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What Are The Similarities Between Woman Hollering Creek And The Myths

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The two stories I have decided to write about are “Women Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros and “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes. People of color created these stories and have shown they have different meanings behind each one. Behind each story there is a meaning on why specific events happen, rather it is related to a real-life situation or to the author. Both of these stories have a deeper meaning to the storyline and send off messages to the readers. Both of these stories have similar themes and relevance to each other although they are completely different situations that the characters have to face. “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros is a story about a young Mexican woman who’s named Cleofilas, who ends up in a marriage …show more content…

What makes them similar is that they are both based on Hispanic culture. Both of the main characters are having some sort of abuse at home. In “Woman Hollering Creek” Cleofilas is being physically abused by her husband while in “The Moths” Ana is being sexually and religiously abused at home with her mother and sisters. In “Woman Hollering Creek” Cleofilas ends up gaining freedom with the help of a woman who ends up rescuing her. For Ana, her escape was to go stay with her grandmother to take care of her not only to escape what she was dealing with at her own home but to also take on the more significant role of taking care of her grandmother when no one else …show more content…

“I was 14 years old when Abuelita requested my help. And it seemed only fair.
Abuelita had pulled me through the rages of scarlet fever by placing, removing, and replacing potato slices on my temples; she had seen me through several whippings, an arm broken by a dare jump off
Tio Enrique’s…” (Viramontes, 33) She explains how at a young age she had to help her grandma and begins to recall memories of her grandmother and share them with the readers. Both stories highlight the lives of Mexican women that live in the United States and bring focus to the challenges they face in balancing the expectations of their own culture with those of a different society. The theme of both stories is the cultural struggles along with the ability to maintain their own identities at the same time all while having the pressure weighed on them when fitting society's expectations. Both stories express the gender norms and the oppression that are placed on both women from each story by having Cleofilas be in an abusive marriage and Ana is expected to live up to the religious/cultural expectations set on her. The settings in which the stories take place are important due to the fact that they are both

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The reader first sees a sense of ownership on Cleófilas in the first line, when her father, “Don Serafín gave Juan Pedro Martínez Sánchez permission to take [her] as his bride, across her father’s threshold” (Cisneros 43), Cleófilas is seen as property rather than a being, indicating that she usually does not make decisions for herself. She lacks self-definition throughout the story, especially when she gives in to the demands by her husband, especially when she is lacking passion in the relationship. It is what she “has been waiting for… whispering and sighing and giggling for, has been anticipating since she was old enough” (Cisneros 44). Cleófilas wants this passion in her life, however, she starts to believe that the type of passion she is seeking for is “in its purest crystalline essence” (Cisneros 44), only to be found in the telenovelas she watches. She starts to lose her sense of

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“She had done nothing but reach up to the heat on her mouth and stare at the blood on her hand as if even then she didn’t understand (Cisneros).” Juan Pedro keeps this behavior up. A woman who goes by Felice changes Cleofilas idea on how a woman should be treated and their purpose to society. Felice helps Cleofilas escape her husband and takes her across the border back to Mexico.

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