all of these resolutions allowed them to see the positive side of the
A woman’s self-worth and self-esteem are vital to experiencing happiness in a marriage. In addition, low self-esteem will cause a woman to feel abandoned, because she is not getting enough emotional support from her husband. Cisneros demonstrated this through the character of Cleofilas in the story. For example, Cleofilas often reminds herself why she loves Juan Pedr...
Kumaraswami (2007) identifies that the females presented are stereotypical in their nature; this is to say that they either exist in the domestic atmosphere or that they have lost their purity due to being forced into the revolution. Although Camila and Pintada are complete opposites, the similarity lays in the fact that they both fit different parts of society at that time: “En combinación, forman una síntesis de dos extremos irreconciliables que se le presentan a la mujer mexicana y entre los cuales tiene que escoger” (Clark, 1980). In this sense, the mexican women were in two different situations, those who wished to remain traditionalistic and those who sought self-advancement through the likes of previously considered male characteristics. One can see the traditional character through Camila, Azuela has ensured that initially Camila would fit the traditional role of the female, caring, weak, and doting to the men’s needs. Thus Camila seems to be a flat stereotypical character that is expected to appear in novels of this era if women were to appear at all. Nevertheless, the character of Camila becomes more dynamic as Los de Abajo develops, thus she becomes more of an indication as to how women involved in the revolution did not remain ‘sana y buena’. On the contrary, the almost paradoxical characteristics of Pintada seem to confuse Azuela. Pintada is an emasculated character but only in the sense of
Each part contains short stories within them. These all consist of a heartwarming girl, Esperanza,who matures into a woman and how she faces these gender roles through love and violence. Cisneros alters the name Esperanza with Chayo, Rachel, Lupe, Ines, and Clemenica, to explain differences between them along with to give the story more lewd effectiveness. Sandra Cisnero's main focus throughout the novel was identity. Cisneros starts off in the first section (“My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn), narrating as a young child and further matures into the final section (There was a Man, There was a Woman)....
Intertwined in allusions to women of Mexican history and folklore, making it clear that women across the centuries have suffered the same alienation and victimization, Cisneros presents a woman who struggles to prevail over romantic notions of domestic bliss by leaving her husband. In the story Woman Hollering Creek, Sandra Cisneros discusses the issues of living life as a married woman through a character named Cleófilas; a character who is married to a man who abuses her physically and mentally. Cisneros reveals the way the culture puts a difference between a male and a female, men above women. In Woman Hollering Creek, we see a young Mexican woman, who suddenly moves across the border and gets married. The protagonist, Cleófilas’ character is based on a family of a six brothers and a dad and without a mom, and the story reveals around her inner feelings and secrets.
She is the one that refuses to oblige to societal orders. She is the “Shadow-Beast” (38) with “Chicana identity grounded in the Indian woman’s history of resistance” (43). Although alienated physically, Anzaldua is “immobilized” (43) mentally the more confined she becomes in a culture engulfed in pure oppression. She claims her “shadow-beast” as the depiction of her highly wanted independence as an individual human being, which eventually forces her to leave her family behind to find herself separately from the “intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed” (38) for people like Anzaldua for many years. Her push for rebellion sets a voice for the silenced anger and pure resistance against the ostracism of herself, her family, culture, and the white-washed society she has been born into. To be the only Chicana, lesbian, and rebellious woman in her family is considered sinful, as women, according to Anzaldua, in Mexico only have “three directions she could turn: to the church as a nun, to the streets as a prostitute, or to the home as a mother” (39). Noticing that women are culturally restricted to these roles, Anzaldua creates the opposite role for herself claiming to take the “fourth choice” by “entering the world by way of education and career and becoming self-autonomous persons,” (39), which she uses to her advantage to transform the prolonged oppression into her long awaited freedom to live as an openly queer woman
Cisneros too has a unique way of writing because she also includes archetypes throughout the series of short stories in her novel. The main character is Esperanza Cordero and she too is depicted as an outcast just like Ultima. She is a Latina who tries to fit in her society. An example is when the girls try on the heels and they finally feel like a woman. The excitement didn't last for too long because of the catcalling. Even when she felt like she fit in with society, it was ruined and she still remained the outcast in the story. By Cisneros adding this archetype to her piece of literature, it connected me to the human
In the Book women are looked upon as objects by men whether they are boyfriends, friends fathers or husbands. The girls in the novel grow up with the mentality that looks and appearance are the most important things to a woman. Cisneros also shows how Latino women are expected to be loyal to their husbands, and that a husband should have complete control of the relationship. Yet on the other hand, Cisneros describes the character Esperanza as being different. Even though she is born and raised in the same culture as the women around her, she is not happy with it, and knows that someday she will break free from its ties, because she is mentally strong and has a talent for telling stories. She comes back through her stories by showing the women that they can be independent and live their own lives. In a way this is Cinceros' way of coming back and giving back to the women in her community.
Cisneros starts the essay by reflecting on an anthology for a work that she wrote where she stated “I am the only daughter in a family of six sons. That explains everything” (Cisneros 366). Right after she introduces herself as how she sees herself now as the statement that she had written she feels does not explain enough about her to the reader. Next, she then goes into her story of how she sees herself and what has made her who she is. This explanation is taken throughout the entire essay as she explains how she got to where she was in her career. Her thesis is that growing up alone in isolation made her work hard to prove herself to her father. The thesis is very obvious in the essay and Cisneros successfully uses proves her thesis as she explains her childhood with her dad in the center of attention. Although others may argue that Cisneros’ relationship affects who she is in a negative way, Cisneros successfully proves the relationship between the two positively affects who she
In the story "Woman Hollering Creek" Sandra Cisneros discusses the issues of living life as a married woman through a character named Cleofilas; a character who is married to a man who abuses her physically and mentally .Cisneros reveals the way the culture puts a difference between a male and a female, men above women. Cisneros has been famous about writing stories about the latino culture and how women are treated; she explain what they go through as a child, teen and when they are married; always dominated by men because of how the culture has been adapted. "Woman Hollering Creek" is one of the best examples. A character who grows up without a mother and who has no one to guid and give her advise about life.
This provides evidence of the stereotype that Latinas are sexual beings as she is called out for not reciprocating an act that majority of girls would deny anyhow, but since she is a Latina it is assumed that she likes it. She goes on to state in a metaphor that “I was supposed to ripen, not just grow into womanhood like other girls,” (8) meaning that she was thought of as a fruit, an inanimate object, used for the pleasure and to satisfy other people, even though she is a human being herself. Finally, the author’s last personal anecdote is one where she was at a poetry reading and “an older woman motioned [her] to her table” (13) and Cofer believed it was to sign an autograph. However, the woman “ordered a cup of coffee from [her], assuming that [she] was the waitress”