Woman Hollering Creek and other stories is a collection of short stories by Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros in 1991. The author, who had moved north of the US-Mexican border, wrote her personal experience as she struggled to be an American woman while still bound to her Mexican cultural and social expectations. Through tragedy, satire, and conflict Sandra succeeds to examine the female position and roles in the society from multiple perspectives. “Eleven” and “My Friend Lucy Who Smells like Corn” resonate from personal aspirations and the social conditioning that define the position of women and children and especially among immigrants. In addition to exploring these themes of normalcy and women’s role and sexuality, Cisneros also succeeds in making people more sensitive to the challenges facing immigrants in the USA.
In the story “Eleven,” Cisneros examines the theme of child-adults conflict and its influence on a child’s perception towards the world. The story begins with Rachel, the narrator, who wondered why the adults expected children to be at their best behavior (Cisneros, 1991). Rachel argues that since it was her eleventh birthday, she should be allowed to do the things she did when she was five. When scared, she should be allowed to sit on her mother’s lap as she did when she was five and always afraid. The young narrator seems to question the adult’s perception of the world, and especially children.
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The climax of the story occurs when Mrs. Price, Rachel’s teacher forces her to wear a red ragged sweater, which she believed belonged to the narrator. The ordeal began when Mrs. Price asked whom the scruffy sweater belonged to and did not receive an affirmative answer. Wittingly, Sylvia Saldivar, Rachel’s classmate, said the sweater probably belonged to Rachel. The tone used by the narrator indicates that she and her other classmates understood that Sylvia was playing a dirty joke on Rachel as the sweater was tattered. However, Mrs. Price, who seems detached from the situation and the shame it cost Rachel believed Sylvia and put the sweater on Rachel’s desk. Rachael’s attempts to deny the claims that the sweater belonged to her were met with ridicule by Mrs. Price who finally forced Rachel to wear the sweater. Immediately, another girl claimed the sweater.
The climax represents all the social conditioning imposed on children by adults and women by the larger society. In this case, by being a child, Rachel is expected to obey Mrs. Price even when she was openly wrong. Failure to conform to the directives of Mrs. Price could have gained Rachel a punishment or even a social punishment from fellow students. When examined from the perspectives of gender and age, this story teaches of the compromising positions women and younger people find themselves during social interactions. Due to their lack of representation or freedom to make their choices, women often find themselves confirming the social conditioning even when the expected conduct is not safe or even empowering for them.
In this story, Rachel is presented as a defiant child who feels that the adults are not always right. Unlike her classmates who showed a high degree of conformity to the opinions of the adults, Rachel examines her own thoughts and believes that if given a chance, she would handle some of her situations differently. She is also represented as a critical thinker where she examines her social position in relation to other people. For instance, she understands that her birthday was a formal celebration where adults would expect her to act according to the social conditioning and expectations of an eleven-year-old kid. She also notices that society fails to empower her as a child and yet expects her to act like a child who understands what being eleven years of age means. Rachel would grow to be an independent woman who fails to challenge the social convention of herself or the people around her.
In the story, “My Friend Lucy Who Smells Like Corn,” Cisneros (1991) examines a story of the narrator and her friend Lucy from Texas. The narrator is about seven or eight years old depending on her cognitive and thought processing abilities. This story conveys a predominant need in children, which is friendship, acceptance, and self-realization. Despite the narrator being from an economically better family than Lucy, she observes that Lucy has a rich smell that signifies life and friendship. The narrators need for sisterhood reflects the nature of human beings as social animals.
Cisneros (1991) also observes the theme of innocence through the characterization of Lucy and the narrator. Firstly, the title of the story is likely to offer a negative connotation about Lucy as observed by her friend, the narrator. However, despite describing Lucy using her smell, the narrator still maintains the Lucy is her friend and the closest thing she had for a sister. She further confesses that she and Lucy could share all their clothes and collections. The story has a happy connotation towards the relationship between Lucy and the narrator. This shows the children’s innocence. When used in the modern setting, the use of body smell to describe Lucy could have had sexual connotations as derived from the social conditioning.
The innocence of the two characters and their willingness to remain together despite their differences is an indication that social aspects that lead to individual differences are mostly taught as people grow older. While the level of socialization and its impacts might seem like a marginal theme in the story, it shows a correlation between the innocence portrayed by the characters and the female conflict explored in other stories such as “Eleven”. While “Eleven” presents a conflict between a child and the adult, “Lucy” presents an environment where two children are able to handle their situation and explore their friendship despite their differences. This also follows the theme of ignorance is bliss as portrayed by Cisneros (1991). Following the fact that the narrator and Lucy are ignorant of their differences, they are able to interact better than adults with the same differences. Again, just as shown in the story “Eleven”, children are often innocent, authentic, and explorative. However, the social conditioning that shapes children to male or female members of society robs them of their innocence through expectations and commitments.
The two stories by Cisneros (1991) reflect the innocence as expressed by children. Cisneros (1991) used these stories of innocence, acceptance, and exploration as depicted by children to indicate the impacts of socialization on individuals’ later life. In ‘Eleven’ the teacher failed to communicate with Rachel while the rest of the students understood the context. A similar pattern of collaboration and support is shown in ‘My Friend Lucy Who Smells like Corn’ where Lucy and the narrator rise above their differences to become friends. This suggests that most of the social vices are socialized concepts rather than the innate nature of people.
References
Cisneros , S. (1991). Woman Hollering Creek. Assemblages , 81.
