Woman Hollering Creek
Woman Hollering Creek is a collection of short stories and vignettes written by Sandra Cisneros. Similarly to The House on Mango Street . Cisneros employs powerful imagery and concentrated emotion to portray the life of Chicanos and Mexican-Americans. The first section of the book is entitled “My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn.” This section includes seven pieces that focus on the lives of Chicano children. She writes about the duality of the Mexican and American culture in their lives, citing Barbies, the movies, and food as influencing factors in the lives of the various children. Next, she moves onto a section entitled “One Holy Night,” which contains two pieces. These pieces explore the condition of adolescence in an oppressive world. In “One Holy Night” a young girl is impregnated by a much older man and receives the blame for it from her family. The second, “My Tocaya,” relates the story of a young girl who disappears from a violent home. She is said to have run away from home, but is later found dead. Finally, the section “There Was a Man, There Was a Woman” moves into adulthood with thirteen stories. The first tells the story of a girl who becomes a woman by getting married, but suffers from it. The next two sections question what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, respectively. They focus primarily of superficial physical features. Next Cisneros explores issues of what it means to be a gay Chicano. She tells the story of a Chicana woman who steals a white woman’s husband, including a delicate undertone of race relations. She ponders on the meaning of love in several sections. In “Eyes of Zapata” themes of life and death are explored. Next, she writes two pieces discussing religion and class together in order to show the important effects each has on the Chicano culture. The longest section of the novel is last, entitled “Bien Pretty.” This section encapsulates all the themes that were present in the preceding chapters: class, life, death, love, gender, culture, migration, and age.
Woman Hollering Creek is not Sandra Cisneros´ most famous work taught in schools, but it should certainly be considered when selecting texts for classrooms. The work is at a higher reading level than The House on Mango Street and contains more diverse subject matter. Since it is full of short stories and is not one continuous narrative, the educator can select and choose vignettes that portray specific examples of cultural or literary value. However, I feel that reading the work as a whole and in a linear fashion is the best way to experience the work. Although Woman Hollering Creek does not focus on one main character it illustrates the process of growing up in a cross-cultural situation. The structure of the collection allows readers to glimpse into what it is like to be a child, adolescent, and adult in the Chicano culture. The breadth of characters used allows Cisneros to portray many different situations and people, escaping the trap of the single story. While The House on Mango Street is a wonderful work, Woman Hollering Creek presents a more inclusive depiction of the culture. This allows students and other readers to identify with the text in more ways and allows them to know that the culture and experiences of Chicanos is varied.
Further, Cisneros does not just focus on the race and cultural issues of being Chicano. She also includes several other segments of minority status that many Chicanos face on a day to day basis. The issue of gender and sexuality is discussed in multiple pieces, through the both adolescent and adult lenses. Religion also plays a key role in several stories. She speaks of the mixture of Catholicism and folk religion, comparing it to the mixture of Mexican and American culture for Chicano individuals. Socio-economic status is also discussed at length both explicitly and subliminally. The inclusion of multiple angles of identity helps to prevent reading the text in only terms of race, showing that the identity and experience of Chicanos is complex and changing constantly.
One potential problem that the text may pose is that some of the subject matter is more mature than some teachers may feel comfortable with covering. There are instances of both physical and sexual violence against women and young girls, as well as death. However, some of these themes are also present in other books commonly used in middle school and high school classrooms, including Cisnero’s The House on Mango Street . The text itself does not glamorize this sexuality or violence and can be handled in such a way that it is not a problem for high school aged readers.
A second major problem that some theorists have with using this text in the high school classroom is that it does not contribute to the diversity of literature enough. According to Mary Alexander Rojas, “although the presence of U. S. Latino authors in all four major educational publishers was astonishingly large, the diversity of authors remains centered around the usual select names” (267), including Sandra Cisneros. The author goes on to explain that reading only Sandra Cisneros will paint a singular portrait of what it means to be Chicano. I believe that using Woman Hollering Creek as opposed to The House on Mango Street rectifies this possible misgiving. Again, the characters in Woman Hollering Creek are varied and diverse. This prevents a single story of Chicano experience from being told. Besides, to purposely exclude Sandra Cisneros would be punishing her for her success in mainstream America. This is decidedly unethical. Her works are a valuable addition to any classroom at various age levels.
Woman Hollering Creek
“Woman Hollering Creek” was first published in Sandra Cisneros’s 1991 collection of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Like her novel, The House on Mango Street, published in 1983, which describes the lives of Mexican immigrants in a Chicago neighborhood, “Woman Hollering Creek” describes the lives of Mexicans who have crossed the border to live on “ el otro lado” — the other side—in the American Southwest. Critically acclaimed as a major voice in Chicana and feminist literature, Cisneros has won numerous awards and has established herself as an important voice in the American literary mainstream as well. Cisneros’s work is widely anthologized, and her novel, short stories, and poetry are part of many high school and college literature classes.
In “Woman Hollering Creek” Cisneros writes of a woman, Cleofilas, who is trapped in a constricting, culturally assigned gender role due to her linguistic isolation, violent marriage, and poverty. Weaving 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, thus awakening the power within her.
Author Biography
Born in Chicago in 1954, Sandra Cisneros grew up with her Mexican father, Mexican-American mother, and six brothers. Her family moved back and forth between Chicago and Mexico City, never staying long enough for her to find the friends she hoped would make up for her lack of a sister. As a child, her defense against loneliness was reading books and writing poetry. In high school, she continued writing, trying to distinguish her own voice from the voices of the literary giants she studied. It was not until a creative writing class in college in 1974, described in “Ghost Voices: Writing from Obsession,” that she began to realize that she had not only a unique voice but also a new story to tell that had not been told in American literature. It is the story of immigrant families living on the borders between countries, neighborhoods, social classes, linguistic groups, and races.
In order to reclaim her father’s Spanish, Cisneros tells Reed Dasenbrock and Feroza Jussawalla that she “made a conscious choice to move to Texas.” Looking back at The House on Mango Street, which is written in English, she realizes that “the syntax, the sensibility, the diminutives, the way of looking at inanimate objects—that’s not a child’s voice as is sometimes said. That’s Spanish!” Living in San Antonio gives Cisneros the Spanish culture she seeks to enrich her English. “Everywhere I go I get ideas, something in the people’s expressions, something in the rhythm of their saying something in Spanish.”
Writing primarily in English, but English infused with Spanish, Cisneros has published three volumes of poetry: Bad Boys (1980), My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1987), and Loose Woman (1994), in addition to her novel, The House on Mango Street (1983) and her short story collection, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). She is currently working on a new novel, Caramelo.
Plot Summary
Cleofilas Enriqueta DeLeon Hernandez believes she will live happily ever after when her father consents to her marriage to Juan Pedro. She leaves her father and six brothers in Mexico and drives to “el otro lado ”—the other side—with Juan Pedro to start a new life as his wife in a ramshackle house in a dusty little Texas town. Across a stream called Woman Hollering Creek, Cleofilas soon finds that she has left the boring yet peaceful life she shared with her father and six brothers for the tumultuous, lonely, desperate life of a woman with an abusive husband. Her new life, which was supposed to have been full of the passion she had seen on television soap operas, grows “sadder and sadder with each episode,” even though she believes that “when one finds, finally, the great love of one’s life, [one] does whatever one can, must do, at whatever the cost.” She is trapped with her infant son and widowed neighbors, Dolores and Soledad, along the banks of the creek with the name no one can explain. Cleofilas wonders if it is pain or anger that caused the woman of Woman Hollering Creek to holler. No one can answer; no one remembers.
Pregnant with her second child and promising to hide her most recent bruises, Cleofilas begs her husband to take her to the clinic for a checkup. The physician at the clinic, Graciela, realizes that Cleofilas is an abused woman who speaks no English, is completely cut off from her family, and desperately needs help to escape from her husband. Graciela calls her friend, Felice, who agrees to drive Cleofilas and her baby, Juan Pedrito, to San Antonio where they can get a bus to take them back to her father, Don Serafin, in Mexico. Cleofilas is amazed to learn that Felice drives her own pickup truck and does not have a husband, and she is shocked when, as they cross the bridge over Woman Hollering Creek, Felice opens her mouth and yells “like Tarzan.”
Characters
Dolores
Dolores, whose name means “sorrow,” is Cleofilas’ neighbor on the right. She is a widow who lives in a house full of incense and candles, mourning her husband and two dead sons. She grows immense sunflowers and sad-smelling roses to decorate their small graves in the nearby cemetery. She worries about Cleofilas and her baby getting sick if they are ever out in the night air where the ghostly La Llorona might find them.
Felice
Felice is an independent, spirited woman who owns her own truck and who is willing to help other women in distress. Along with the clinic physician, Graciela, she conspires to help Cleofilas escape from her abusive husband. Felice is a woman who rejects traditional sex roles and fiercely and fearlessly defends women who are trapped in restricted, traditional lives. She tranforms the holler of Woman Hollering Creek from a cry of pain or rage to a shout of laughter and liberation.
Graciela
Graciela, whose name means “grace,” is the clinic physician who, like Felice, has rejected traditional sex roles. She takes the initiative to get Cleofilas away from her husband by calling Felice to drive the battered woman to the bus depot in San Antonio.
Cleofilas Enriqueta DeLeon Hernandez
Cleofilas is a young, innocent Mexican woman with much curiosity and a head full of dreams of a life of love and passion derived from her beloved books, song lyrics, and soap operas. When her father offers her in marriage to a man from “ el otro lado ”—the other side of the border, she hastily makes her bridal gown, gathers flowers for her makeshift bouquet, and goes off with the “man she has waited her whole life for” to find “passion in its purest crystalline essence,” even the passion women often pay for with “sweet pain.”
After her husband, Juan Pedro, begins to abuse her, she stays quiet even though she shudders at the thought of all the dead women she reads about in the newspapers. She realizes how dangerous her situation is, but pride prevents her from returning to her father in Mexico. “Where’s your husband?” she knows they would ask. Cleofilas eventually musters enough courage to leave, though she obtains help from Graciela and Felice. Relying on the strength of these women, whom Cleofilas finds fascinating, she leaves Juan Pedro behind and returns to her former life.
Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez
Juan Pedro is Cleofilas’s abusive, alcoholic husband who only wants to marry his young Mexican bride quickly and take her back to his life of poverty in Seguin, Texas. There he can resume his habit of drinking and carousing with his foul-mouthed friends at the local ice house. Soon after their marriage, he reveals himself to be faithless, violent, and quick to cry tears of remorse and
shame, which are predictably followed by renewed episodes of physical abuse.
Juan Pedro is a man who disdains the romance that feeds his wife’s fantasies, and hates the music and soap operas she adores. He is short, husky, scarred from acne, and overweight from all of the beer he drinks. Consistent with the gender-role socialization of his youth, he demands that his wife provide dinners like his mother prepared. He also demands that Cleofilas take care of all his needs and those of his children without complaint. …
Talk:Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories
Contents
Plan [ edit ]
This is our plan. We've divided up the sections from the wikipedia page on how to write a book review article.
Katie: Lead section, Background
Jacqui: Publication History, plot introduction, plot summary, characters, infobox--Katie322 (talk ) 23:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Esmeralda: Major Themes, Style, Reception, Film/TV/Theatrical adaptations, Image
Well done on getting a plan together. As Wikipedia doesn't like talk pages that don't have corresponding articles, I've now started the article itself. which means you have five days to work it up into something that you can submit to DYK. Good luck! --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 08:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey Gals! I've started the lead, background, and references. It's definitely going to need some editing and revision so feel free. but it's a start! I like Esmeralda's idea for the hook for the DYK. Add some more info to the article when you can. (I looked at the edit screen on other articles to see how they formatted certain things). It's tough to get the hang of, but we'll get it :)--Katie322 (talk ) 01:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
The structure looks good to me. Don't worry about fine detail and technology just yet. Right now there are only two priorities: adding content to the article, and finding reliable sources to use as references for that content. A blank page can be intimidating, so scribble on it! There are plenty of people who will help out, but for DYK you have to move fast on content! Good luck! Geometry guy 08:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC) Yep, I've cleanup the article quite a bit, it's looking even better! I can't wait to feature this. — Sunday [speak+] 11:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC) You might want to make this plan a little more detailed, and more a series of "to dos." You can of course add to it over time. And cross things off when you've done them, including adding a big green checkmark > Done . --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 18:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Our detailed plan:
First and foremost, have a detailed bibliography for referencing up on the talk page by Monday, Sept. 29, midnight. As for individual sections.
Done lead section needs much more added in the way of introducing the article and what will be found there within (this may be easier to flesh out as the article progresses).
Done background should include more information on Cisneros' perspective concerning men, as this is a main theme throughout her book.
No publication section yet. Submit any interesting points about the publication. (In the event that there are none, add basic publication info to the 'Publication Date' section.
Split chapters into three categories for the plot summary: child, adolescent, woman. Give a brief overview of some of the main characters in each of these sections, their similarities, and how they contribute to the book's themes. Book reviews providing this type of information should be utiilized. (Plot intro will not be used)
The 'Characters' section should expand briefly upon the stereotypes and themes mentioned in the plot summary. Done More info added, if need be, as plot summary grows.
Major themes: expand on the themes mentioned in Plot Summary section. (themes must be backed up by reliable sources).
Style: explain the mechanics behind Cisnero's styles, as she uses many different page lay-outs and writing styles in this book. Try to find reviews which say 'why' she used these particular styles.
Describe how the novel was received in the Reception section. This includes reviews from critics and/or interesting figures in society.
Film adaptation: mention any adaptation's into 'dramatic media' Done
make sure to REFERENCE EVERYTHING.
Infobox Done
Image of bookcover Done - Group meeting to see if we want to add any more pictures (ie: the REAL Woman Hollering Creek)
Add publication dates
Add original media types
Add to 'List of Novels'
Add Categories to bottom of the page
November 10th: submit for good article nomination. make appropriate edits
November 26th: submit for feature article nomination. make appropriate edits
DYK [ edit ]
Everything looks good so far. You should now be thinking about your "Did You Know" hook. You'll see I just added Chicano literature to T:TDYK. You'll want to add yours here and then watchlist the page as other editors go over what you've contributed, checking that it fits the rules. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 21:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey Katie, I think I might have deleted some of the references. ahh Im just getting used to this whole editing thing. can you check that out for me/us? --Jacqui Nicole (talk • contribs ) 02:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey girls. WE DID IT. Check out our DYK on the main page :) Now time for a 'good article' nomination. haha. Great job! --Katie322 (talk ) 04:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
accuracy in quotation [ edit ]
You need to be especially careful about quotations, and ensure that you are accurate and have provided all the information you can.
Here you have a quotation in which there is no final quotation mark, and there seems to be some error of transcription:
“in woman hollering creek (1991) the female characters break out of the molds assigned to them by the culture in search of new roles and new kinds of relationships. Cisneros portrays woman who challenge stereotypes and break taboos, sometimes simply for the sake of shocking the establishment, but most often because the confining stereotypes prevent them from achieving their own identity.[5]
I just checked this, and discover that the original is in fact:
“In Mango Street and in Woman Hollering Creek (1991), the female characters break out of the molds assigned to them by the culture in search of new roles and new kinds of relationships. Cisneros portrays woman who challenge stereotypes and break taboos, sometimes simply for the sake of shocking the establishment, but most often because the confining stereotypes prevent them from achieving their own identity."[5]
The differences are small, but there should in fact be no differences. Be careful! --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 17:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
The subsequent quotations in that same section, from Brown-Guillory, were also inaccurate. Beware! --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 17:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Another reminder about this: Citations need page numbers . --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 06:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Image [ edit ]
Ok so I added the image of Sandra Cisnero's book cover, but it turned out to be huge! I thought I had saved the smaller version of it, and that's the one that I uploaded with under the Non-free use media rationale. Is there any way to make the image smaller? --Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 05:54, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
(For some bizarre historical reason, the tradition at Wikipedia is to add new comments to the bottom of the talk page, not the top!) You can control the size of an image by adding the width in pixels. Alternatively the word "thumb" causes the width to be set to user preferences (default 180 px). However, you may want to upload a lower resolution version of the image to be sure that the fair use criteria are met. I suggest opening the image in an image editor (Gimp, Photoshop etc.) and reducing the resolution by half (227 x 327 seems more reasonable), then uploading the lower resolution image over the current one. Geometry guy 08:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your help!--Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 03:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
I've replaced the jpg by a png image of half the resolution. Sorry for deleting your upload, but you are less likely to run into complaints later this way. Geometry guy 20:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Bibliography [ edit ]
Brady, Mary Pat (March 1999), The Contrapuntal Geographies of Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. American Literature 71 (1): 117–150. retrieved 2008-09-26 .
-> Plot Summary section.**this article is an essay on spatial representation in the book. Not sure if it contains much to add to our Wiki article. Done
Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth (1996), Women of Color: Mother-Daughter Relationships in 20th-century Literature . Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, ISBN 9780292708471 .
Carbonell, Ana Maria (Summer 1999), From Llorona to Gritona: Coatlicue in Feminist Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros . MELUS 24 (2): 53–74. retrieved 2008-09-29 .
Cisneros, Sandra (1991), Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories . New York: Random House, ISBN 978-0394576541 .
Coonrod Martinez, Elizabeth (January 1997), Review: Maid in the USA . The Women's Review of Books 14 (4): 22. retrieved 2008-09-29 .
-> Style Section: talks about style pg 22
de Swanson, Rosario M. (May, 2002), Los milagros de la Virgen de Guadalupe: Transicion al Nuevo/Nuevos Mundos . Hispania 85 (2): 228–239. retrieved 2008-09-29 Check date values in: |date= (help ) .
-> Theme section: How woman change in the story, the symbol of cutting the braid
Doyle, Jacqueline (1999), Haunting the Borderlands: La Llorona in Sandra Cisneros's "Woman Hollering Creek" . Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (University of Nebraska Press) 16 (1): 53–70. retrieved 2008-09-26 .
-> Character section: article on main character Cleofilas. Done
Fitts, Alexandra (January 2002), Sandra Cisneros's Modern Malinche: A Reconsideration of Feminine Archetypes in Woman Hollering Creek. The International Fiction Review 29 (1-2): 11-22. retrieved 2008-09-20 .
-> Character/Plot Summary section: 3 types of mexican woman (line 15) [mention in plot summary section, expand upon in character section] Done *added only to Characters. Lead section: "live on a fence" between cultures (top of page 2). Done *added to Characters instead of Lead Done
Ganz, Robin (Spring 1994), Sandra Cisneros: Border Crossings and Beyond . MELUS 19 (1): 19–29. retrieved 2008-09-29 .
->Lead/Background section: Chicago= "rootlessness and love of family history" (p. 19). Done Character section: father failed college and ran away to US to escape her grandfather's wrath (p. 20). Could this be similar to any character in the book. Also, page 25 for character breakdowns. Lots of background info on Cisneros' family.
Gunst, Elise (May 5, 1991), Taste deeply of Hispanic culture with Sandra Cisneros as guide . Houston Chronicle (Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division): 23. retrieved 2008-10-12 .
-->plot section Done
Gutierrez y Muhs, Gabriella (2006), Sandra Cisneros and Her Trade of the Free Word . Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 60 (2): 23–36. retrieved 2008-09-29 .
->talks about metaphores
Hart, Patricia (May 6, 1991), Babes in Boyland . The Nation 252 (17): 597–598. retrieved 2008-09-21 . (EBSCO subscription required for online access.)
Leal, Luis (Winter 1993), Sin fronteras: (Des) mitificacion en las letras norteamericanas y mexicanas . Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos 9 (1): 99–118. retrieved 2008-09-29 .
-> Character section: Talks about how Zapata is portrayed
Madsen, Deborah L. ed. (2003), Beyond the Borders: American Literature and Post-Colonial Theory . Sterling, VA: Pluto, ISBN 0745320465 .
-> Style: 'counter discourse' strategy quote (p. 5). Done Character section: 'Never Marry a Mexican' character discussion (p. 244) Done
McCraken, Ellen (1999), New Latina Narrative: the feminine space of postmodern ethnicity . Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, ISBN 0816519412 .
-> Major Themes section: cover's image representation of chicana identity (p. 17) Done . religious themes (101-103). Character section: discussion of characters (p. 17-22), 'Never Marry a Mexican' discussion (195-196). Style section: 'visual verbal hybridity' (p.128-49)
Moore Campbell, Bebe (May 26), Crossing Borders. Review of Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. The New York Times . BR6. retrieved 2008-09-27 Check date values in: |date= (help ) .
-> Lead section: "first kiss" Done . Background section: men = "catalysts" Done . Background/Character section: (p. 6)
Mullen, Harryette (Summer 1996), "A Silence between Us like a language": The Untranslatability of Experience in Sandra Cisneros's Woman Hollering Creek. MELUS 21 (2): 3–20. retrieved 2008-09-26 .
Prescott, K. (June 3, 1991), Seven for Summer . Newsweek 117 (22): 60. retrieved 2008-09-26 (EBSCO subscription required for online access.)
-> Style section: (last para.) 2 ways of looking at the world through language. Lead section: Cisneros' voice Done . Background section: Cisneros' view on men Done
Reichardt, Mary (2001), Catholic Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook . Westport, CT: Greenwood, ISBN 9780313311475 .
Rojas, Maythee G. (1999), Cisneros's "Terrible" Women: Recuperating the Erotic as a Feminist Source in "Never Marry a Mexican" and "Eyes of Zapata" . Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (University of Nebraska Press) 20 (3): 125–157. retrieved 2008-09-29 .
-> Background section: feminism/gender issues (p. 135-36) Done . Plot section: describes the three main sections of book (p. 136) Done
Shirley, Carl R. (1988), Understanding Chicano Literature . Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 0872495752 .
-> Background Section: Cisnero's early Chicago life (p. 156) Done
Stavans, Ilan (September 13, 1991), Una nueva voz . Commonweal 118 (15): 524. retrieved 2008-09-21 . (EBSCO subscription required for online access.)
-> example of negative review for Reception section
Steinberg, Sybil (February 15, 1991), Woman Hollering Creek: And Other Stories. Publishers Weekly 238 (9): 76. retrieved 2008-09-27 .
-> Character section: 'the characters' self worth comes from their loyalty to Mexico and their reality up north' Done
Tager, Marcia (April 1, 1991), Review of Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Library Journal 116 (6): 149. retrieved 2008-09-21 .
Van Ostrand, Maggie (2008), La Llorona: Does She Seek Your Children? . Texas Escapes . retrieved 2008-09-21 .
Wood, Susan (June 9, 1991), "Book World". The Voice of Esperanza. Review of Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, The Washington Post . 3–4. retrieved 2009-09-27 .
-> Style section: good comments on author's use of omniscient voice (para. 4)
Wyatt, Jean (Autumn 1995), On Not Being La Malinche: Border Negotiations of Gender in Sandra Cisneros's "Never Marry a Mexican" and "Woman Hollering Creek" . Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature (University of Tulsa) 14 (2): 243–271. retrieved 2008-09-26 .
You're doing a good job with this! It might be helpful to add some annotations, but great guns. keep at it! --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 10:31, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Comments on bibliography . This is a good job: it looks pretty comprehensive, and you've made helpful annotations, which will be useful as you put these sources to work and write the article. Well done and good luck! --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 16:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Citations [ edit ]
I can't figure out how to do the citations properly on the article page. I just added some info to the character section with a reference, but the reference isn't done correctly. not sure how to fix it. --Jacqui Nicole (talk • contribs ) 07:24, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry too much about the formatting. I or someone else can do that. However, you do need to provide full information. For instance (see also above) citations need page numbers. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 08:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Signature [ edit ]
I don't think I'm adding my signature correctly. Do I add it to the edit summary box, or to the actual page that I made the edit on? And is the signature just 4 tildes or 2 dashes and 4 tildes? Thanks--Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 01:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC) (is that signature right?)
Perfect! You add it (as you did here) to your comments on talk pages. (I'm making an exception for the bibliography, because if we included the signatures there, it would soon become very cluttered.) And people usually use two dashes along with the four tildes. If you click the button (above the edit screen), that's what it'll add for you. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 01:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Good job! [ edit ]
This article is really moving on, and is jampacked with good sources. Well done! One thing you do need to get to fairly soon, however, is a plot summary. or rather, an account of at least some of the stories. Try to make this no more than 500 words.
But again, above all you guys have really made progress on this article! --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 04:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Once more, good job by Katie322. Add a summary of the content of the book itself, and I think you're close to being able to put this in for a "good article nomination." --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 07:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
In fact, I've just upgraded this to C-class. It's probably very close to B-class if it weren't for the missing details on content. (See the Wikipedia grading scheme .) --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 10:24, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it is close to B-Class and many WikiProjects would rate an article of this quality as B-Class. It is also nearly ready for good article nomination. One significant issue remaining is the lead (the part of the article before the table of contents). Please read the guideline on lead sections and rewrite the lead both to summarize the article and introduce the subject in about three paragraphs. If you cannot do both easily, it is a good sign that some work is needed on the rest of the article :-) Geometry guy 21:08, 19 October 2008 (UTC) PS. This article has been adopted by the FA-Team and I'm one of the editors watchlisting it on their behalf. We would like it to be featured, and will do all we can to help, except we can't find sources or add significant content. Good luck!
Madsen 2003 [ edit ]
When citing an article in an edited book, we need to cite the article itself, rather than the book. Hence the references to Madsen 2003 need to be more specific. I'll try to get the info myself. Let's see. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 20:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
Notes [ edit ]
Here are some comments from a read-through. I've tried to make this a general review, without focusing specifically on what you'd need for GA.
General comments
There's a need for a copyedit pass, but I think that can wait, since it amounts to a polishing phase and should be saved until you're fairly sure the article is close to the right shape. I have indicated a couple of problematic sentences below.
Lead
Done In the lead, I'd shorten "This compilation of tales focuses on. " to "These tales focus on. ". The tales are what are doing the focusing.
Done Look out for opportunities to cut words without losing the sense. An example: ". the social role of women, as well as their relationships. "; replace "as well as" with "and" and you haven't lost anything. Another example from the end of the lead: "However, even with": cut "However" and the meaning is unchanged.
Done Why is there a "the" in "the men embody the machismo"?
Done "The book coincides with three chapters of life": this is a confusing metaphor, given that books have chapters.
Background
Done "As one columnist notes": you don't always need to mention your sources in this way; inline citations mean that you can simply use the material and leave it to the reader to check the source. You should only use this style of quoting when it's clearly opinion. What you're doing is called "qualifying the source", and here is the guideline on when you need to do it. You do quote a lot of opinion, so you need to do a fair amount of this, it's true.
Done "Other versions of this story are recognized throughout the world among the Aztecs, the Greek, the Spaniards, and found its way into Cisneros's work." Not quite grammatical -- did you mean "have found their way"? -- and in any case I'm not sure you mean what it appears to say; do the Aztec, Greek and Spanish versions all appear in Cisneros's work?
Done "Amongst the collection of short stories is a chapter with the collection's title of Woman Hollering Creek." This is kind of ugly. How about "The book's name is taken from one of the stories, "Woman Hollering Creek", in which a woman who. "? Could probably still be improved.
Done "cleverly remarks": I'd avoid using terms such as "cleverly" for two reasons. One is simply that they're not neutral: you need to maintain a neutral point of view. The other is that it is generally better as a matter of writing style to let readers discover for themselves that a comment is smart (or asinine or insightful or whatever); readers don't like to be told what to think.
Done PARAPHRASING IS STILL NEEDED THROUGHOUT THE ARTICLE. Your use of quotations in this section is quite deft, but I think you may have a little too much in the way of quoted material and not quite enough of your own prose. Phrases such as "the convergence of rootlessness and love" and "dull routine of her life" are pleasant, but since they're from critics, they are only formulations about Cisneros. Unless they are pithy, you should consider rephrasing them in your own words. One way to think about quotes is that they are like girders: you can assemble a paragraph out of them, but they are inflexible -- you can't tweak them. If you replace them with your own prose you have much more freedom to structure the argument to convey your point. But don't go overboard; many of these quotes are good: the Prescott quote is excellent, for example. Just cut or shorten one or two of them. It's also true that you're reporting opinion here, so you do need to use more quotes than would be necessary in a purely biographical section. Take a look at this section of El Senor Presidente ; the two paragraphs beginning "Even though" and "Despite" are good examples. In both cases, critics' opinions are quoted, but they're integrated into a narrative argument that clearly belongs to the article, not to the critics. Your text is getting towards this, but it's not quite as smooth yet.
Done Is "groundwork" what you mean in the last paragraph? Groundwork is what you do to prepare for the real work that needs to be done. Is feminism "work" in this sense? Do you mean something more like "subtext", or "background", or "message"?
Plot summary
Done Similar comments about the use of quotes apply here, and to later sections, so I won't repeat them. Here I'd say you are definitely relying a too much on quotes; there's no need to go to the critics to describe the plot.
Done The section about "There Was a Man, There Was a Woman" seems to me to veer into critical analysis: wrestling with icons of sexuality and articulating their oppression doesn't sound like a plot description to me. I can't actually tell anything about what actually happens in the story from this description. Similarly, the quote from Steinberg doesn't belong in this section.
Overall I think the length of this section is about right. The article is likely to expand and you would be justified in expanding this section as you go in order to maintain a similar ratio; as you put in more critical commentary you will probably find that a more detailed plot summary will be useful as a reference point.
Characters
Done Ideally you'd list and describe major characters here, but presumably as this is a collection of stories there are too many of them. Perhaps you could pick a few and describe them, selecting ones that critics have focused on? Without reading your sources I don't know if that's a sensible suggestion.
Done Alternatively (or as well) you could list under each of the three archetypes characters from the stories that have been described by critics as fitting those archetypes.
Done "the protagonist epitomizes the figure of La Malinche": do you mean "epitomizes"? Doesn't seem the right word to me. And I'd suggest a parenthetical explanation of La Malinche; few general readers will know what you're talking about without clicking on the link. Links shouldn't serve as a substitute for explanation; they are there for the reader to get more info on a topic.
Done No need to date the Fitts quote; the date is in the citation.
Themes
Done "observes the visible representation of the book": cut this -- the quote starts by talking about the cover art, so this adds nothing.**
Done I don't understand the quote, however. "Simultaneously" should be referring to two things, but I only see one, the confirmation of stereotypes. If this is in contrast to Reichart's comments about challenging stereotypes, it reads oddly because the reader doesn't know, when you quote McCracken, that Reichart is still in the referential context. If that's what's going on some work to position the McCracken quote is needed.
Done I'd cut the Brown-Guillory quote so that it starts: "Elizabeth Brown-Guillory notes that the story "Never Marry a Mexican" "portrays the mother. " This elision makes Brown-Guillory say that the story, rather than Cisneros, does the portraying, but I think that's harmless and the resulting concision is worth it. The main reason you can cut like this, though, is that your topic sentence for this paragraph was repeated in the first part of the quote; you don't need both.
Done Even with that cut you still have "failed relationship" twice in a short span; can you rephrase one of them?
Done The Madsen paragraph: just a note that single-sentence paragraphs are deprecated. Try to find another paragraph as a home for sentences out on their own like this. I don't believe there's a style guideline that says this, but a lot of reviewers regard it as poor writing to have paragraphs made of a single sentence.
Style
Done "This is a fictional book composed of short stories." Cut; you need a lead in sentence, but this isn't it.
Done The way you cite the first Madsen book, you're forced to say "in a later book" for the second quote, but I don't think the reader really cares about the title of the first book or the separation of the quotes. I think a formulation like "critic Madsen has said" followed by "Madsen has also commented" or something along this lines would avoid the title and the chronology.
Reception
Done "*"The book Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories was well received not only because Latin women could relate to the stories but all women of different cultures could relate." This sounds like an opinion to me. Is that really the reason it was well-received? Not because it was well promoted and marketed, or the author was very pretty, or it caught the zeitgeist? I'm sure you're right that this is thought to be the reason, but you need a citation to support you.
Done "It is mentioned that": yuck. Passive voice, and you're using a qualifying phrase without actually providing any information! If you're quoting and citing, then yes, it's mentioned.
Done The Stavins quote has been used before; you can refer to it again but shouldn't present it as if it was new. Ideally at least one should be partly rephrased so the reader doesn't see the identical language again.
Done I'm not clear from the "La Llorona" sentence whether this refers to the legend becoming a film, or a particular one of Cisneros's stories becoming a film.
There's a lot of good material here, and I think you have the structure of the article right. The quotes seem apposite and consistent. I hope these comments are useful, and that you don't mind the detailed critique -- it doesn't mind I think the article is bad; quite the reverse. If you disagree with anything, or want more details or different feedback, just let me know, and I'll respond as soon as I have time. Mike Christie (talk) 00:53, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Mike's comments. However, I would go further on the quotations: I think there is way too much literal quotation at the moment. Just to get an idea, I copied the article into a text editor. Out of about 13KB of prose (just over 2000 words), approximately half of it (just under 1000 words, 6.5KB) is quoted material. Copyediting would reduce the size of the unquoted material even further. I sympathise that when the sources describe an aspect of the book in a particularly apt or appealing way it is tempting to quote them, but bear in mind that the sources are quite often trying to provide critical analysis or even develop an argument . whereas Wikipedia's goal is to convey information. That requires a different style. I would have copyedited some more today, but as Mike says, this is polishing, and there will be much more to polish once the quotation issue is addressed. Good luck! Geometry guy 16:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Upgrade to B class [ edit ]
After I wrote the notes above, I looked through the B class criteria and I think you're there. So I've upgraded the article to B class; congratulations. Mike Christie (talk) 01:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Wow, thank-you so much for looking at our work, and taking the time to help us out!--Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 03:17, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Lead [ edit ]
I've just done a rough copyedit of the lead. I fixed some grammar issues, removed some overlinking (USA and English language are presumed to be known terms to anyone who can access Wikipedia), and wikilinked Chicana (certainly a familiar term to your class, but not the world at large). While trying to fill out more of the infobox, I found that although the ISBN and cover image are from the same edition of the book, that doesn't appear to be the first edition. It is preferred to describe the first edition, but not required—however, we definitely must not call the image 'first edition' if it is not. The true first edition seems to be this one: OCLC 253421931. Maralia (talk ) 14:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I was about to tidy the lead when Maralia stepped in, for instance to remove the word "renowned", which is what we call a peacock term. The lead looks pretty good now. See here for advice on overlinking, although the body of the article looks more like it is underlinked to me. I spotted some weasel words there ("Some critics say") and our guidelines on words to avoid may help to get the idea of "encyclopedic style". It is very different from an essay or term paper style. Geometry guy 16:18, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Everyone is being such a great help (and keeping us busy! haha). Thank-you very much! I was just wondering about the process of "copyediting". I looked it up on wikipedia, and I'm assuming it means that you have edited the issues you've seen by correcting them directly in the article. I'm just making sure that there isn't a separate 'copyedit' page that we should be searching out. --Katie322 (talk ) 01:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
No. Copy-editing means revising for clarity and concision, because our first drafts are seldom the best. Geometry guy 01:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC) I hope that I copyedited the correct way by simply deleting from your post what I thought was (ironically) unnecessary. If this IS correct, then this is what Maralia did earlier with our article (?)--Katie322 (talk ) 03:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC) Hehe. Indeed. As for what Maralia did, you can take a look here. Copy-editing is revising a test to ensure that it not only has no grammatical and spelling errors, but also that it is as clear and unambiguous as possible. Especially as you get closer to featured article status, you will repeatedly need to go over your prose, revising it as much as possible so that it is as well-written as possible. Here is a long, but very useful, page with advice on how to improve your prose. Of course, copy-editing is not only an issue on Wikipedia: with anything that you write, the more revisions, the better. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 03:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC) The great thing about Wikipedia is that it does not matter if your prose is not perfect the first time. You can fix it, and other editors can fix it. Copyediting is also about making prose as concise as possible. I've copyedited further my post above. Geometry guy 08:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC) Just so all is clear. Gguy's text has now been changed from: No it just means that on some occasions when you write something down on paper for the very first time, you don't always write it in the most optimal manner. Or you might tend to use some unneeded words. Or you might even say the same thing in more than one similar way. However, I've deliberately written this reply in a way that might need a certain amount of copyediting. Can you remedy the unnecessary elaborations I have tried to make in explaining the notion of copyediting? to (first copy-edit, by Katie322): No it just means that on some occasions when you write something down on paper for the very first time, you don't always write it in the most optimal manner. However, I've deliberately written this reply in a way that might need a certain amount of copyediting. Can you remedy the unnecessary elaborations I have tried to make in explaining the notion of copyediting? to (second copy-edit, by Gguy): No, it just means that the first draft is not always the best. This reply needs copyediting. Can you fix it? to (third copy-edit, by me): No. Copy-editing means revising for clarity and concision, because our first drafts are seldom the best. How's that? ;) --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 09:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC) Sorry for not responding earlier. Your version shows that encyclopedic prose can be both to the point, and also beautiful. It may be worth noting, however, that this is more than a copyedit (probably it isn't worth noting, but I'm noting it anyway): the self-referential part of the original post has been eliminated, because it is now false. Removing incorrect or out-of-date information is also an important part of editing, but it isn't copyediting. Geometry guy 22:04, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
General comments from Awadewit [ edit ]
This is an excellent start! My comments may seem a bit overwhelming, but I am working on the assumption that this group eventually wants to reach FAC:
Done We generally try to avoid quotations in the lead since it is supposed to be a summary of the article. Readers who look at only the lead rarely care about one reviewer's take on the book, for example, so it is important that any quotations in the lead be exceptionally important or exceptionally representative of the views in the article.
Done The last paragraph of the lead is vague - give the reader more of a hint of the what the "daring stylistic techniques" are and what some of the "distinct literary fashions" that she uses are.
Infoboxes are optional on Wikipedia. You might think about whether this infobox is actually necessary. In what way does it help the reader?
My opinion on the info box is that it offers factual information at a glance. I've often used Wikipedia to check dates of books and how long they are, and having an organized reference at the beginning of an article is very helpful. We actually have more information in our infobox than the one for Pride and Prejudice . and Anna Karenina 's is lengthier only with it's translation information (as Woman Hollering Creek has not been translated), to give a few examples of famous books. So I do think that this info box would help the reader; however, I'm new to wikipedia as an article writer and am not sure what really constitutes a good info box. Above all, I believe that we would need to keep the cover image if the info box were to go. readers love seeing covers of the book, I know I do. --Katie322 (talk ) 03:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Dates should be in the lead (I've added it) and as to length, that is deceptive, of course. Pride and Prejudice was originally published as a three-volume novel. That sounds a lot longer than it is, though. Page-size and type-size determines the number of pages. :) However, as long as you have an argument and all of the information is indeed factual, let's keep it. Awadewit (talk ) 18:38, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Done In The Nation, Patricia Hart remarks, "anger repressed bursts the seams of life for Cisneros’ female characters, who struggle valiantly to make something beautiful from the ugly fabric fate has given them to work with". - It is not clear to me why this sentence is necessary in the "Background" section.
Done The third and fourth paragraph of "Background" need to be rewritten, one to focus on Cisneros's biography and one to focus on Chicano feminism. Because many readers will not know what Chicano feminism is, you will need to define this term in fairly simple language. Try to avoid quoting any scholars! :)
Would someone be able to look at my re-wording of Chicano Feminism and see if it's okay? Or is it too simple?--Katie322 (talk ) 03:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Oops, okay, now I understand what you meant by not quoting any scholars in the definition. I hope that my new version suffices.--Katie322 (talk ) 04:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Done The "Plot summary" section needs to be entirely rewritten. Currently, it uses quotations from critics to explain the overarching themes of the stories. You need to describe the plot of each story, that is, you need to describe what happens in each story - the narrative arc of the stories.
Done Is the "Characters" section necessary? I'm wondering if the information in this section isn't really a gender theme.
Done Character section has been reformated--Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 02:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Right now, the "Themes" section seems to be a list of the research you have uncovered. The writing needs to be more structured. So, for example, you need to figure out what are the themes that scholars return to repeatedly in their discussions of Cisneros's work and create subsections for those and then write individual paragraphs on those topics (perhaps "Gender" and "Relationships"?). Done
In the "Style" section, when you include claims about how Cisneros writes, it is a good idea to include quotations from the collection of short stories itself that the scholars used to make their points, so that readers can see how that writing works. For example, how does the third-person narration work? " Done
Madsen also commented that Cisneros uses "the strategies described in post-colonial theory as 'counter-discourse' to engage and deconstruct the oppressive cultural narratives that are a legacy of Mexican America's colonial past". - Whenever a complicated idea like postcolonial theory arises in an article, it has to be explained to the reader!" Done
I'm sensing that more research could help you flesh out this article more, but Jbmurray will be able to give you better advice on that than I.
One noticeable problem with the prose in this article is the ubiquity of quotation - far too much of the article is quoted. Try to write the article yourself, rather than relying on the words of others. Quote very sparingly - no more than once per paragraph, say.
I have not said much regarding sentence-level prose issues, because I think that the editors should focus on re-organizing and fleshing out the article first, but this article will require extensive copyediting before any nominations take place (as all articles do). Once the bulk of the article is in place, we will all pitch-in with the copyediting.
I hope that these suggestions are helpful! Awadewit (talk ) 14:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
paraphrasing [ edit ]
It's true, as observed by others on this talk page, that you need to put material from quotations in your own words. But be careful as you paraphrase that you do not distort the original source. In this paraphrase. for instance, we should note that "gender relationships and culture" are not at all the same things as "feminism and cultural imperialism." Is this really an accurate paraphrase, that preserves the meaning of the original author?
Paraphrasing is not always an easy skill to pick up. But there are resources out there to help you: see here. for instance. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 03:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Comments from Awadewit - part the second [ edit ]
At Katie322's request here. I have rereviewed this article. Much has improved - well done! However, there is still much to be done.
Katie let me know that all of you are still working on the paraphrase problem. The overabundance of quotation is still a problem in the article, but as everyone knows about it, let's move on.
Done The collection reflects Cisneros's multicultural background of being raised in a country that is not quite her own, but the only one she truly knows. - Fluffy and vague - Can you explain this sentiment in language that is more specific and precise?
Done Cisneros adds an obvious flavor of feminism to the stories, yet produces a feeling of sensitivity to the universal reality of immigrant life. - The "yet" does not make sense here - what is the connection between the feminism in the stories and the "universal reality of immigrant life"?
Done obvious flavor of feminism - Usually we try to avoid saying anything is obvious in case it isn't to the reader (besides, from the descriptions of the feminine cliches, it is unclear how the stories are feminist). What is a "flavor of feminism"? This phrase is awkward.
Done a feeling of sensitivity to the universal reality of. - wordy - Do we need all of these prepositional phrases?
Done The legend of La Llorona (Spanish for "weeping woman") is a ghost story found in Mexico and Texas. Woman Hollering Creek, a body of water just off Interstate 10 in Texas, is part of that same myth. - Very awkward beginning to the "Background" section - explain to the reader why they are being told this information (perhaps this would be the place to mention the title connection?). Also, try to make these sentences flow together better.
Done Cisneros takes this tale, which has also been found slightly modified in Aztec, Greek, and Spanish cultures, and incorporates it into her work. - I would suggest moving the information about the myth's multicultural origins earlier in the "Background" section - focus this sentence on how Cisneros uses it.
Done The title of the short story collection is taken from the story "Woman Hollering Creek", which focuses on a woman who is physically abused by her husband and feels drawn towards the nearby creek, but finds help from two strangers before she is led to do anything drastic. - Tie the Cisneros story to the myth more explicitly. Show the reader why you are discussing this story in the context of the myth.
Done The paragraphs in the "Background" section have no transitions between them. You either need to create transitions or create subsections.
Done The second paragraph of the "Background" section does not adequately describe Cisneros's immigrant background. Moreover, it covers two topics: her immigrant background (first sentence) and her experience as a woman (rest of paragraph). Divide the paragraph into two paragraphs, each focusing on a single topic. You can integrate some of the Madsen material into the paragraph about Cisernos's experience as a woman and how that affected her writing.
Done Lucy's home is described as a typical low-income, Mexican-American family, in which the overworked mother is busy with her many children and the father is rarely around. - I'm a little worried about this statement - why are we saying that this is the "typical low-income, Mexican American family"? Do we have a source for that? (I noticed this sentence was only sourced to the book.)
Done Ixchel throws caution to the wind in her desire to be romanced by someone with alleged Mexican roots, only to be disappointed by the reality of having fallen in love with a Mexican-American serial killer. - "throws caution to the wind" is vague - What happens in the story? What is her motivation?
Done The fourth paragraph of "Plot summary" is not a plot summary - this material belongs in the "Themes" section.
Done This section will discuss the main characters in three of the aforementioned stories from the plot summary as well as the three major feminine archetypes highlighted by Cisneros in the last section of this book that represent Mexican womanhood; "the passive virgin, the sinful seductress, and the traitorous mother." - Ew! Let's try to be a bit more interesting, shall we? "I will now proceed to section 2, subsection B of this lecture. " Make the reader want to go on!
In the "Characters" section, more needs to be said about Lucy and Ixchel than is said about them in the "Plot summary".
Done Clemencia is the Chicana protagonist in "Never Marry a Mexican", who captures the identity of the historical figure La Malinche, an indigenous woman who befriended the Spanish Conquistadors in the 1500s, and is "doomed to exist within a racial and class-cultural wasteland, unanchored by a sense of ever belonging either to her ethnic or her natal homeland". - What does "captures the identity" mean? Who is "doomed to exist with a racial. wasteland"? The sentence is a bit ambiguous.
Done Chayo, a character who writes the last note in the story “Little Miracles, Kept Promises” - What does "writes the last note" mean?
Done Chayo, a character who writes the last note in the story “Little Miracles, Kept Promises”, explains the challenges of living as a modern Chicana and of leaving her Mexican heritage in attempts to redefine her role as a woman. - Does Chayo actually explain anything? The "in attempts to redefine her role as a woman" is a bit vague and tacked on to the end of the sentence.
Done "Cleofilas neither drowns nor abandons her children. Instead, she saves them, and herself, by drawing on resources that come from both sides of the border." - What resources? This needs to be explained in more detail.
Done Try to start out the "Themes" section with a general sentence or paragraph that describes the material to come - a "roadmap" or "signpost" for the reader. It helps the reader to know a bit about what is to come. Done
Done One of the major themes in the book is the social role of women. - This is a weak topic sentence - any paragraph about any theme could begin "one of the major themes is. " - Try to make it specific to this theme and this book.
Done An example of this is Cleofilas, who by coming to the United States learns that life is very different from those she saw in the telenovelas. She learns there is more to woman than being a wife and a mother, that there are more possibilities that she can pursue while she still remains faithful to her religious beliefs - What are these "more possibilities"? Why is remaining faithful to her religious beliefs important? This bit of information seems strangely inserted here. Explain its relevance to the reader.
NOTE: I changed this quote completely as I also didn't see its relevance. It's welcome to be revised again if need be.--Katie322 (talk ) 20:22, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Done Another theme of the book is that of conflicting love and failed relationships between man and woman and also between mother and daughter. - "Another" is a weak transition - try to connect the paragraphs together. Perhaps the topic of women or gender would work?
Done *The second paragraph of "Themes" needs an example from the stories to illustrate it.
Done After the experience of growing up within two cultures, Cisneros was able to combine both ethnicities, American and Mexican, throughout the short stories, and develop a major theme of hybridity - wordy
Done *The third paragraph of "Themes" needs an example.
Done **The one-sentence paragraph of "Themes" needs to be expanded - what is the feminism and cultural imperialism in these stories? The feminism of these stories is alluded to several times in the article, but never explained.
For example, her narrative point of view almost continually changes, sometimes using first person, as we see in the story “Little Miracles, Kept Promises”, and sometimes third person, for example in “La Fabulosa: a Texas Operetta”. - Why does she use first-person in the one story and third-person in the other? Does Marsden say?
Done [added NY Times book review]"Reception" section needs to be expanded. What did reviewers in publications like the LA Times and New York Times say about this when it was released? We want to know what critics who review literature thought about it. Guys, let me echo Awadewit's note here. The "Reception" section is, I think, the weakest in the article as a whole. It needs developing; there are a couple of very short (one-sentence) paragraphs; and it could do with rewording and copy-editing. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 00:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Done According to the Sandra Cisneros article, "in 1991, she had received the Paperback Book Club New Voices Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award for her book "Woman Hollering Creek"." - Can we find some sources to verify this information?
I hope these comments are uesful. Please let me know if something is unclear or if I can help in any way. Awadewit (talk ) 18:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
A hello from the Sandra Cisneros Team [ edit ]
Hey Woman Hollering Creek Team, it's Heather here. I checked out your article today and just wanted to point out that Cisneros was born in Chicago but has been living in Texas for a while now. So maybe San Antonio-based would be more accurate than Chicago-based. Heathermary (talk ) 04:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)heathermary
Fitts citations [ edit ]
Please double-check the citations to Fitts p. 11. I just checked a couple of them, and had to change them as not all are from that page. Thanks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 10:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads-up Jon! I checked out the rest of pg 11 Fitts quotes and there was one more which didn't belong there. I think what happened was we only looked at the one LONG page of the article and not the page numbered pdf version. oops. --Katie322 (talk ) 19:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
GA Review [ edit ]
This review is transcluded from Talk:Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Review [ edit ]
I am reviewing this article and will post detailed comments shortly. Brianboulton (talk ) 01:08, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Detailed review points [ edit ]
This is a generally well-written and informative article about an interesting writer. There are some rough edges, and a fair number of minor points that need atention:-
General point
Done Story titles should be italicised, rather than put in quotes, for example One Holy Night . not "One Holy Night"
Lead
Done umlaut required over the "i" in "naive”" – as is done later in the article
Done fix typo in final line – "each story"
Background
Done Repetition of "always" should be avoided, I suggest by removing the one in the second line.
Done Is "on account of gender" necessary, when you have identified her as a single daughter among seven children?
Done Not sure about "enough siblings to go round". Sounds informal and non-encyclopaedic – suggest rephrase.
Done "After many years of writing, Cisneros now develops. " As the book was published in 1991, "now develops" is inappropriate. Perhaps just dropping the "now" would work, though I’m not sure – perhaps: "had by 1991 developed. "?
Done "She doesn’t appear. " is definitely non-encyclopaedic. Should be "does not"
Done "Cisneros developed this tale. " In instances like this, it’s OK to use the present tense. For example, we might say, in literary criticism, "George Eliot uses water-imagery", or in religios studies, "The Bible says. " Therefore, "Cisneros develops this tale. " is OK.
Plot summary
Done I suggest section heading should be "Plot summaries" as there is more than one plot.
Done I got a little bit confused in this section. My understanding is that the book’s structure is three sections, entitled My Friend Lucy. . One Holy Night and There Was a Man . and that each section contains a group of short stories. Am I right? A little further down you refer to My Friend Lucy. as a short story. Is it a story or a group of stories?
Done Jacqui and Esmeralda: do you think that something like: ". a short story titled the same as the section it is in. " should be added? okay, well I think that that is too wordy, but something like it? Or maybe when the sections are introduced, mention that there are individual stories with the same name?--Katie322 (talk ) 22:38, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Done In which section does the title story Woman Hollering Creek occur?
I can't see where you have said in which of the three sections the title story is to be found, likewise for the "Eyes of Zapata" story. This section is generally OK, but could be organised a bit more tidily, for example by summaising the plots in the order in which they appear in the book. Brianboulton (talk ) 18:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
It looks like Jacqui has expanded and organized the plot summary section. I'm not sure which happened first: your comment or her editing. However, the section appears to be more coherent now (although I've read the book so it may be easier to understand). Could you let us know if it's still confusing? Thank-you. --Katie322 (talk ) 19:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Done I can see what Jacqui has done, and it helps a bit. But to me, there is still confusion in this section which needs sorting out. Rather than have you guessing what's on my mind, I've done a bit of experimenting with the section. What I've done is (1) reorganise the information in the opening paragraph so that facts are presented in order of their importance, and (2) combine the short fourth paragraph with the next, and altered a bit of the wording at the same time. My version of your section can be examined here. Don't treat my suggestions as instructions, but discuss them among themselves, and adopt them if you think they make the position clearer. Incidentally, your use of the word "vignette" is questionable - one of the stories is 29 pages long, far too long to be properly described as a vignette. Brianboulton (talk ) 23:20, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I like this version you've done. Organizing the first paragraph to talk about the sections first is a good idea, as well as linking the fourth paragraph to the next, as they are already linked by talking about the same stories. Our group will take a look and see what we can do with it. Thank-you for your effort on this point! --Katie322 (talk ) 23:56, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes I agree, thanks for suggesting those changes, sometimes when you look at something so long it's hard to see how to make it better so, I really appreciate it! I made the suggested edits. --Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 01:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Done Why, in this plot summaries section, have you not dealt with the plot of the title story, nor made any reference to the longest, 29-page (or 28?) story, both of which I would have thought were of importance?
Done Small point, but the longest story is 29 pages in the lead, and 28 pages here. Also, "28" should be numeric, not written out.
Characters
Done Five characters are described in this section. There are, presumably, many more in the book. What were the reasons for selecting these particular five? Again I see nothing relating to the longest story in the book.
The reason for highlighting these 6 characters (I added one more) are:
I wanted to have at least one character from each of the three sections (Although Lucy and Ixchel are somewhat minor characters in the book, they provide a representative for the first and second sections.)
I wanted to include Clemencia, Cleofilas and Chayo because they represent the 3 female archetypes discussed throughout this article; those being : La Malinche, La Llorona and La Virgen de Guadalupe.
And finally I added the main character from "Eyes of Zapata" (the longest story), which I agree is necessary to the character section. --Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 05:32, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Done The descriptions could be expanded, to focus less on what these characters did in their stories, and more on the type of character they were. In this respect the first two, particularly Clemencia, are superior to the others.
You should introduce this section of the article with an explanatory statement, something like: "The following are characters from each section, representing the female archetypes in the book". A further question (I'm not asking for action on this, but I'm curious): why no male character in your selection? I'd quite like to know how Cisneros presents males. Brianboulton (talk ) 18:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I ended up adding one male character from "One Holy Night", but bascially Cisneros doesn't really give a voice to many male characters in this book, and that is why almost all of the protagonists are females. --Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 01:19, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Themes
Done "There are many themes that we can find in the book. " introduces a personal voice which should be avoided. In this case the passive voice is necessary: "There are many themes found in the book. "
Done Suggest semi-colon after "book", delete "but", decapitalize Roles.
Done Clumsy phrasing: "both ethnicities American and Mexican". "Both" is unnecessary; suggest simply "American and Mexican ethnicities"
Done Shift comma after "short stories" to after "relationships"
Done Check exactly where the Reichart quote begins. The opening quote marks look to be in the wrong place.
Please clarify: Does the Reichart quote begin before the story title, where the marks are now, or with the words "The female characters break out. " Brianboulton (talk ) 14:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
The Reichart quote DOES begin before the story title. The original quote begins: ". in Mango Street and in Woman Hollering Creek (1991) the female characters. " This is why the quote begins in our article as shown. Is it okay as is, with the lead-in: "Critic Mary Reichart observes that in Cisneros's previous work as well as "in Woman Hollering Creek (1991). "?
Done SEE QUESTION BELOW--Katie322 (talk ) 04:48, 13 November 2008 (UTC) ". life is very different from those she saw in the telenovelas". "Life" is singular, "those" is plural. "Those" should be "that which". Same sentence, there is tense confusion, too: "life is. she saw". I suggest "she sees".
Done Second para first line: I think there should be an "in" after "such as"
Done Put a colon immediately after the story title and before the Brown-Guillory quote.
Done Citation [21] should be given immediately after the quotation, and again at the paragraph end if necessary.
Done Third para. Suggest start with "From" rather than "After", and lose comma after "two cultures". Also, last word of first sentence should be plural ("cultures")
Done Give a specific attribution to the long quote beginning "depicts the situation. "
Done Try to avoid ending the paragraph with a preposition.
Style
Done Personal voice again: "As you read her book. you see that. " Suggest: "Reviewer Susan Wood suggests the reader sees that. "
Done Why not use Madsen’s first name, as with other critics/reviewers, at first mention? (I’d like a word with her about the form of her quoted statement, but unfortunately that’s not possible!)
I've always felt that it is more professional to use only the last name, but I agree that just saying "critic Madsen" is a bit lacking, (although "critic Deborah L. Madsen" almost seems like a little too much). --Katie322 (talk ) 05:19, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
It's best to use full name at first mention, surname thereafter. Sometimes a surname alone (e. g. "Smith") would not identify the person. Brianboulton (talk ) 09:43, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Done Deal with the citation required tag
Done "Another unique aspect. " is editorial opinion, unless it can be specifically attributed, e. g. "According to XYZ, another unique aspect. "
Done "A sometime poet": this phrase is dropped in a bit casually. Was she actually a poet in the sense of having poetry published? If so, this shoud be mentioned before now, perhaps in the lead.
Done I will look for a source which cites Cisneros as a poet and add it to either the lead or background. --Katie322 (talk ) 05:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Done Last single-sentence para looks like a bit of an afterthought, and would be better if absorbed into the main text of the section.
Reception
Done First sentence is personal voice and editorial opinion. It’s also unnecessary – suggest it is deleted.
Done "This is note worthy" is also opinion, and so is the sentence beginning "Thus having. " I suggest the para is reworded along the lines: “"usan Wood comments on the publication of the book by Random House: "Despite. etc"
Done SEE QUESTION BELOW--Katie322 (talk ) 05:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC) Second para: Comma after "published", mdash not hyphen in ". condition—a condition. "
Done "Stavans" needs to be properly introduced, and identified as the person who made the preceding quote.
Stavans didn't actually make the preceding quote, so I introduced both him AND Prescott to clarify.
I recommend combining the two short paras at the end, possibly absorbing them into the main para above.
Done The tager quote has been absorbed, but there is still a tiny point of research to be done concerning the Stavans quote on male stereotyping. --Katie322 (talk ) 05:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I am putting the article on hold to enable the above points to be addressed. I see no problem with the article's promotion once this is done. I will check this page regularly, so if there are any queries, e. g. I haven't made myself clear above, leave a note here and I will pick it up. Leave a note on my talkpage when you have dealt with all the points. Brianboulton (talk ) 19:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
QUESTION . I've put all the story titles into italics and have left the section/segment titles in quotations (ie: "My Lucy Friend who Smells Like Corn", "One Holy Night", and "There was a Man, There was a Woman"). Am I correct in doing this? --Katie322 (talk ) 20:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, you'll have to undo this: you had it right the first time. Only book titles (i. e. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories ) should be italicized; short-story titles (e. g. "Woman Hollering Creek") and section titles should be in quotation marks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs ) 21:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC) I do apologise. I seem to have misunderstood the MoS on italic usage. Sorry to have caused you unnecessary work! Brianboulton (talk ) 22:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
No worries. --Katie322 (talk ) 22:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
QUESTION . For your 4th suggestion to the background section, the sentence we had in the article was: "After many years of writing, Cisneros now uses Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories to explore the failed relationships of the female characters via their reactions to the men in their lives." I've altered it to what you said, but I'm just making sure that we're looking at the same sentence.--Katie322 (talk ) 21:08, 12 November 2008 (UTC) Another apology - you never had 1991 in your text. All I really wanted you to do was to delete the "now" in your original sentence, and to consider whether "uses" should be "used", bearing in mind the book was written in 1991. Somehow my notes got scrambled into your text. Can I (very humbly) suggest you go back to your original version, except deleting "now", and replacing "uses" with "used", so the sentence reads: "After many years of writing, Cisneros used Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories to explore. " etc ? That is what I originally intended to suggest. Brianboulton (talk ) 22:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Done and done. I figured that that's what had happened. thanks for the clarification. --Katie322 (talk ) 22:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
QUESTION . For the 6th suggestion in the themes section, you mentioned disagreement between tense and number. I can't seem to find the sentence you were talking about which leads me to believe that we made an edit to it after you made your notes and before you posted your suggestions. The new version reads: "An example of this is Cleofilas, who had hoped for a better life after leaving her home in Mexico to live in the United States. The soap operas she had seen had led her to believe that her life was going to be a fairy tale. Instead, with a failing marriage and another child on the way she sees that her life is like a soap opera; a very sad soap opera." Are these sentences okay? Yes, fine except for the faux-dramatic emphasis at the end. I recommend you change this to something like: ". she sees that her life resembles only the saddest aspects of soap opera". Brianboulton (talk ) 09:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
QUESTION . For third suggestion on Reception section, what is an 'mdash'? haha, sorry. excuse my ignorance. :) --Katie322 (talk ) 05:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC) An mdash is a long dash, such as I have demonstrated in the review (condition—a condition). If you look at where this is typed in the edit window, you will see how this is created. Brianboulton (talk ) 09:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
QUESTION
I'm not sure how to order the characters or to explain their purpose in the character section. maybe you can help
The order the characters appear in the book are: Lucy, Chaq, Ixchel, Cleofilas, Clemencia, Ines, and Chayo
Lucy is a representative for the first section of the book
Ixchel and Chaq are representatives of the second section of the book
Cleofilas, Clemencia, Ines represent characters from 3 of the longest stories of the book which happen to be contained in the last section, and therefore I believe they are important and should be present in the character section.
Cleofilas, Clemencia, Chayo represent the 3 female archetypes, La llorona, La Malinche, La Virgen de Guadalupe
Do you have any suggestions for how to order the characters, and also how to introduce this section with an explanatory statement? I know you had suggested "The following are characters from each section, representing the female archetypes in the book" but not all of the female characters are representatives of these archetypes. Thanks so much!--Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 01:34, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
The most logical thing would be to order them as they appear in the book – as per your list above. My suggestion for the intro statement was only meant as a "such as" example. A short sentence introducing them as a cross-section, or selection, of the book's main characters is all that is required. Brianboulton (talk ) 10:01, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I added an introductory sentence to the character sentence and then switched the order in the presentation of the characters. This way it coincides with the introduction in that the first three sections of the book are discussed, and then the female archetypes. Let me know what you think. Are there any other edits needed for the character section?--Katie322 (talk ) 23:56, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
QUESTION . Hi Brian, I was reading through the book this morning and realized that our comment on the length of the stories may be misleading. We said: ". while "Salvador Late or Early" and "There Was a Man, There Was a Woman" each occupies a single page." These stories start halfway down one page (as per the lay-out of the chapters) and then finish halfway down the next page. I'm just wondering if it's misleading to say they are one single page when they are on two separate, PHYSICAL pages. The only story that is on one single, physical page is called "Bread". should we change this or is it okay?--Katie322 (talk ) 16:16, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Not a point worth worrying about, but if you like, add the word "length" after "single page", so it reads: ". each occupies a single page length". Remember, the page layout in the edition you are reading may be different in other editions, but the stories will still be a page length. Brianboulton (talk ) 16:35, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
GA Review summary [ edit ]
I am ready to close the review now. Editors should continue to refine the text or consider other ways of improving the article, but as it stands now, it is obviously of GA standard. Congratulations - this is now officially a Wikipedia Good Article.
The prose is of a good quality, lucid and interesting. There are no obvious MOS violations and the structure of the article is sound.
The article is properly referenced to reliable sources
The coverage is comprehensive, covering all aspects of the subject
The article presents a neutral point of view
The article is stable.
There is a single image, of the book cover. It may be worth considering, for the future, if there are ways of increasing the images.
Final comment . I believe this may be the project's first GA, though I am sure that others will follow it. The quality of this article, and the obvious dedication of its editors, make me feel you could aim for it to be the project's first Featured Article. What I would suggest is that you take a little time, continue to nurse the article and look to improve it. Put it to Peer Review, where you will get valuable feedback by other experienced editors. Then take it from there.
Last of all, thanks for improving my knowledge of a writer that I knew little about before ("Shame on you", says my daughter). Good luck to you all. Brianboulton (talk ) 00:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Haha! It's nice to hear that your daughter is a Cisneros fan :) Thank-you for all your help Brian. it's been a pleasure. --Katie322 (talk ) 03:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I just wanted to thank you as well! You have been so very helpful, and it's exciting to see how far we've come!--Jacqui Nicole (talk ) 06:29, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
--Anaoaks (talk ) 08:13, 21 November 2008 (UTC)thank you for all your help i'm very happy we made it to GA!
Nice work! [ edit ]
It seems you beat us to the punch on passing a GA article! Oh bollocks, and I was looking forward to that. keg of coke? hah!
Any who, I took a second to read through your article and enjoyed it thoroughly! That being said, considering my disdain for some literature, makes it a great compliment. Congrats! :-) Food Puma 13:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the high praise! No worries, I'm sure that we can work out some sort of sharing arrangement for whichever type of 'keg'/'six pack' arises ;) haha! --Katie322 (talk ) 21:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
The House on Mango Street & Woman Hollering Creek & Other Stories By Sandra Cisneros Summary and Analysis: "Woman Hollering Creek" and Other Stories One Holy Night
Summary
One Holy Night; My Tocaya
The speaker in "One Holy Night" is an eighth-grade girl living in Chicago with her grandmother and uncle, immigrants from Mexico. She tells the events of the story in past tense: She was selling fruits and vegetables from a pushcart on Saturdays, and she fell in love with one of her customers, known on the street as Boy Baby, who told her his name was Chaq Uxmal Paloquín and that he was descended from Mayan kings. He lived in a room above the garage where he worked, and in a few weeks, she went there with him. He showed her many weapons, and they made love. When she went home that night, she forgot to bring the pushcart and made up a story about its being stolen. She was not allowed to leave the house then, and by the time her grandmother learned the truth, Boy Baby had left. Then the narrator found that she was pregnant. They learned Boy Baby had a sister who was a nun in Mexico; the sister did not know his whereabouts but revealed that his real name was Chato (meaning "fat-face") and that he was from a poor peasant family with no Mayan blood. The narrator's grandmother sent her to cousins in Mexico to have her baby; while still waiting for its birth, she has learned that her beloved was recently arrested for the serial killing of women.
Another teen-aged girl, Patricia Chávez, is the narrator of "My Tocaya ," set in San Antonio. This girl tells the story of another Patricia, slightly younger, who went missing at the age of 13. The family of the missing girl advertised for her to no avail; then a body found in a ditch was identified as hers. Soon after the funeral, however, Patricia Benavídez appeared and announced that she wasn't dead; her family had identified the wrong girl.
Analysis
Here the simplicity of the child's vision and emotion gives way to the complexity of adolescence in the relative complexity of these stories, in which the themes are love and sex, birth and death, truth and lies.
The two narrators, "Ixchel" (the Mayan name her lover gives her; she is never otherwise identified) and Patricia Chávez, present themselves in very different voices, the one serious and traditional, the other flip and hard-edged; they are responding in different ways to the knowledge of sexual love and betrayal, of women's vulnerability, and of death.
For "Ixchel," there are two realities, one sacred and one profane, and she has chosen the sacred one with its mythic truths. Her sexual initiation is her initiation into this sacred world and has nothing to do with pleasure or the social choices that concern, for example, Patricia Chávez. "Ixchel" seems to sense intuitively a connection between love and death, grief and joy. The reader may wonder, but she does not, why "Chaq" shows her knives and guns but does not kill her as he apparently has killed other young women. In the conventional, ordinary world, there is no resolution to her story — or rather, there is the same resolution as her mother found: "Ixchel" will raise her baby and go on with her life, with no one but her friends Rachel and Lourdes knowing her secret and probably understanding it as imperfectly as the reader does. In the world of the sacred, "Ixchel" will go on believing the truth of what "Chaq" told her and of what happened to her on that "holy night." In the ordinary, profane world, her story is ridiculous, she was amazingly lucky, and her lover is probably insane; in the sacred world, the world that she and "Chaq" believe in, which is outside time . everything is happening as fate dictates.
Patricia Chávez lives in a world in which nothing out of the ordinary has happened to her; the "death and resurrection" of her tocaya (the other Patricia), which she reports, is merely a stupid mistake, a nine-day wonder for the papers and television. The fact that the mistake was made at all suggests that Patricia Benavídez's parents are careless and that the girl will probably run away again, tired of working in her father's taco shop and tired of being beaten. Patricia Chávez is not really concerned.
But by the magic of naming, which Patricia C. acknowledges in calling Patricia B. her tocaya . or namesake, the two are doubles (like Poe's William Wilson and his nameless double). The dead girl, too, is another double (a triple?), for she has no name until Patricia B.'s parents "name" her by mistake. That means that, on a symbolic level, what happens to one happens to all three. In one sense, Patricia B. has died and returned to life, as has her tocaya . Patricia C.; in another sense, both of them are as bereft of life as the third girl, the one found in a ditch. The sacred and profane exist side by side in this story, too, but here the sacred world — the world of religion, of death and resurrection — is reduced to empty "theology" talks like "Heavy Metal and the Devil" that Patricia Chávez rightly derides, without knowing of anything more meaningful.
While "Ixchel," in the previous story, has an intuitive faith in the mythos of her parents' culture (the "truth" told her by "Chaq") to sustain her, Patricia B. (and by extension her tocaya . the narrator here) must resort to a phony British accent and the pseudo-sophistication of U. S. teen culture to escape the unhappiness of her family life — an escape that (by extension) the third girl failed of achieving. And while "Chaq's" lies to "Ixchel" represent (at least to him and her) something mythically truer than the facts, Patricia B.'s parents' lies to the media (ironically saying essentially the same thing "Chaq" says: "She was my little princess") are so shamelessly untrue that Patricia C. doesn't even bother to identify them as lies.
Glossary
"Me importas tú, y tú, y tú/ y nadie más que tú" (epigram to the section) Only you matter to me, you, you / and no one else but you.
Tikal, Tulum, Chichén Ancient cities of the Maya on the Yucatan Peninsula.
dar a luz have a baby; give birth (literally, "give light," in the sense of bringing an infant into the light, giving birth).
Alegre Cheerful, happy, lighthearted.
tocaya a namesake, or another person who shares one's name.
Dolorosa and Soledad street names; they translate as sorrow and solitude .
Y te quiero mucho and I love you very much.
Virgencita, Cuídala Blessed Virgin, Watch Over Her
The House on Mango Street & Woman Hollering Creek & Other Stories By Sandra Cisneros Summary and Analysis: "Woman Hollering Creek" and Other Stories My Friend Lucy Who Smells Like Corn
Summary
My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn; Eleven; Salvador Late or Early; Mexican Movies; Barbie-Q; 'Mericans; Tepeyac"
Note: These 22 stories and sketches are grouped in three sections, each with one story that bears the same title as the section: "My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn," "One Holy Night," and "There Was a Man, There Was a Woman." The stories will be considered here in groups for the most part, beginning with the first and second sections treated as two units.
The stories and sketches in this first section are set in childhood. Five are narrated by children; the two that are not ("Salvador Late or Early" and "Tepeyac") have children as main characters. "My Lucy Friend. " whose speaker is a seven - or eight-year-old girl, is set in a poor neighborhood of a fairly large Texas city. The story has no plot; the speaker describes her friend, relates some of the things she and Lucy do together, and tells a few details about Lucy's house, family, and life. The speaker also reveals something about her own situation (she is living or staying with her grandmother). She likes Lucy and envies her having eight sisters; she feels that she and Lucy are like sisters.
"Eleven" takes place on the speaker's eleventh birthday. Rachel opens by saying other ages before eleven are still present inside the 11-year-old. She is in school; the teacher brings a sweater out of the coatroom and tries to determine its owner. A girl says it is Rachel's, and although Rachel denies it, the teacher puts the sweater on her desk and eventually makes her put it on, which brings her to tears. Later another girl remembers the sweater is hers . but Rachel is still upset and wishes she were invisible.
Salvador (in "Salvador Late or Early") is a small, apologetic boy who has no friends, comes from an very poor neighborhood, and (because his mother has a baby to care for) must get his two younger brothers ready for school, give them breakfast, and lead them by the hands to school and then home again.
In "Mexican Movies," the speaker is a young girl (six or seven years old) who describes a typical Saturday evening with her parents and little brother at a theater that shows Mexican movies. She tells about being sent to the lobby during sexy scenes and describes the furnishings of the theater and lobby and the things sold there; she tells about her favorite movies and talks about the things she and her brother do during the shows. Sometimes, she says, they go to sleep, and when the movie is over their parents carry them home to bed.
"Barbie-Q," set in Chicago in the early 1960s, features a nine - or ten-year-old speaker who talks to her friend directly about their Barbie dolls, their outfits, and the story they always enact with these dolls. One Sunday at a flea market, they find and buy Ken and several more Barbie outfits, friends, and relatives that have been damaged in a fire. These dolls smell smoky and have slight flaws, but the speaker and her friend don't care.
The speaker in "'Mericans" is Micaela, a young American girl visiting relatives in Mexico City. She and her brothers wait outside the church for their grandmother, who is inside praying. The older brother dozes in the sun; the younger one runs around shouting. They have been told not to leave, so they watch a procession of penitents approach the church. The speaker goes into the church for a while, then goes back outside. An American man and woman, tourists, take her brother's picture and are surprised he speaks English; he tells her they are "'Mericans."
The speaker in "Tepeyac" describes, in present tense, a typical weekday evening spent in Mexico City where she lives or is staying with her grandparents. She walks home with her grandfather from his shop, describing the places and people they pass. They count the steps from the street to their front door together and go in to their supper; from that house, she says, she will return to the U. S. Her grandfather will die, everything will change, and when she returns, years later, the house itself will seem different.
Analysis
One of the things Cisneros does best in her fiction is to evoke the sensations — sights, sounds, smells, tastes, palpable feelings — of being a child. The young speakers in this section (including the speaker in "Tepeyac," who "becomes" an adult only as her story ends) are excellently realized because they notice particulars and report them: the smashed-bug-on-the-windshield color inside a cat's-eye marble, the stickiness of a melting orange Popsicle, a child's shadow falling on a movie screen, every item on every table at a sidewalk flea market (or an inclusive selection). They report as well the intense emotions of childhood (from doing "loopity-loops" inside to wanting to disappear) and, all in all, capture perfectly for the reader the essence of being a child. We are reminded of Sandra Cisneros' early determination to write out of (although not necessarily about ) her own particular experience and are able to see how that experience informs her characters' voices with authenticity.
Perhaps it is important, then, to remember that these stories can be read on different levels. Cisneros' characters will speak directly and honestly to young readers and will remind older readers of feelings we have — if we were lucky — known once but probably forgotten. Readers who share Cisneros' Latino background may recognize her perspective, but readers of other backgrounds will hardly be puzzled by it.
Of course, one way to read some of these stories (for example, "My Lucy Friend. " "Mexican Movies," "Barbie-Q") is to see the children as "deprived": a poor, dirty little girl in 79-cent K-Mart flip-flops, sleeping in a fold-out chair in her grandparents' living room, whose best friend is one of nine children living in a shack; children whose mother, after sitting on her feet at the movies to avoid rats, must carry the little boy and girl up to their third-floor walk-up; an eight-year-old boy who shoulders the responsibility for two younger brothers; a pair of young Chicanas who must cut holes in an old sock to dress their blue-eyed Barbie dolls.
It is certainly true that the children of the working poor, in the U. S. as in many other countries, have traditionally been (and continue to be) deprived — nutritionally, medically, educationally, and in other ways as well — and that children belonging to racial and cultural minorities are not only statistically much more likely to be poor but are also frequently subjected to the insults of the bigoted majority. School - and university-aged readers, especially, need to be made aware of these truths if they are not already aware of them. But while such a reading of these stories is perhaps unavoidable, it would seem that to limit ourselves to such a reading would be to deprive ourselves not only of the stories' pleasures but of much of their "meaning" as well. These children do not feel themselves oppressed or deprived; they are experiencing the richness and sensuousness of childhood in environments where they are cared for and cared about. It is perhaps good to remember that they are not sitting sadly in front of television sets or playing endless video games, numbing themselves as their senses and imaginations slowly evaporate.
Thematically, the stories in this section introduce and develop the idea of displacement or alienation. This theme is only the faintest of whispers in "My Lucy Friend. " where the speaker may be either living with her grandparents or staying with them temporarily (and where she calls Lucy a "Texas girl" as if she herself were not one), and is not present at all in "Mexican Movies," where the speaker seems absolutely happy and comfortable with her family. "Eleven," about the awful and sometimes irrational (from an adult point of view) misery of very early adolescence, finds its narrator, Rachel, wishing she were elsewhere — or nowhere — after her encounter with the dreaded sweater, which offends her in a way that must be almost purely subjective, for Phyllis Lopez has no qualms about claiming it later. Salvador, in "Salvador Late or Early" is forced — by circumstances, but also by his own good heart — to be older than his age, and we can see in this small, apologetic boy something of the humble, worried, perhaps sad man he will someday become.
In "Barbie-Q," the theme of alienation may be seen as an undercurrent beneath what the speaker actually says . One reading might see the flawed dolls as representing the girls' own self-image. As poor children, members of a cultural minority, the speaker and her friend (especially if we assume that they actually identify themselves with the dolls, perhaps not a wholly correct assumption) may see themselves as somehow "flawed," not as "the real thing," the future ideal American woman, white and middle-class (mean-eyed and "bubbleheaded" — that is, wearing the Jackie Kennedy bouffant), but instead as somehow a kind of cut-rate, smoke-damaged version whose defects can be hidden but will always be there. (To support this reading, we may note that in a later story, "Never Marry a Mexican," the adult narrator describes her ex-lover's wife unflatteringly as "a red-headed Barbie doll.") Another possible reading, of course, based quite firmly in the narrator's words, is one in which the girls, being fairly sophisticated, know that their dolls are just dolls and have, in their own regard, as healthy a sense of self-worth as possible for children who have been given the idea that an eyelash brush is a necessary piece of equipment for a young woman.
Displacement is at the heart of "'Mericans," where the children — strangers in their father's country, their relatives' city, and their grandmother's church — are further alienated from each other by gender, with the little boys calling each other "girl" as an insult. The narrator is beginning to be alienated from herself, wanting to cry but stopping because "crying is what girls do." Finally, in a nice bit of irony, two Americans with a camera appear, looking for a picturesque subject. Spotting the children, they do not recognize their fellow U. S. citizens but, instead, assume they are little Mexicans whom they can photograph for their travel album.
And, in the final story of the section, "Tepeyac," the theme of alienation appears in a number of ways. The narrator, as a child, is visiting here, meaning it is not her place (although she tries to make it hers by naming every person and landmark she passes, counting the very steps between her grandparents' gate and the front door). She is about to return to her country, but that is not hers either, for she calls it "that borrowed country" — as her grandfather no doubt sees it. When she comes back, years later, she will find that nothing is left but her memories, as unreal as the painted backdrops used by souvenir photographers in the square (as she remembers them). The only real thing, perhaps the spirit of the district as it existed/exists on the evening she remembers, will be unnamed and unnamable, and her grandfather will have taken it with him (she says) to his "stone bed."
The irony of this speaker's displacement would function no matter where the story were set, but it is especially sharp here, for Tepeyac is one of the holy centers of ancient and modern Mexican culture, a place sacred to the Mother-Goddess Tonantzin and also to the Virgin of Guadalupe, who appeared miraculously to the Indian peasant Juan Diego there. The narrator's grandfather, she says, is the only person who does not believe in this miracle. Later, as an adult returning to Tepeyac, the granddaughter of an alienated Mexican, she will be twice alienated, a member neither of her own culture nor of his. What she will have, however, will be her memories, precise and exact — or perhaps imprecise and inexact — as memories can be, after everything they are based upon has faded into the past.
Glossary
"También yo te quiero/ y te quiero feliz" (epigram to the section) I also love you / and want you happy.
nixtamal a mixture of ground corn and lime for making tortillas.
Abuelita Grandma; affectionate diminutive of abuela . grandmother. (Unless otherwise noted, non-English words here are Spanish.)
churros long donuts.
¡Qué saquen a ese niño! Get that kid out of here!
la ofrenda box offering box.
tlapaléria a little lunch stand.
La Virgen de Guadalupe The Virgin of Guadalupe, i. e. St. Mary, mother of Jesus, as she appeared miraculously to Juan Diego in 1531 on the hill of Tepeyac near this church.
sastreria seamstress; tailor.
¿Quieres chicle? Want some gum?
La Basílica de Nuestra Señora The Basilica of Our Lady.
No comments:
Post a Comment