Comparing Woman Hollering Creek And Sandra Cisneros Siren Song

Sandra Cisneros’ story titled “Woman Hollering Creek” and Margaret Atwood’s “Siren Song” share major social struggles such as power imbalances and the struggle in the search for perfection, yet they convey these issues in vastly different ways. Cisneros utilizes the allusion of telenovelas that she mentions and connects to numerous times throughout her story and also incorporates imagery and hyperboles to contrast her character Cleófilas’ fantastical desires of living in a telenovela against the truth of her harsh reality. Furthermore, Atwood mainly uses imagery and deliberate diction to bring her point across where she takes a mythical, magical being off their pedestal as other stories on sirens would never have done. “Siren Song” and “Woman

“Woman Hollering Creek” showcases the differences between the real world and the elusive romanticized landscape of television as seen with telenovelas. As a part of the author’s allusion, Cleófilas dreams of finding “...passion in its purest crystalline essence” and she elaborates that it is “The kind the books and songs and telenovelas describe when one finds, finally, the great love of one's life, and does whatever one can, at whatever the cost” (Cisneros 591). This fantasy, although beautiful, is so distant that imagining it only makes it worse when her husband begins hitting her as soon as their marriage started. Her facade of finding the perfect man and perfect life was instantly shattered and she was stunned beyond anything she could have imagined. This directly connects with the detrimental impacts inevitably paired with the evolution of technology since it is so easy to be wrapped up in the unobtainable facade of perfection that inevitably leads to a multitude of self-image issues felt due to such outrageous societal

Both of these stories represent the social issues pertaining to the power struggle seen for millennia and showcase this striking message through the means of extensive allusion or imagery. “Siren’s Song” and “Woman Hollering Creek” explore the depths of the endless endeavor of pleasing society’s skyrocketing beliefs pertaining to beauty and relationships. In “Siren’s Song”, Atwood strips down the perpetual illusion of a majestic, beautiful being through blunt dictions such as “get me out of this bird suit” and “squatting on this island” (Atwood 12, 14) in order to allow readers to see the reality behind a normally ethereal creature. This contrasts with the standards that are normally described and strived for and, instead, this newfound light allows readers to further accept their own faults and understand that even the most beautiful of beings may not be living as wonderfully as everyone would have previously thought. Society, as it is today, can benefit from this message as technology will only evolve but can only be as powerful as everyone allows it to be, so everyone must take