Tlilli Tlapalli The Path Of The Ink Analysis

The essay “Tlilli Tlapalli: The Path of the Red and Black Ink” written by Gloria Anzaldua grants the reader insight into a writer's mind. The essay reveals the reasons and process of becoming a writer and therefore an artist.
In her essay Anzaldu firstly elaborates on her early stages of writing. Anzaldua suffered of insomnia when she was little. In order to pass time she would hide under the covers and read stories. Her little sister who slept in the same bed as her eventually catches her reading and forces her into reading out loud every night. Anzaldua tells her sister stories and writes them down afterwards. Soon she tells two stories a night. Anzaldua describes the process of writing as a relief, a way to cope with experiences. If she does not

write stories for a long time, she finds herself becoming ill, on the other hand she engaged in writing for seventeen hours. Anzaldua explains writing similar to diary entry. By writing down her every day schedule she analyses her experiences and most of all her own self. The author compares her own ancestral culture to the Western one and the way each culture sees the art of writing. She explains that the Aztec regard inanimate objects as living ones and even compares them to a person with needs, whereas Western art is treated by it's culture as “dead thing”(90). Her culture's view on objects is parallel to her writing process, since she projects her energy and feelings into her words. Just as the objects in her culture, so do her writings and images become alive and reflect not only herself, but also the current historical, political and cultural happenings. She also describes how she sometimes listens to music in order to connect images and stories in her mind and finally falls into trance, which she calls “shamanic state”. In her opinion a writer must believe in her/himself and their opinion, otherwise the writings have no meaning and do not reflect on the writer's self.
Throughout her essay Anzaldua projects her enthusiasm onto the reader.

By using a lot of exceptional and moving metaphors like “Words are blades of grass pushing past the obstacles, sprouting on the page” (93), underline her impressing skills in turning images into words. The tone of the essay is enthusiastic and compelling, Anzaldua asks the readers to believe in themselves. Anzaldua even connects her native language with her adopted one, in her current essays.
The title of the essay refers to the Aztecs' phrase “writing and wisdom”, which describes the importance of truth in poetry. They believed in communication with the Devine through poetry. By utilizing this title Anzaldua again emphasizes her tribal ancestry once more and uses it as justification for her interest in writing.
All in all Anzaldua's essay is very motivating and “colorful”, due to her utilization of metaphors she uses give the reader gains insight into her writing process, most of all into the process of connecting images and building ideas. However Anzaldua's use of language and style, the transition from English to Spanish and back again in particular, may create confusion for certain readers, who are not familiar with the different

languages.