Juan Pedro

Juan Pedro is the husband of Cleofilas in "Women Hollering Creek", a marriage that was arranged by her father. The nature of such a marriage is meant to starkly contrast the passion that so strongly defines Cleofilas. Similarly, Juan Pedro contrasts the nature of Cleofilas; unlike her obsession with "lace" and "butterflies", he is described as "husky" with a beer belly. He is often seen as a master figure, unappreciative of romance and true love. Pedro, like Cleofilas, has been betrayed by his own fantasies and he turns this anger on Cleofilas. While Cleofilas is obsessed with her telenovias he is constantly working at a low-leve job in a factory; this aspect of the text further embodies the contrast of Pedro and Cleofilas- she is ideological while he is rational. In this light, Cleofilas's decision to run away becomes much more symbolic.

Jacob Erickson

The Color Purple

In the book "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, there are many symbols of purple such as the flowers which Celie and Shug walk by, the color of Celie's room, a little purple frog which Celie has, the "plum" color of Shug's nipples, etc. These symbols are representative of 'lesbian love' as well as a portrayal of the bruises that are purple that Celie receives representing sadness and a purple melancholy. Purple can also be thought to the colr of passionate renewal which is representative of the relationship between Shug and Celie's love affair. If you take this concept a step further, Purple is derived from the color red and the color blue. Blue is symbolic of Celie as an individual in the following ways: her navy clothing, sadness, melancholy and being beaten black and blue. Red is represented by Shug in the following ways: red is passionate and sultry (characteristics of Shug's personality), she wears a red dress, red shoes and carries a red bag. Red is the color of adultry and sexual passion. The two colors of red and blue representative of Shug and Celie mix together to form purple which is theri love affair "lesbian love".

Tiffany Noojin

"Colors" in the Color Purple

Colors possess symbolic value in Alice Walker's "The Color Purple." Most notable are the colors red, blue and of course purple. Red is representative of the passion shared between the protagonist, Celie and her lover, Shug. Outside of the novel, red is often associated with adultery, prostitution and romance. The color blue is symbolic of sadness, melancholy and despair, hence Shug's singing of The Blues. When combined, red and blue produce the color purple. Purple characterizes the lesbian love of the two characers and also represents the bruises or difficulties they have encountered throughout their lives.

Cecilia Luppi

Ghosts

Ghosts

Ghosts are a recurring motif in the memoir, Woman Warrior. Author, Maxine Kingston tells the story of how her mother informs her of the ghosts she encounters. Ghosts are symbolic because they serve as a contrasting idea of the identification of ghosts. Although Kingston’s mother refers to ghosts as frightening spirits that creates turbulence to humans, she also considers Americans to be ghosts. It becomes contradictory that she recognizes Americans as ghosts considering that the Chinese people living in America are the ones living with concealment. This relates to women writers through the internalization of females. Ghosts have a correlation with the way female interact in society – as they remain submissive, they are similar to the ghosts.

Donald Ung

Chicano

In "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" Gloria Anzuldua describes her experience as a Chicana. Anzuldua explains that chicanos, or Americans with a Mexican heritage, feel anxiety in finding their cultural identity; she writes that "Chicanos straddle the borderlands" (62) to represent this internal struggle. In an attempt to communicate the strength of their ties to Mexico she writes "Being Mexican is a state of the soul-not one of mind, not one of citizenship" (62). However, Anzuldua's critique of cultural identity goes beyond describing the tension and reveals the greater cultural problems behind it. She explains that American culture is a harsh bias one when she writes that "We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the dominant norteamericano culture" (63).



Jacob Erickson

Jay Johnson

Jay Johnson is Avey Johnson's husband in Praisesong for the Widow. Jay is the husband that she misses, and she is saddens by her lack of mourning his "death". Jay was what she called him before he transformed into Jerome Johnson, the man who tried to keep up with society, who tried to make life better for his family, but in the process lost a sense of who he really was. Avey misses this Jay, this man who talked to only her in bed, who made special situations for him and her. Avey was never able to mourn Jay's personality's death, the man she truly loved, and the man she very much misses. Jay represents the self, true to who he was, and not who he tried to be. Jay was special, while Jerome just tried to impress and succeed, leaving his soul behind in the wake.

Stephanie Lestelle

Jerome Johnson

Jerome Johnson is Avey's dead husband in Praisesong for the Widow. Jerome is what Avey called her husband after he "changed" into a different person when he became successful. Avey misses the person that he used to be, the person that made special time for her, with his dances and his singing, and his talking to her while making love. Jerome Johnson didn't do that, and she misses that when she is remembering in the hotel after she jumped board from the cruise ship. Avey screams in her mind "Too much", meaning too much trying to be something else, too much being something he wasn't truly mean to be. She misses Jay (the person her husband used to be), and she calls her husband, in her mind, Jerome Johnson.

Stephanie Lestelle

Women Silence

Women Silence

In Maxine Kingston’s, Woman Warrior women silence is a recurring theme that impacts the main protagonist, Kingston as a youth. She is told to not tell anyone about her No Name Aunt. In addition, parts of her tongue is also cut off by her mother in order for her to speak more lucidly in a foreign surrounding, however, as a teenager, Kingston believes her mother cuts it for precisely the opposite reasons. In addition, growing up as a Chinese American, her parent directs her to remain secretive to her teachers and the Americans around her, which exhibits another form of silence. The theme of silence is significant to the course of women writers because women writers have the contrary incentives as they speak up to society through their writings. As for Kingston, writer becomes a form of defying society’s conventional values of women remaining silent.

Donald Ung

Language in "How to Tame..."

To Gloria Anzuldua language is useful beyond mere communication. In "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" she argues that language is a tool through which people define themselves and are defined. She explains that at a young age she got in trouble for "speaking Spanish" because she was trying to tell the teacher how to pronounce her name. She uses this illustration to show how people are quickly labeled and stereotyped in the context of the language they speak; in this case, she was looked down upon because Spanish is not "American". Anzuldua goes on to explain how there are 8 different types of Spanish, each come from a different region and imply different things. Also, Anzuldua finds a certain pride in her language, explaining "When other races have given up their tounge, we've kept ours" (63); this illustrates her finding identity in the language she speaks. Anzuldua writes of how languages differentiate people, explaining that Chicano Spanish is a "secret language. Adults of the culture and outsiders cannot understand it" (56).


Jacob Erickson

“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strength to establish r

“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strength to establish realities” (5).

This quote from the memoir, Woman Warrior is from the author, Maxine Kingston. Kingston is referring to the stories on ghosts and the cautionary story on her No Name Aunt. There stories serves as warning and empowering tools for the future. The story on her No Name Aunt is to prevent Kingston from evoking shame to her family – specifically the actions of adultery. In addition, the ghost stories serve as an empowering story that represents Kingston’s mother, Brave Orchid as a woman warrior. Through her audacious attitude, Brave Orchid would literally fight ghosts and protect the harmless – which is the babies in the hospital and the medical school students. The quote is significant to women writers because it demonstrates the profound impact and empowerment of motherhood as Brave Orchid exhibits to her daughter the effectiveness of storytelling.

Donald Ung

Tabula Rasa

'Tabula Rasa' is a Latin term which stands for a new beginning, or a fresh start... some might even go so far as to refer to 'Tabula Rasa' as a form of rebirth. Many characters undergo a 'Tabula Rasa' in our texts this quarter: whether it be Avey retracing and reclaiming her African heritage after Jay's death in Praisesong, or even perhaps the death of Abuelita in The Moths by rising to another plain of existence. In very nearly all the texts, it is fairly easy to find some example of a character whom undergoes a 'Tabula Rasa' in some form or another.


--Rachel Robles

White Tiger

White Tiger
In Maxine Kingston’s Woman Warrior, the chapter “White Tiger” tells the story of a fictional woman warrior named, Fa Mu Lan. Kingston portrays her own depiction of the character through narration. In the story, she compares her modern-day self with the fictional swordswoman and affirms that they relate significantly. As the swordswoman effects the world through her sword, Kingston impacts her world as a female through the narrations of her words. In comparison of the legend of Fa Mu Lan as a swordsman, Kingston identifies as a wordswoman. This is significant to women writers because it illustrates the depths females internalize in a society dominated by males. In the story, Fa Mu Lan juggles several profound responsibilities such in society – specifically a mother, wife, and daughter. Consequently, this chapter epitomizes the massively potential strengths of females.

Donald Ung

Avatara

In Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall Avey as Avatara embodies the new form of the African deity Legba. This is acknowledged by the fact that others seem to notice her change during the dancing, as one by one they begin to bow to her. This is fitting, for the word 'Avatariti' (obviously a variant of Avey's name 'Avatara') signifies a crossing over, an incarnation, or the embodiment of another person. At this point in the novel Avey can be said to embody both the aspects of her Aunt Cuney and Legba.

She now symbolizes what she had always feared to become, yet what she needed to be most.

Pocketbook

In Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall, Avey's life is held together by this symbol of her life. Avey herself has become fairly materialistic and obsessed w/ opulent things after her and Jay's move to White Plains. Her pocketbook symbolizes the tidy order in which she attempts to now keep her life... so it is rather symbolic when she wakes from her sleep and sees the contents of said pocketbook strewn all across the floor. This seems to be when Avey realizes that even though she has lost her husband, that doesn't necessarily mean that she needs to confine her life to money, beauty products, etc.

The pocketbook is also a large symbol of the white culture which she has assimilated into along with Jay, as the Ebo most certainly did not carry such items.

--Rachel Robles

Praise Songs

Praise songs are used during rituals for funerals and initiations. In relation to Paule Marshall’s Praisesongs for the Widow, Avery Johnson encounters trials and tribulations which lead her back to her home community. Avery was distracted by the materialistic values because she was trying to assimilate to the Angelo American culture. With the guidance from Lebert Joseph, Avery is able to find her true identity and finally reaches acceptance of who she is. During a praise song, she performs the Creole dance and it is a representation of rebirth. She celebrates the death of her Americanized identity and celebrates the birth of her new culture.

Jenny Saenz

Great Aunt Cuney in Praisesong for the Widow

Emily Page

In Praisesong for the Widow, Avey's Great Aunt Cuney represents the African heritage that Avey and Jay turn away from in order to attain white middle-class prosperity. Her Aunt Cuney is the one who, on trips to Tatem in her childhood, told Avey the story of the Ibos who walked on water back to Africa rather than become enslaved. Aunt Cuney shows up in Avey's dreams, beckoning her back to a cognizance of the richness of Avey's family history and heritage. Cuney becomes a catalyst to Avey's great change, as the dream prompts Avey to leave the Bianca Pride and eventually leads her to Carriacou to take part in the excursion. Also representative of Avey's past heritage is Jay's love for the blues and gospel, which marked the early days of their marriage with fullness, joy, and passionate love--things they sacrificed for prosperity.

La Llorona in "Women Hollering Creek"

Cleofilas ponders the fate of La Llorona, the weeping woman, who drowned her children and believes that she is calling to her. Cleofilas must escape the domestic violence of her household through the telenovelas. But there is a desperation in her life, in the monotony of taking children, of fearing her husband's abuse. And tis desperation is demonstrated in her relating to the La Llorana as she cares for her baby outside. She "wonders if something as quiet as this drives a woman to the darkness under the trees." The danger in silence of her outside environment, driving her towards La Llorona's fate, parallels the silence that Cleofilas resorts to keep herself safe from societal norms, from her husband. She becomes withdrawn and she dies a death but still lives. It won't be until she can break out of her silence, until she can break the cycle of abuse that she will be safe from the call of la llorona.

Amber Bissell

Quilts in The Color Purple

Emily Page

In The Color Purple, Celie and other female characters work quilts. Quilting is symbolic in the novel of drawing things together, of stitching together "pieces" of one's life as one sews pieces of fabric together--when Celie and Sofia sit down to quilt together, the pattern is called "Sister's Choice," emphasizing female choice in life: appropriately, the two women quilt together after Sofia explains to Celie why she won't consent to be beaten by Harpo. Also, when Celie and Shug quilt together, they use fabric from Shug's old yellow dress along with Celie's fabric scraps--this metaphorical binding of the two women's lives together in a quilt signifies their eventual importance to each other, as Shug later says to Celie after they visit her father's grave, "We each other's people now."
Quilting also represents a free kind of creativity that enriches Celie's individuality, along with the later pants business.

..."although endings are inevitable, they are necessary for rebirths"

This is a quote from Helen Maria Viramontes' "The Moths." The narrator discusses caring for her dying grandmother in terms of the sun setting. The sun tries to fight the ending day, much like one would try to fight oncoming death. But this defiance is short-lived as the sun "sinks into realization" that is much set, there is no choice. Abuelita is bound to die, but her soul will live on in the moths. She must die in order to be reborn, like the sun in reborn every morning. Death is part of the cycle of life and without death, there is no life. This concept of life is further portrayed as the speaker claims that as she switched on the light, Abuelita died. The expected description would be that as she turned off the light, Abuelita died, as death is associated with darkness. However, but signaling the death with a light that is on, Viramontes draws the connection to the continuous cycle of life. Death can equal life, Abuelita will live on. Her soul will be reborn, just as the sun will rise.

Amber Bissell

La Llorona

La Llorona is a Mexican urban legend of a married woman killing herself and her children in the river. In relation to Sandra Cisneros Women Hollering Creek Cleofilas finds herself in a similar position as La Llorona. Cleofilas is in an abusive marriage and while coming home from the hospital, her husband cheats on her. She is unhappy because her ideal telenevela marriage has turned out to be nightmare. In the text Cleofila debates about taking her own life in order to escape the oppression she faces everyday. Instead she runs away and finds reawakening from Felice. While passing the creek Felice hollers at it which represents the new independence of womens ability of controlling their destinies.

Apa in "The Moths"

Megan Callaway


Apa in "The Moths" represents forced catholicism and the Spanish father's of the church through his violence and profanity. He is associated with nails, fists, whippings and the chapel in which he forces the young narrator to go. The chapel is constrained, empty, lonely, and cold which are metaphors for him. He is constraining her by his cruelty just as the entombment of the chapel does by inert isolation. He is abusive and is the reason Ama cannot attend to her own mother when she is dying. He represents the opposite of Mama Luna, which is the reason Ama sends her daughter to her grandmothers. She hopes her daughter will learn from Mama Luna as she did not and escape the cycle of marrying another Apa.

Talk Story in "No Name Woman"

Megan Callaway


The talk story refers to the mother's cautionary tale to Maxine about her "no name aunt". It is an abrupt story only told out of necessity to prevent Maxine from bestowing the same shame her aunt brought upon the family. The overall purpose is to prevent pregnancy out of a scare tactic, not to repeat a history of lineage. The talk story doesnt explore motives like Maxine's more literary interpretation of the tale. The mother's story is apathetic in tone and indifferent to the character she is addressing. It is emotionless because it is being told to fullfil a purpose.

How To Tame A Wild Tongue

How to Tame a Wild Tongue is the title to an essay in Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua. In this essay the wild tongue is literally the narrator's uncontrollable tongue as it wiggles around while the narrator is at the dentist's office. The idea of a wild tongue may also represent a foreign language or a non-standardized language. In this essay, Chicano Spanish is an example of one such non-standardized language. The narrator states that Chicano Spanish, which is neither Spanish nor English, is considered by many to be "a mutilation of Spanish" (Anzaldua 55). Those who speak Chicano Spanish have a wild tongue and this tongue supposedly must be tamed. This title is ironic because it sounds like an instruction manual, as though the narrator is planning on relaying different ways in which a wild tongue can be tamed. On the contrary, the narrator rejects the idea of taming a wild tongue. She believes that if a wild tongue is tamed, then identity and culture are likewise tamed and suppressed. The narrator explicitly states, "Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out" (Anzaldua 54).

Samantha Sears

17 Syllables

The idea of seventeen syllables comes from Hisaye Yamamoto's essay "Seventeen Syllables." In this essay, Mrs. Hayashi writes haikus, which are composed of seventeen syllables (five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables). Seventeen syllables are representative of more than simply the literal number of syllables in every haiku. Seventeen syllables also represent the secrets from Mrs. Hayashi's past. Mrs. Hayashi had a secret lover with whom she had a child, a baby boy. The boy was a premature stillborn, but if he had lived he would have been seventeen years old. This suggests that the seventeen syllables in Mrs. Hayashi's haikus are indicative of her past life and her stillborn son. Her haikus serve to memorialize her past and her son.

Samantha Sears

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

“The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God.”

Here Shug is telling Celie what she believes about God and religion. Shug is a big part of Celies life. She is the one that helped Celie grow and mature into a strong woman that has control over her life. Throughout the novel Celie writes her journals to God. Celie’s image of this God is the typical white, male God created by the church. In this passage Shug challenges this image of God. She rejects God as being a white, male and gives Celie a different view on God and religion. Shug believes God is inside people therefore God becomes more human and closer to them rather than the distant God religion preaches to people. This lesson of spirituality is important for Celie to learn because it changes her view on what God really is. It brings God closer to her because now she knows she doesn’t have to think of God as a male, God becomes an “it”. A sort of energy or force that exists inside everyone and everything.

Magda Pena

The moths by Helena Maria Viramontes

“I went to the linen closet and took out some modest bleached white towels. With the sacredness of a priest preparing his vestments”


Here the grandmother has died and the girl is preparing to clean her. Throughout the story there is a juxtaposition between religion and curanderismo. The girl thinks that chapels are cold lonely places to which she doesn’t connect. In her grandmothers house she finds a connection to nature and the wisdom her grandmother is imparting to her. In this quote there are some strange words. When she says “modest” bleached towels it is suggesting that even this can be sacred enough to be involved in a ritual between the girl and her now dead grandmother. The comparison of the girl to a priest is almost heretic because the girl doesn’t believe in religion or what it represents. This simple act of preparing towels is likened to a religious ritual meaning that there is a sort of sacredness in everything the girl does. Even she can be compared to a priest which is the connection between God and the masses.

Magda Pena

You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a’tall

This is an excerpt from a discussion between Shug and Celie in Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple”. The discussion is on the concept of God and men. Shug who thought these issues through is sharing her views with Celie who through her life experiences game to resent God and men. As Celie contemplates what Shug said, she is starting to realize that in order to see things clearly she would have to disregard men she had known in her life and men in general. When Celie compares “a little scrub of a bush” against Mr.______’s evil, the evil shrinks. This is a representation of what is natural or in nature against man’s constructs. “Man corrupt everything. He try to make you think he everywhere…you think he god”. Men interpret religion, create social structures and norms, and impose their views on women. Shug urges Celie to push all of these away by looking to nature, “Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock”, and create her own ideology.

Inna

Lebert Joseph

Lebert Joseph serves as a catalyst to Avey’s growth and understanding of herself. He guides her to her roots through interesting tactics. He floods her with information of his geneology and with the connections that he has accumulated over many generations. He begins questioning her culture and roots, forcing her to try understanding her lineage--begining the idea of tracing back oneself to blood belonging. The encounter provides Avey with valuable life-changing questions and slowly allows Avey to vent from the pressures of her society that she has suppressed--racism and assimilation. When she begins talking of her dreams, Lebert Joseph is able to look into her soul, metaphorically, and transmit her culture back into her. By continously jarring up her memory and conscience state he finds her past and her link to Juba dancing. Because Lebert Joseph initiates a dialogue of history, Avey is able to free herself of the present and look into the past for expression, appreciation of herself and to release the horrid tension she succumbs to in the United States. The evolution of the woman, as we see in many different novels, need a strong and captivating presence that forces the woman out of their comfort zone and into a vulnerable, yet safe enviroment that compells them to re-evaluate themselves. Lebert does this for Avey, and, thus, changes her forever.

Juan Contreras

Mr. Hayashi's outburst

"Smashing the picture, glass and all (she heard the explosion faintly), he reached over for the kerosene that was used to encourage the bath fire and poured it over the wrekage."

Towards the end of "Seventeen Syllables," Mr. Hayashi releases his frustration and anger towards his wife on a picture. Calling out for his wife to help him and getting no response made him angry, and possibly jealous. Since Mrs. Hayashi had been entertaining Mr. Kuroda and ignoring Mr. Hayashi, Mr. Hayashi built up a rage of inadequacy and exasperation. Mr. Hayashi obviously could not compete with Mr Kuroda, nor could satisfy Mrs. Hayashi's need for intellectual stimulation. His masculinity as a Japanese man had been obstructed through Mrs. Hayashi's pursuit of haiku and haiku discussion--which deprived him of the power that men in Japanese culture long have owned. His outburst on the picture, smashing and burning it, show us how inadequate he feels to fufill Mrs. Hayashi by releasing a powerful amount of anger. What joy he shares with his wife is not comparable to the joy other people bring Mrs. Hayashi. Her dedication and interest to haiku will never be understood by Mr Hayshi, and we see the consequences of this through his outburst and destruction of the picture.

Juan Contreras

He had thrown a book. Hers. From across the room. A hot welt across the cheek."

In this scene of Sandra Cisneros' "Woman Hollering Creek," Juan Pedro hits Cleofilas with her book--a love story--which truly hurts Clefilas' feelings because the book was the closest thing she had to a telenovela. She forgives his beating, which draws attention to his dominion over her, but also how she remains blatantly ignorant of how abusive he has become and how far away she is of having the telenovela life. She still longs to learn of the betrayal and romance that occurs in the telenovelas; however, even when he smacks her with the love story, a symbolic act of getting slapped in the face with fantasy, she still compares herself to the woman in the telenovelas and bemoans how she doesn't have a name of a jewel like the woman in the telenovela. Since she doesn't accept that her life will never be like a telenovela, Juan Pedro, literally and figuratively, gives her "a hot welt across the cheek" with her fantasy and illustrates how he doesn't care about her dreams. Cisneros shows us how woman become deeply brainwashed with the idea of perfect and fun lives. The implementation of these fantasies cause destruction and oppresion, and, sadly, we see this through Cleofilas beatings.

Juan Contreras

"I always felt her gray eye on me. It made me feel, in a strange way, safe and guarded and not alone. Like God was supposed to make you feel"

In Helena Maria Viramontes' "The Moths," the 14 year old female narrator finds peace and love with her Abuelita. Having been raised in a catholic home by a father who enforced the gender roles and oppressive morals of the religion, she viewed catholicism with sad and cold eyes. When she visits the chapel by Jay's Market, she feels alone and cold, preluding to how dispirited she became with catholicism. Because she finds "God" in her Abuelita--the true benevolent and cultivating figure of the story--the catholic culture that she knows and learned as child dissolves into an idea of oppression, fear, and solitude. Her father's dissapointment in her upbringing and her mother frustration with her lack of assimilation show us how her only real place for growth was with her grandma. She finds what "God was supposed to make you feel" in her grandma, and, ultimately, shows us that a young woman's individuaity prospers when she feels "safe and guarded," and able to be herself.

Juan Contreras

The name "Rosie"

The name Rosie suggests a "budding Rose," this symbolizes exactly what Rosie is. She is a budding rose caught between Red adn White. the red representing passion and womanhod while the white symbolizes innocence and youth. Rosie is torn between the two. Although Rosie is still ayoung girl, she has been forced to grow up fast and act beyond her years due to the fact that her parents put her in the middle of their problems. Rosie is at times the young and innocent girl she should be, like when she retracts from the kiss Jesus tries to give her. However, she is also on the brink of womanhood, feeling passion and emotion that she had never felt before.

Jamie L

"I wanted to go where the moths were"

This statement from "The Moths" represents two conflicting theories associated with the moths' purpose in the story. The first theory is that the moths represent Life and regengeration, the second theory holds that the moths represent death and decay. "I wanted to go where the moths are" suggests that the moths are flying higher to greater things that are are unattainable to the narrator if she is stuck on earth in her present life. The releasing of the moths represent the release of spirit and the life and regenertion associated with it. On the other hand, this statement could also represent the theory of death and decay, the moths being defacted as waste and symbolizing the hopelessness of life on earth.

Jamie L

When I carried her in my arms, her body fell into a V

This item is from “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes. In this passage a young narrator is transporting the body of Abuelita from the bedroom to the bathroom for a ritual of transformation. It is a sacred ritual, “with the sacredness of a priest preparing his vestment”. The towels become vestments. The water symbolizes purification and the medium for transformation. The symbols of Catholicism are mixed with the symbols of the ritualistic indigenous ceremonies. The body as V represents the eternal feminine. For just a short moment Abuelita represents Mary. But Abuelita’s body reveals a map of a life of a different eternal feminine, “the scars on her back’ and “mapped birthmark on the fold of her buttock”. She is a goddess of nature and when lowered into the bath her soul starts preparing for transmutation, “her hair spread across water like eagle’s wings”. Her soul becomes moths and her body dissolves into nature, “the vines would crawl up her fingers and into the clouds”.

Inna

When do you stop giving when do you start giving when do you…

Young narrator from a short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes is asking these questions of herself. She is fourteen years old and stands at the crossroads. At this juncture, she is on the verge of becoming a woman and she has many questions. Should she give in to physically abusive father and inept mother and take on the norms of the family and accept the catholic faith. Should she give up her distinct personality and become like her sisters, “do the girl things” and maybe acquire through practice a “cute waterlike voice”. In other words, should she comform? At this point in the text as the question repeats itself over and over again, she is confused. But “the sun is defiant” and she is defiant. She wants to give to herself, to self formation and determination.

Inna

Eruptions/Implosions in Praisesong for the Widow

Bonnie Park

In Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, Avey Johnson embarks on an exploration of her suppressed and forgotten memories and cultural roots. In order to do so, however, she experiences emotional and physical 'eruptions'-- violent bodily and mental reactions to the turbulent emotional experience of revisiting her past. Essentially, 2/3rds of the novel builds up to this cathartic purging of suppressed and festering emotions and memories within Avey. To advance the metaphor of 'indigestion', Avey's upset stomach does not arise from only her 'over-gorging' of materialism and richness. The unresolved aspects of her life-- namely, her complete detachment and alienation from herself sits in her stomach like milk gone bad. The milk, her past and her identity, festers and rots within her until finally, in Ch. 6 of the third part of the book, Avey, on the schooner on the Carriacou Excursion, explodes the contents of her stomach out through her mouth-- words and ideas she has suppressed all her life, and through her bowels-- all of the undigested ideas of self-identity which she has failed to confront, explode and erupt out simultaneously, "gushing from her with such violence she might have fallen overboard." (205) This purging of her mind and body is significant because it provides a denouement to the conflicts Avey explores throughout this novel. She purges not only her physical being, but her spiritual and emotional being as well, allowing her to proceed refreshed, renewed, and cleansed of all of the self denial and the pain she has withheld inside her body and mind, leaving both open and receptive, like an empty stomach, to the new food she will encounter-- the Carriacou islands and finally, her reencounter with her Afro-Caribbean cultural roots.

"Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds"

Bonnie Park

In the chapter titled "White Tigers" in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Kingston explores the traditional misogynistic tendencies of the Chinese culture. Maxims like "Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds," (46) and "There is no profit in raising girls. Better to raise geese than girls," (46) hint not only at a strong cultural distrust of women, but also at the idea that bearing children and raising them is an investment-- investment of time, money, pain, and effort in exchange for the hopes of vicarious fulfillment and profit through the offspring when the 'stock' has fully matured. Kingston portrays her own rejection of such ideas by refusing to get straight A's, refusing to marry to show her, "father and mother and the nosy emigrant villagers that girls have no outward tendency," (47).

Yet Kingston can not help but wish that she could return from Berkeley as a boy so that she too, and not only her brothers could have her "parents welcome her with chickens and pigs". (47) The inability to prove herself just as worthy of love and affection and trust as her brothers is an overarching theme in the chapter. Kingston yearns to belong in her family and in the culture of her parents, yet can not find reconciliation with the misogyny and the double standards which are exhibited in every aspect of the Chinese culture. She points out that, "There is a Chinese word for 'I', which means 'slave'". (47) While her soul struggles to find peace with her ethnic and cultural roots, she finds it impossible to embrace a culture which can not embrace her gender.

This theme of the suppression and insignificance of women in the traditions of the author's ancestors is significant to the novel, as it is an overarching one, and one which recurs throughout the memoir. Kingston explores the difficulty of becoming a "woman warrior" or a "female avenger" in her own ethnic culture as well as in her environmental culture and raises the question of the probability of overcoming the difficulties faced by her existence as a female, as an ethnically Chinese individual, and as an American.

Moths

The concept of the moths in Helena Maria Viramontes’ short story The Moths has several meanings. Viramontes first mentions moths when she is describing the ointment that Abuelita uses to shape the narrator’s hands back to size. The ointment is a “balm out of dried moth wings and Vicks.” Initially is seems Abuelita is representative of the past and everything that is traditional. However, in this instance she uses both traditional (moth wings) and modern (Vicks) elements to turn the hands. This demonstrates integration between modern and traditional society, the old and the new. On the other hand, moths also represent a conflict with modern technology. Viramontes writes that transitions are “necessary for rebirths, and when the time came, just when I switched on the light in the kitchen to open Abuelita’s can of soup, it was probably then that she died (27).” Moths are attracted to light; they circle artificial lights and human light sources affect their navigation. As moths are led by the light, the narrator is being led by Abuelita. When the narrator is holding her grandmother in the tub she describes, “Then the moths came. Small, gray ones that came from her soul and out through her mouth fluttering to light, circling the single dull light bulb of the bathroom (28).” The moths also represent decay and therefore death: “Moths that lay within the soul and slowly eat the spirit (28).” The moths can also be seen as a release of Abuelita’s soul and moving towards the light. Abuelita is also called Mama Luna. Luna is another word for the moon, which guides moths. In this sense, the moths may be following Mama Luna / Abuelita’s soul; or rather the concept of transmogrification. Transmogrification would be the idea that the soul turns into the moths and are therefore heading towards the light. Transmigration is the belief in the soul passing from one to another. This image is symbolic of the moths carrying the grandmother’s soul to the girl. If this is the case, then this image can also be interpreted as the narrator’s rebirth. Furthermore, they are in the bath tub which is symbolic of a baptism. If Abuelita’s soul has been carried to her, then the narrator is a “half-born” who has passed through one stage of initiation into becoming a Curandera. This tradition is passed down to her from her grandmother.

Jessica von Fremd

Folded in lip

In Paule Marchall's Praisesong for the Widow, the main character Avey is constantly tucking in her lower lip. This physical characteristic of Avey is mentioned several times throughout the novel. This lower lip is the physical symbol of Avey's conformity into white society. As she becomes higher in status and more assimilated into white society Avey begins to fold in her lower lip in an attempt to hide her Afro-Caribeean background. This lower lip not only represents Avey's conformity into white society but a denial of herself as an Afro-Caribean woman. As Avey moves through her journey through the island she begins to reject the white society she has conformed to and embrace her background. As this shift in cultural acceptance happens Avey's bottom lip begins to protrude, no longer held in as a result of conformity. By the end of her journey to Carriacou and the end of the excursion Avey as fully rejected white society, and embraced not only her cultural background but herself. With this her lip is no longer held back and is able to reveal to the world Avey's background as an Afro-Carabeian woman.

Pamela Legge

"...yes and no and oh..."

This phrase is from Rosie the heroine in Hisaye Yamamoto's short story Seventeen Syllables. This phrase represents Rosie's thought process as she has her first intimate encounter with Jesus. These three words represent Rosie's transition from girlhood to woman through her first act of intimacy. The "yes" that Rosie first thinks of represents her desire for the knowledge of sexuality and sensuality that Jesus is presenting to her. It may also be Rosie's acknowledgement of her own desires as a maturing girl on the brink of womanhood. This acknowledgement may lead to the power in which Rosie mentions during the kiss, the powers of seduction and beauty that she is now just being introduced to. The fact that yes is Rosie's first reaction is very interesting, it could be a sign that she is ready to enter womanhood and wants these new experiences and powers that she is learning about. However, immediately after the "yes" Rosie thinks "no". This sudden change in Rosie's thought process could represent the part of her that is still embedded in her childhood. The "no" shows Rosie's desire to remain innocent and virginal, and may incorporate a bit of fear about the knowledge she is obtaining and the new powers of seduction that she is learning. Along with the fear of this new knowledge is the possible fear of cultural judgment. It is possible that coming from a traditional Chinese family Rosie fears her parents judgement and rejection from this possibly immoral act. Along with Rosie's "yes and no" she ends this quick thought with "oh" suggesting her pleasure in this embrace and kiss as well as her acceptance of the coming knowledge and a release of any fears she may have. The order of the words also gives some hint at Rosie's final decision. she begins with initial excitement and joy, followed by her fear of judgment and the unknown, and then she relinquishes all of her fears and decides to make that transition into womanhood. This layout of Rosie's decision making process foreshadows for the reader Rosie's eventual choice she has to make with her mother. To remain an innocent child forever, or to go against her mother's wishes and become a woman.

Pamela Legge

Looking into her gray eye, then into her brown eye, the doctor said it was a matter of days.


This sentence is from Helena Maria Viramontes short story “The Moths”. These are the eyes of Abuelita. The two different colors point to the complexity of her personality. Aubeluta is a representation of many spiritual and ritualistic traditions fused together. The gray eye can be a depiction of goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom, justice, industry, and skill. Abuelita’s home was a safe heaven for her daughter from the abuse of the father. Abuelita was a skilled gardener and healer. The brown eye can be seen as a representation of the Aztec goddess of corn, Chicomecoatl, the goddess of sustenance. The eyes of Abuelita are set against the blank eyes of the marble statues in the chapel. The reference to Abuelita’s eyes and the eyes of the statues is a description of the conflict between Aztec/indigenous traditions and the imposed Catholic norms.

Inna

Hall of Mirrors

In Paule Marshall novel, Praisesong for the Widow, Avey Johnson sits at dinner, looks up to a huge mirror on the wall in the Versailles Room, and does not recognize her own reflection (48). At first she just sees an older woman and notices the clothes of that woman and the two sitting next to her. She admits that this is not the first time that such a thing has happened. More than likely, she and her friends are the only African American women in the dining room. Avey has not integrated into the passengers on the ship; she has assimilated and therefore does not recognize herself. There is a Hall of Mirrors in Versailles which is referenced a page earlier as the place where the treaties were signed that divvied up India. This mirror and the Hall of Mirrors are connected through Avey. Avey is looking into a hall of mirrors. When a person stands in the middle of a hall of mirrors there are multiple images reflected which show a regression. Avey has to trace back her reflection in order to recognize herself. This shows how detached she is from herself and her heritage. The mirror can also be seen as a mirror to reality which causes Avey to be jolted out of her detachment. Avey cannot begin true introspection until she has shattered the former image in the mirrors.

Jessica von Fremd

Hands

The concept of hands in the short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes is shown in many different forms. The narrator addresses her hands on the first page calling them “too big to handle.” Her sisters call her “bull hands.” Her hands cannot do girl things and she admits that she spends a great deal of her time beating up her sisters for making fun of her hands. In contrast, her older sisters are pretty and nice and they have hands that can do the girlie things like embroider. The narrator says that she owes a lot to Abuelita for all Abuelita has done. One of which is making a balm which supposedly transforms the narrators hands and shapes them back to size. The reader is not sure how much of this is literal, but what is important is that the narrator’s hands are transformed from manly and hurtful hands into helping hands. Apa’s hands stand out in the story. His hands are described as pounding the table and the narrator says, “He would grab my arm and dig his nail into me,” while he is describing the importance of the catechism. The fists, hands, and nails are all allusions to the crucifixion. Apa is a supporter of the Catholic faith and uses his hands to enforce their teachings on his family. In contrast to this, is the visual of Abuelita’s hands as she is holding the “hammer and nail.” These are tools in the crucifixion, but Abuelita uses these tools in a different way. She is the earth mother. She is building, growind, and, in her own way, Abuelita is reworking the Christian makeup.

Jessica von Fremd

"Too much"

In Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall, Avey keeps muttering the phrase “Too much” on page 145. There are many possible meanings for her constant refrain of this phrase. “Too much” could be referring to the amount of work it would have taken to maintain her relationship, culture, and sense of self with Jay while also moving upwards economically. At first she believes that the effort would have been “too much,” but then she realizes that with vigilance, strength, and distance of her mind and heart from the society she and Jay move into she could have been like Aunt Cuney’s grandmother: “Her body she always usta say might be in Tatem but her mind, her mind was long gone with the Ibos…(39)” Avey and Jay could have maintained their culture in their mind while living in safer circumstances. “Too much” can also mean excesses in the form of money, success, and quantity (as opposed to quality). “Too much” struggle to resist the temptations of a material society and “too much” strength require. The phrase can also mean “too much” want; they wanted too much and therefore they gave up too much. They also could have had “too much” in the form of expectations for their future.

Jessica von Fremd

Telenovelas

Cleofilas loves to watch telenovelas. They fill her mind with the hope and belief in a Cinderella Story and escapist fantasy. She is looking for love in a pure crystalline essence. In her fantasy, which is derived from these telenovelas, everything is new. With her marriage she is under the impression that she will be in a new town, with a new car, and a newly painted house. She also believes that like the characters in the shows she will have money. But the engagement is quick and she is married before the reality sets in. Additionally, telenovelas are surrounded by commercials and Cleofilas is caught in a commercial idea of beauty. Her life has no commercials; it just goes on becoming sadder and sadder. The essential element of the telenovela that her life lacks is the happily ever after. One of the ways she accounts for this is her lack of a beautiful name that sounds like a jewel and lighter skin like the heroines in the show. One thing that her life does have in common with the telenovelas is the impression that one has to suffer for love. This sentiment conditions her for the abuse.

Jessica von Fremd

Peach Parfait

The peach parfait that Avey has for dessert on pages 49-50 signifies over consumption. Avey has literally made herself sick by over consuming. The construction of the parfait signifies Avey. The layers of peaches and cream are a beige color and there are only a few dark sprinkles at the top. The chocolate sprinkles are the “token blackness,” and this little bit of black is smothered by everything else. This is like Avey, who has smothered herself in whiteness leaving only a few bits of her black heritage sprinkled about. Avey tries to giver herself a peaches and cream appearance. She is a southern black woman literally drowning herself in whiteness and homogeneity. Peaches are also the official fruit of Georgia, which is in the South, while the whipped cream is a dairy which comes from Wisconsin, which is in the North. By the white cream covering the peaches it is symbolic of the North culture taking over her southern culture. During this meal Avey cannot eat her dessert. She realizes she has over saturated herself and the thought makes her sick in side.
Jessica von Fremd

Ume Hanazono

Ume Hanazono is Tome Hayashi’s alter ego in Yamamoto’s “Seventeen Syllables.” Mrs. Hayashi dons this penname once she begins writing and publishing her haikus in the local newspaper. Ume, who takes over Tome’s body after dinner, is a “muttering stranger who often neglected speaking when spoken to and stayed busy at the parlor table as late as midnight scribbling with pencil on scratch paper”. Through Ume and her haiku prowess, Tome is able to win relative notoriety for the haikus she publishes in the newspaper. Ume is significant in this short story because Ume is free in ways Mrs. Hayashi is not. Ume did not go through the embarrassment of having a lover whom she could never marry, the stillbirth of a baby boy, and a rushed and unfulfilling marriage to a man she does not really love. Ume is free from these misfortunes, and her separation from those tragedies allows Tome to harvest her creative energy. By creating some distance from the harshness of her own life, the creation of Ume allows Tome “a room of her own” (or at least a “mental frame of mind of her own”) in which she is free to create.

Rebecca Cuffley

Bianca Pride

The Bianca Pride is the cruise ship on which Avey Johnson sail at the beginning of Praisesong for the Widow. “Bianca Pride,” loosely translated from Italian, means “White Pride,” which reflects the whitewashing Avey endures since moving to North White Plains. Avey’s conformity to white, upper-middle class America and her neglect of her African-American roots are the causes of her sick and unsettled feelings throughout the novel. She suffers from a mysterious “gorging” feeling, implying an over-indulgence of excesses (i.e. clothes, jewelry). Not until going with Lebert does she purge the excesses out of her life and gets back in touch with her African heritage. Marshall uses subtle hints, like naming a boat “Bianca Pride” and a neighborhood “North White Plains,” in this novel to advocate the embracing of one’s cultural heritage.

Rebecca Cuffley

Haiku

In Yamamoto's "Seventeen Syllables," the haiku represents a three lined poem consisting of the pattern 5,7, and 5 syllables in each line. As a haiku represents the constraint of maintaining the poets' thoughts and number of word use with a certain criteria, the constraints of such pattern represents Mrs. Hayashi and her life with her husband. As Mrs. Hayashi is an aspiring haiku poet, she often endures several impediments from her husband as his beliefs of values are placed on physical labor as working on the fields picking tomatoes as opposed to mental labor. Thus, Mrs. Hayashi often finds herself in situations during social gatherings where her husbands interrupting violent storms in and out of rooms causes her to render her conversations and intellectual creativity short in order to please her husband. As Mr. Hayashi destroys the painting given to his wife by the editor of a newspaper, the act of cremation was simultaneously an act of killing and burying his wife's creative character as a poet. Thus, "Ume Hanazono's life span, even for a poet's, was very brief-perhaps three months at most."

Susan Tran

Chapel

In Viramontes' The Moths,the feelings and relationship the narrator has with the chapel correlates to the narrator's relationship and experience with her Apa. The chapel's representation of constraint, emptiness/loneliness, the cold, entombment, inertness, blindness and the loss of a connection to life signifies the affect the church and her Apa had on her childhood. "I had forgotten the vastness of these places, the coolness of the marble pillars and the frozen statues with blank eyes. I was alone. I knew why I had never returned." As a child, the speaker endured much violence from her Apa. He was violent, as "he would grab my arm and dig his nails into me to make sure I understood the importance of catechism." She also underwent moments of profanity and whippings. As her Apa emphasized the church, he represented Catholicism and one of the fathers of the church. As Apa constantly stressed the importance of church and religion, his tactics in getting his family to attend Sunday church and follow in his beliefs had a negative affect on the rest of his family. As a young woman not quite understanding religion, being forced to attend church through violent acts and in threats from siblings and towards her own mother resulted in her leaving and refusing to enter into a church as a young woman. As a result, the speaker maintains such attitude and perspective about the chapel.

Susan Tran