Friday, October 9, 2009

Cleofila's dream life



Saldívar-Hull's Argument: "Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.
Cleofila is a typical woman who dreams about her marriage, husband, and romantic life. Cleofia is a chicana woman and she came to Seguin, Texas with her husbnad. She was going for romantic marriage life like other white woman there. But her husband abuse her.

"He slapped her once, and then again, and again; until lip split and bled an orchid of blood, she didn't fight bak, she didn't break into tears, she didn't run away as she imagined she might when she saw such things in the telenovelas"

She held it herself. She didn't want to break the marriage although it was not right. She tries to make it better.

"Not that he isn't a good man. She has to remind herself why she loves him when she changes the baby's papers, or when she mops the bathroom floor, or tries to make the curtain for the doorways without doors, or whiten the linen."

She doesn't give up her wife role. She does house work at home, tries to remind herself why she loves him. She knows that this life wouldn't change to life she dreamed. But she keeps her white feminisms and endure the life. She always think back the life before marriage but she can't leave her husband because her husband helps support their child. She struggles like other woman in America.

"Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.

1 comment:

  1. These are important quotes, Ji, but how do you think Saldívar-Hull uses either the novel or cultural material (like the telenovelas, etc.) to support her argument?

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