Themes in Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros

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Themes in Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros

Woman Hollering Creek is a book of short stories published in 1991. The author, Sandra Cisneros, separated her book into three sections. The section that will be analyzed is the first section where the narrators are female children. Out of the many stories in section one, the three that will be focused on are, "Mericans," "My Friend Lucy Who Smells Like Corn," and "Barbie-Q." The children in these three stories are all lower class, Mexican-American females. These stories have been described by Thompson as Cisneros remembering her childhood, filled with no male figures, lack of close female friendships, and poverty (415-417). Each story shares both similar themes and different themes.

At first glance, My Friend Lucy Who Smells Like Corn, seems like a nice story about a girl and her friend. The theme for this story is obvious: Friendship. The narrator wishes "my skin can get so dark... like Lucy's"( Cisneros 2557). One might not think that there is any other theme other than that of friendship but if a closer look is taken, readers can see that there are two other themes Cisneros wanted to be noticed, the themes of poverty and displacement (Thompson 415-417). The theme of poverty is pretty easy to locate. The narrator talks about "79 cent flip flops at

K-MART," and all of the "girls all wear each other's clothes"(Cisneros 2557). Unlike the theme of poverty, the theme of displacement is not as easy to find. The first line of the story is where we find the theme of displacement. The narrator calls Lucy a "Texas girl" as though she herself were not one (Mullen 1996). It is not clear if the narrator is visiting her grandparents or permanently living with them but as a rea...

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...they do not have to be perfect to be happy and to be loved.

Works Cited

Brady, Mary Pat. " The Contrapuntal Geographies of Woman Hollering Creek and other stories." American Literature. Vol. 71 Issue 1, March 1999: 117-152.

Cisneros, Sandra. "My Friend Lucy who Smells Like Corn", "Barbie-Q", "Mericans." The Norton Anthology of American Litertature. 6th Ed. Vol. E. Eds. Nina Baym. Et.al. New York: Norton, 2002. 2556-2561.

Cisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek and other stories. New York: Vintage Books Gale Writing Group, 1991.

Mullen, Harryette. "A Silence Between Us Like A Language: The Ultra Translatability of Experience in Sandra Cisneros's Woman Hollering Creek." Melus. Vol. 21 Issue 2, 1996: 3-21.

Thomson, Jeff. "What is Called Heaven: Identity in Sandra Cisneros's Woman Hollering Creek." Studies in Short Fiction. Vol. 31 Issue 3 1994.

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