Reflection of Others
In a couple between a man and woman, the man is known for being the dominant one in the relationship. In the story "Woman Hollering Creek", by Sandra Cisneros. Cleofilas Enriqueta Deleon Hernandez, is a woman who suffers from her husbands over dominance of the relationship. Cleofila is woman with ambitions to live a meaningful life filled with love and happiness just like in her telenovelas. Instead, she lives in isolation with Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez, her husband who she loves dearly, but is constantly abused by him. The only friends Cleofila has are her lady neighbors, Dolores and Soledad. In their actions and responses, many women unwittingly reflect the viewpoints and focus of their friends and neighbors
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just as Cleofilas reflects Dolores and Soledad. Cleofila reflects her lady neighbors Dolores and Soledad because they live powerless lives.
The husband of the families is responsible for protecting and providing for them, "Because the towns here are built so that you have to depend on the husbands."(224). Unlike Dolores and Soledad where they no longer have men in their lives to depend on, Cleofila does. Her husband is well capable of being someone she can depend, instead she's abused by him. This goes to show that Cleofila can leave him, but has no power to do so. Early in the story before the abuse starts she mentions how she would defend herself if any man struck her, "She had always said she would strike back if a man, any man, were to strike her."(222). But when her husband first hit her she did absolutely nothing, which shows how powerless she …show more content…
was. Just like Dolores and Soledad, she had loyalty to her husband. For a long time Cleofila was abused and mistreated by her husband and refused to leave him. When she was growing up her parents never raised their hands to each other or their children, so when her husband hit her she didn’t know how to react, "… he slapped her once, and then again, and again, until the lip slit and bled an orchid of blood, she didn’t fight back..."(222). Cleofila had plenty of opportunity to return to Mexico, but since she was loyal to her husband and feared the gossips of the locals, "What a disgrace. What would the neighbors say? Coming home like that with one baby on her hip and one in the oven. Where's your husband?"(224). She believed her only choice was to stay at her husband's side. Even though Dolores and Soledad were never abused by their husbands, they both lost them either by choice or circumstances and would never come back. Both neighbors could have remarried, but instead they remained loyal to their husbands, just like Cleofila. In addition to Cleofilas loyalty, she also suffered from isolation, which Dolores and Soledad suffer from it as well.
The moment she moved across the border with her newlywed husband is when the isolation started. She was no longer going to receive the support from her friends and family like she always had. Her husband also refused to let her contact her family " She hasn’t been allowed to call home or write or nothing."(227). Cleofila coming from Mexico and moving into a town where she knows no one, she also, doesn’t speak English. This just makes her isolation worse. Cleofila reflects Dolores and Soledad because their isolation doesn’t allow them to do anything. They spend their days gardening, watching tv, and
housekeeping. Throughout the story Cleofila lives her life getting abused and living isolated, but she manages to free herself from her unpleasant life. Cleofila always knew she had to be true to herself, but since she had no power in herself, there wasn’t a thing she could do. She had an immense amount of loyalty to the man who provided for her and their children because that’s how pure and good hearted of a woman she was. Her actions and responses did reflect Dolores and Soledad, but it doesn’t matter because in the end she overcame her struggles and became a free independent woman.
In the short story, “Women Hollering Creek,” (Cisneros) Cleofilas, grows up without her mother, and must learn how to become a woman from a show she is watching on television. AT first, Cleofilas
In the story “Woman Hollering Creek” Sandra Cisneros covers the many challenges of being a married woman through the character Cleofilas. Cleofilas is married to a man that would not only mentally abuse her ,but physically also. Cisneros shows how double standards make it difficult for women; putting men above women. The culture has always been dominated by men.
“Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston and “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros have common themes of spousal abuse and gender power struggles. The female characters roles within their household are very different. Cleofilas is forced to stay home alone with no car while her husband works. Delia on the other hand makes the living for her household while her husband Sykes lives off of her wages and does as he pleases, including cheating on her. The female characters in both stories find freedom from their abuse and struggles with their husbands, but they find freedom in very different ways. Another woman aids Cleofilas in her escape, and she has somewhere to go, back to her family. Delia has to put up with her abuse for 15 years of marriage, far
In the short story “Woman Hollering Creek” the conflict of the story is between the main characters Cleofilas, the protagonist, and Juan, the antagonist who are married. The conflict stems from Cleofilas’ perception of how a wife should be treated versus Juan’s idea of how to treat
Juan Rubio was not feeling the same about his wife anymore, Richard and his sisters had to deal with the separation of his parents, and Consuelo no longer wanted to be submissive to her husband. After the move, Consuelo was exposed to a different lifestyle for women and how they handled certain situations in America. Her American friends often questioned her level of importance. Once she married Juan Rubio, Consuelo knew she would become “the anchor” of her husband and the house. Because of this, she is stuck in an internal battle with herself. She wants to be the support system her husband demands while living up to Mexican values, but desires to have the new freedoms American women have. Juan’s infidelity and the downfall of their marriage was the push that helped change Consuelo. Although she did not want to lose the affection of her husband and children, she did not want to fall victim of the stereotypical housewife. Consuelo was not finding joy in merely serving her family but wanted recognition for who she is as a woman. “But all such scenes did not end with laughter, for Richard’s mother was a different person altogether now, and constantly interfered when her husband was in the act of disciplining a child, and these interferences grew until they flared into violent quarrels” (Villarreal 134). At this point, Counselo shows us she has developed a voice of her own. She was acting and saying
The story “Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros describes the lives of Mexicans in a Chicago neighborhood. She depicts the life that women endure as Latino wives through her portrayal of the protagonist, Cleofilas. For Cisneros being a Mexican-American has given her a chance to see life from two different cultures. In addition, Cisneros has written the story from a woman’s perspective, illustrating the types of conflicts many women face as Latino wives. This unique paradigm allows the reader to examine the events and characters using a feminist critical perspective.
When Drew rejects Clemencia, she moves on to his son, controlling and sleeping with him, staying in power. I think by controlling her son, she wants to show Drew that she controls him. Drew was the only thing that she wanted, in fact she wanted to be with him but he said he wouldn’t leave his wife. One thing to note is that she sleeps with those, whose affair when comes out in the open could hurt someone and those that are Mexican, she doesn’t consider them to be “potential lovers”. Drew’s affair would hurt his wife, and Drew’s son’s affair would hurt Drew. Clemencia becomes like “La Malinche” who is always “guilty of betray” (Wyatt). She may not be directly betraying anyone but she is the reason for the betrayal. She wants others to feel what she felt when her mother betrayed her for someone from a different
Sandra Cisneros short story “Woman Hollering Creek”, has many allegories about culture, morality, and gender roles.
The author, Sandra Cisneros, grew up as a Mexican-American woman in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother was Mexican -American and her father was from Mexico; she makes a clear point the difference between the two cultures. She graduated from Loyola University in Chicago and from there enrolled in a Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Bad Boys, a book of poetry, was published by a small press company that specialized in Latino literature in 1980. It received little notice. But her first fiction collection, House on Mango Street, was published in 1984 and gained the noticed of the New York publishing establishment. “The work is organized, like Mango Street, around the central female protagonist, whose views of her extended family help to clarify her own character” (Perkins, 390). The story “Woman Hollering Creek” came from her 1991 book of stories entitled Woman Hollering Creek and Othe...
Women Hollering Creek was considered one of Sandra Cisnero's best works. With a Texan view, this 22 short story novel was set upon the late 1960's to 1980's era. There are three distinct sections: “My Lucy Friend who smells like Corn”, “One Holy Night” as well as “There was a Man, There was a Woman”. 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.
When the United States was taking shape a nation, many events took place, and they played an important role in defining the country in different ways. One theme that comes up is the role women played in the development of America as a nation. For long, the society has been focusing on the role of men from different races and ethnicities in the development of America. The women of the Great Plains are among those that the American society had failed to recognize on many fronts, including their lives before America started to become a great nation in the mid-nineteenth century. These women lived between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains horizontally and between Arctic Circle and Mexico vertically, where the land is
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.
Society set a standard many years ago that in a relationship, the woman depends on the man. In The House on Mango Street, woman tend to trust and not have power in relationships. Sandra Cisneros develops the theme that women are inferior to men. This is based on men’s view on power and women accepting their role through the motif of gender roles throughout the novella The House on Mango Street.
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.
Imagine living in a family that struggled and strained to support itself. Any efforts to improve the lives of strangers and acquaintances would seem futile and unobtainable. People in the United States of America had to live with these hardships during the Great Depression. A series of stock market crashes during the 1930’s was the main cause ot the Great Depression. As a result of the Great Depression, many regulations, orders, and government organizations were created. The livelihoods of people living in the U.S. were changed drastically due to a drop in job availability and education. People across the country tried to improve the way they lived, specifically southern women. Though the lives of southern women were changed during the Great