Woman Hollering Creek
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954, to a Mexican father and a Chicano mother. She was the only daughter in a family including six brothers. (http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/cisneros/bio.htm) Her stories show influence of her Mexican heritage, and portray characters and situations from a cultural standpoint.
Cleofilas and Juan Pedro live on the banks of a creek with a strange name. The creek is called “Woman Hollering Creek” and Cleofilas wonders how the creek got its odd name. She questions what caused the woman of “Woman Hollering Creek” to “holler”, but no one ever tells her. The people there are fairly isolated from each other, and Cleofilas lives a completely different life compared to what she dreamed it would be.
During the course of the story, Cleofilas’s life becomes even more sad and depressing. She is basically trapped with her young son and is pregnant again, all the while bybeing abused by her husband. Not only is Juan Pedro abusive, but he is controlling and also unfaithful. Cleofilas bears all of this on her own, having to rely on her husband for everything, with no one else to turn to.
On day she manages to talk her husband in to taking her to the local doctor for a checkup. Graciela, the physician of the clinic realizes what kind of situation that Cleofilas is trapped in. She arranges to help Cleofilas escape with her son, and with the help of an assistant named Felicia, they leave” Woman Hollering Creek” (Cisneros, 1991) to go back to her father and the life she left behind.
This is not too uncommon in modern life. There are women who experience abuse on a daily basis that will not leave their husbands out of fear. Sometimes they choose to stay because they do not want to disappoint family, or they feel they have nowhere to turn. This is not all too different from Cleofilas and her own culture. I believe that this story can be an inspiration to all of those who are trapped in abusive...