Feminist Perspective 1
“Woman Hollering Creek” Feminist Perspective
Mark Conway
ENG 1002 UW Composition II/Literature
January 22, 2010
Dr. Emily Williams
South University Online
Feminist Perspective 2
Sandra Cisneros is a very successful Latina author in today’s literary world. Sandra Cisneros is one of a few accomplished Mexican-American female writers whom is recognized in the mainstream. Sandra Cisneros was born in 1954, in Chicago, Illinois. Sandra Cisneros’ father was Mexican and her mother was Mexican-American. Sandra grew up with both Spanish and English language spoken in her home along with a mix of Mexican and American ways of life.
"Woman Hollering Creek" was published in Sandra Cisneros's 1991 collection along with other of her short stories. Like her novel, The House on Mango Street, published in 1983, is a short story that describes the lives of Mexican immigrants that live in a Chicago neighborhood. "Woman Hollering Creek" describes the lives of Mexicans who have crossed the border to live on ''el otro lado''. 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
Feminist Perspective 3
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.
In the beginning of the story the...