I did not quite understand the argument being made, so I will try my best at providing a claim for it. The quote from the text that stands out the most to me is: "Like other Mexican women who regularly watch Spanish "novels" in the US and Mexico, Cleofilas is totally immersed within a fully mediatized culture witch instructs young women that their goal in life is marriage, adn that marriage to a US citizen is synonymous with social mobility and unbridled consumerism". From this quote it I get the impression that from watching television, reading romantic novels, flipping through various magazines, or the gossip around the town, some Mexican women make it their goal to marry an American. From what they hear, see, or read, they believe that they will encounter the best lives if they marry into an American family. However, based on the story that is told in Woman Hollering Creek, Cleofilas does not end up experiencing the life that she dreamed of. I also find it interesting that Cisneros names Cleofilas American neighbors Soledad and Dolores, meaning solitude and pain. Even though they are American, they still got stuck in the "media" idea of what the life of a woman should be like. Throughout the entire text there is no mention of the class system, the writing is solely based on the feminist aspect for the Mexican woman; the crossing over to a country where life is supposed to be better and bring happiness, but for some end up being the opposite and worse than what was being experienced back home. I know I am not going in the right direction at all, I am very confused about what to write or the point that I am even trying to make. I understand the story, but the argument is what is confusing me.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Woman Hollering Creek
I did not quite understand the argument being made, so I will try my best at providing a claim for it. The quote from the text that stands out the most to me is: "Like other Mexican women who regularly watch Spanish "novels" in the US and Mexico, Cleofilas is totally immersed within a fully mediatized culture witch instructs young women that their goal in life is marriage, adn that marriage to a US citizen is synonymous with social mobility and unbridled consumerism". From this quote it I get the impression that from watching television, reading romantic novels, flipping through various magazines, or the gossip around the town, some Mexican women make it their goal to marry an American. From what they hear, see, or read, they believe that they will encounter the best lives if they marry into an American family. However, based on the story that is told in Woman Hollering Creek, Cleofilas does not end up experiencing the life that she dreamed of. I also find it interesting that Cisneros names Cleofilas American neighbors Soledad and Dolores, meaning solitude and pain. Even though they are American, they still got stuck in the "media" idea of what the life of a woman should be like. Throughout the entire text there is no mention of the class system, the writing is solely based on the feminist aspect for the Mexican woman; the crossing over to a country where life is supposed to be better and bring happiness, but for some end up being the opposite and worse than what was being experienced back home. I know I am not going in the right direction at all, I am very confused about what to write or the point that I am even trying to make. I understand the story, but the argument is what is confusing me.
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Actually, you're going in exactly the right direction.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the following sentence indicates a highly ambiguous aspect of S-H's argument: "Even though they are American, they still got stuck in the "media" idea of what the life of a woman should be like." There seems to be a slippage in S-H's argument between class, feminism, and what she calls the Third World of Mexico and the Third World of the U.S., both inhabited by Cleofilas. What S-H never addresses is where Felice and Graciela, her "heros," fit in. If they're mediators, what exactly do they mediate? Where does that mediation take place and what is its relationship to class and (white) feminism?