Moraga’s thoughts behind The Hungry Woman

I read the article Looking for the Insatiable Woman, which was posted on the blog. I found it to be very interesting because the reader gets to be inside the author Cherrie Moraga’s head a bit. She talks about the importance of stories and valuing a true story teller. She indeed tried to mix Greek Euripedes drama of Medea, la Llorana story, and the Aztec story of “The Hungry Woman”. She ultimately wanted to try to find the strength behind la Llorona. Her hope is to find a true story of this woman, and thinks it is a never-ending, but well-lived life journey. I think it has a lot do with feminism, especially when Moraga brought out the point that la Llorona has to have a better reason for killing her own children other than because of a man’s betrayal. The author emphasizes that the woman is searching for her lost children , “mis hijas perdidas”. I think Moraga believes la Llorona is speaking to all women. All women are sisters, daughters, mothers. All women have “our lost sexuality, our lost spirituality, our lost sabiduría [wisdom]”. The author’s last words in this article claims to be able to free women, if only just a little, by getting to the point of la Llorona’s story. I am left with a feeling of awe and support of Cherrie Moraga. I have enjoyed reading the book so far and absolutely appreciate her thoughts behind the writing of this play.

 <http://www.lolapress.org/elec2/artenglish/mora_e.htm>

Understanding The hungry woman: An author’s perspective

madea

A fairly consistent response to Moraga’s The Hungry Woman has been an exploration of the feminist perspective through which the classic Chicano legend of La Llorona is told in combination with the Greek mythology of Madea. A focal point of class discussion was how one should approach the character of Madea that Moraga presents, whether it be with pity, sympathy, or judgment. Some believed, including myself, that Madea’s downfall was her own greed and stubbornness and that her own vices forced her into the position we find her in at the end of the play. While Moraga’s version of these legends adds a new psychoanalytic perspective into the mind of this classic character, I found myself much more understanding and sympathizing with the character of Madea after reading Moraga’s essay “Looking for the Insatiable Woman.”

Moraga writes her essay in the thick of constructing her La Llorona story, impeded by her search for the “insatiable woman.” She begins her essay by explaining how she came to be exposed to the story of La Llorona, but not in the traditional sense. A frequent patron to the restaurant where she waitressed and a fellow feminist activist in the lesbian community, told her the story of a pair of lesbian lovers, who in a drunk and crazed fight threw their two children off of a cliff in rural Oregon. The biological mother, however, was acquitted of the charge while her lover was thrown in prison, each time denied parole by public pressure to keep the “lesbian child-killer” behind bars. This story spurred her need to find the truth behind the woman of La Llorna and fostered her “desire to kill patriarchal motherhood” (Moraga). The hungry woman portrayed in Moraga’s play is a product of her desire to create a character representative of every Chicano women, regardless of sexuality. A woman that has been oppressed throughout her entire history by masculine confinements. If we understand Moraga’s version of La Llorona through the lens of a woman working to instill a flame of insurrection within a generation of female Chicana art, I believe we can lend more sympathy to the character of Madea she constructs. One can see her, not as a greedy woman who’s crime against her son was fueled only by a desire to keep her land, but as a woman forced into a position by the patriarchal patterns of history and must take a desperate stand to liberate herself. Needless to say, the hungry woman represents an extremely feminist ideal, but with the added knowledge of the authors intentions in making her so rebellious, it allows the reader to look upon her actions as an attempt at liberation for a whole generation and culture of women.

Works cited: Moraga, Cherrie L. “Looking for the Insatiable Woman.” South End Press. Cambridge, USA, 2000.

Infanticide: Insanity or Self-defense?

When first reading The Hungry Women, and Medea’s character, we are quick to judge that Medea is simply an unstable, delirious mother who ultimately kills her son out of anger and abnormal psychological behavior toward her ex-husband. As infanticide seems absolutely crazy, this post investigates a moral and biological perspective on the murder of one’s own children. Obviously, killing your daughter or son isn’t and allowed and rightfully so, but this investigation works toward illuminating some of the history and reasoning past cultures have had infanticide; reasons other than insanity and lack of judgment.

Sarah Hrdy’s Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives takes a look at the history and biological aspects of infanticide. Hrdy writes, “Infanticide has been practiced on every continent” and even cites a researcher who came to the conclusion that historically “murdering ones own child was a common human trait.” (Hrdy, xi).  Taking a biological perspective, we may view Medea as protecting her own life through her execution of her son. The fear of having her son become “corrupted” through her ex-husband would leave Medea ultimately ruined: her precious son forever turned against her via abandoning his mother. The impact of Chac-Mool dying, honoring the biological perspective that is, leads us to believe that his abandonment through Jason would have been much more detrimental to Medea’s health.

Furthermore, we learn about more historical findings of infanticide, such as within the Bible where “God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith”  (Hrdy, xxii). Does this, or the fact that Medea was protecting her own wellbeing (in a Darwinian sense) justify her killing of Chac-Mool? I would argue no, but some may find grounds to pursue this matter as one of self-defense, as Medea is basically looking out for her own survival and health. 

However this may be true, Medea does show us a great deal of possessive, unstable, irrational qualities, such as her inability to maintain a relationship with her girlfriend, husband, and now, son, which lead us to see the infanticide as a result of a psychological disorder. Another issue to raise is the the unparalleled love a mother has for a child. This makes it less plausible for a parent to kill his/her own child (in a biological sense) — it goes against human nature in the sense that the destruction of one’s DNA works against basic survival qualities; humans are inherently prone to spreading their DNA, not condemning it.

This post works toward illuminating other plausible explanations for why one may execute their offspring. We are quick to assume that those who do this are simply mentally insane — but could it be for other reasons as well? I think this notion/biological view of self-defense and securing one’s own survival may have a part in some of the infanticide cases; probably the more historic ones.

Cited:

Hausfater, Glenn, and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives. New York: Aldine Pub., 1984. Print.

Tituba: The First Witch

tituba

In our study of Gaspar de Alba’s Calligraphy of the Witch, we were continually reminded of the historical nature of the novel. This aspect of the text was reiterated when Gaspar de Alba spoke in front of the class and described the meticulous and thorough nature of her research. The factuality of the circumstances surrounding Concepcion’s passage to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the events of the Salem witch trials portrayed in the book, and characters such as Samuel Parris and Tituba were soundly grounded in historical events teased out by the author’s research. This article chronicles the life of one of the characters in her novel, Tituba. Although a fairly minor character in Calligraphy of the Witch, as this essay explains, Tituba played an integral role in the escalation of the Salem Witch Trials as one of the first members of the colony to be accused of witchcraft. This article is beneficial to our study of the text not only because of what it can contribute to the context of the novel and our understanding of the historical circumstances that the events of the novel are based upon, but it also adds a sense of validity to the accurateness of Gaspar de Alba’s portrayal and usage of historical characters.

 

Works Cited and Image Credit:  Brooks, Rebbeca Beatrice. “Tituba: The Slave of Salem.” Janurary 2, 2013. http://historyofmassachusetts.org/tituba-the-slave-of-salem/

The Hungry Woman initial impressions and thoughts

Jason and Medea. By John Waterhouse, 1907

Jason and Medea. By John Waterhouse, 1907

The Hungry Woman definitely possesses many of the same elements that we have been looking over and consider to be Chicano Gothic literature. Firstly, it is made clear from the beginnning that Medea is a curandera, as Ultima was, but not like Ultima. By this, I mean that Medea should not be considered a curandera, and instead a witch because it goes back to my belief that the difference between a witch and a curandera is the intent, the motive, that the person holds behind their actions is what defines them as witch or curandera. Medea uses her knowledge of herbs to poison and kill Chac-mool (son) and has been put in a mental asylum for having done so. These actions were not of a curandera, but of a witch seeking out her own selfish desires. I thought it was interesting that Moraga incorported both mythical elements and aspects of La Llorona within the same work, and was able to do so in a very fluent mannner. The story of Medea and Jason is based on the greek mythological characters of Medea (grandaughter of son-god helios) and Jason (son of Aeson; leader of argonauts), in which Jason betrays Medea by leaving her for Glauce, the daughter of Creon (king of Corinth), and Medea responds by murdering their children. I thought it was interesting that in the play, Medea’s grandmother assists her in killing Chac-mool because in Greek Mythology, Medea is the granddaughter of Helios, the sun-god, and though Helios was always portrayed as a male, I thought that Medea’s grandmother was sort of used as another connection to the story of Medea (Greek).

Growing up, I heard many different versions and accounts by family and friends from Mexico relating to La Lllorona, but they all shared the same basic plot of a woman who murdered her children as vengance towards her cheating husband. In this play, however, Moraga manages to add a different element to the story, and that is to modernize the story of La llorona, and make her a revolutionary Chicana lesbian who has been exiled from her home. I thought that it was defintely an interesting take on the story to also have made Medea, in part, cheat on Jason, where in most of the stories it is the husband who solely commits to adultery. Most pieces of La llorona also don’t describe, in detail, how the woman begins to lose her mind, or the events that take place after she kills her child (children in most stories), but in this play, Moraga allows the readers to witness Medea’s life in a psychiatric institution, which I thought was very interesting.

Works Cited:

http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates018.html

http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/view.cfm?recordid=90

 

 

The Hungry Woman: the Differences from Bless Me, Ultima

The Hungry Woman expresses Chicano sentiments along with certain gothic elements. At first when looking at the character lists, I noticed similarities with characters in Bless Me, Ultima. Medea is listed as a curandera similar to Ultima, Chac-mool, a young boy, similar to Antonio, and Luna, Medea’s lover, has the same name as the Lunas in Bless Me, Ultima. I started reading the play with these similarities in mind, thinking that the play will follow much of the same plot and events. As I went further into the play, I began to realize there were very little similarities.

I didn’t really view Medea as a curandera like Ultima. Medea was presented as more of a revolutionary who loves women and is going through psychiatric problems resulting from her exile from her homeland that she helped to free. With little mentions of herbs and medicines, Medea wasn’t the typical Chicano curandera character. Chaco-mool shared similarities in that he and Antonio both had innocence and both were trying to search for their identity. However, unlike Anaya, Moraga didn’t entirely focus on the child’s search for his self-identity, but rather on Medea’s reflection of her life and identity. The end of the play did include more of Chac-mool and his separation from his mother, but most of the play focused on Medea’s relationship with Luna and Jason. Furthermore, the big conflict throughout the play involved relationships, unlike in Anaya’s book, involved religion/belief system.

Although I found little comparison between The Hungry Woman and Bless Me, Ultima, they both contained Chicano and gothic elements. Elements of the gothic were present throughout the play. Reading the text, I imagined an eerie sense of atmospheric darkness in most of the scenes. “Psychiatric ward scenes are represented by a deadening silence and the glare of hospital lights” (pg.7) is an example of this gothic atmosphere Moraga paints. A psychiatric ward, interrogation room, nightclub, and many of the other scenes, give off much darkness and mystery, which adds to the gothic element.

Furthermore, the play included specific gothic elements. La llorona and Edgar Allen Poe both were mentioned in this play, and both have very gothic auras. Mama Sal says, “She got such a lonesome llanto. Es el llanto de La Llorona.” (pg.37) La llorona serves as Chicana gothic because it is very much a Chicano legend that undoubtedly has dark and supernatural characteristics. Also, Medea says “My hair the silky darkness of a raven’s, the cruelty of Edgar Allen Poe’s own.” (pg.41) Edgar Allen Poe serves as American gothic because he is the author that most likely pops into a person’s mind when thinking about gothic in the United States. Hence, in conclusion, The Hungry Woman and Bless Me, Ultima are two different Chicano stories, but both containing elements of the gothic.

“The Hungry Woman”, A Feminist Perspective

Woman Walking AloneIn “The Hungry Woman”, author Cherrie Moraga daringly explores the classical story of Medea through the devastating experiences of a Chicana activist.  Although set in different scenarios, the chicana version borrows greatly from Euripides’ play and manages to truthfully depict the feelings of otherness, isolation and almost justifiable revenge that inhabit this famous myth. Through Medea’s unfortunate journey, the author addresses issues that are inherent to Chicana culture by utilizing characteristic elements of the Gothic literary tradition.

Moreover, Moraga allows the masculine anxiety and need for control to emerge naturally through Medea’s sad story. In this way, the author creates a strong connection between the gothic and the suppression of women which placesThe Hungry Woman” in the company of other celebrated gothic narratives like Frankenstein, where abhorrence and dread for the mysteriously powerful feminine realm inspires men to commit devilish acts, worthy of the genre. Our Mexican Medea becomes the target of the despotic male quest for unquestioned sovereignty, however, she responds in a violent fashion which defies the expectations of her gender. Moraga’s Medea fights her victimization fiercely. Although her actions grant her a place in an asylum, her attack on the patriarchy, symbolized by Jason, gives her momentary independence and lasting dignity. By examining Medea’s rebellion, I would argue that this haunting play can also be interpreted as a feminist work that shows the desperate attempts of women to reclaim their rightful freedom.

Moraga’s protagonists inhabits a post-apocalypse wasteland, “where yerbas grow bitter for a lack of water”. The aridness of her home mirrors the hopelessness of her situation. Medea tries to survive in a world severely governed by patriarchical notions  of righteousness and decorum. This asphyxiating societal control clashes with Medea, especially after this independent intellectual expresses romantic feelings for another woman. Morega shows us the perversity of this system through the persecution of this affair; Medea is not even allow to exercise her selfhood within the confinements of her intimate life.

Medea’s love for Luna culminates in a forced, humiliating exile from his native town of Aztlan. Her divorce renders her useless and homeless in the city she bravely fought to establish; it prevents her from living in a place she created based on principles of liberty and acceptance. Medea feels like a “huerfana abandonada”  in her exile, deprived of her deserved role as a successful activist. As Medea explains to her son, once the women were no longer needed for the revolutionary effort, they were forced back into their “natural” state of subjection. Although land was an important factor inspiring this suppression of female agency, the masculine obsession with power definitely played a decisive part in this political move. Through this unnecessary omission of female civic participation, the men forced women to lurk in the shadows of their domesticity, creating a distinctive line between the male and female worlds. This separation established women as the tamed but still feared other and made their independence an always menacing monster, waiting to emerge.

Medea’s involuntary migration cements her otherness , which had been already establish through her lesbian relationship. It is important to notice that “The Hungry Woman” is set in a futuristic time and therefore, one would expect such a relationship to be viewed with kinder eyes. However, Medea and Luna’s love threatens the traditional role of women as vigilant and submissive beings who live in permanent accordance with their dominant men.  The “joteria” is viewed as a toxic and essential aspect of otherness, which defies normalcy and deserves to be suppressed. This is one of the instances  when the overwhelming authority of men disrupts Medea’s serenity and the possibility of a happy life.

In the classical version, Medea is feared and despised for her foreignness-which makes her an unworthy, brutish outsider in the xenophobic eyes of the Greeks-and her known supernatural powers. The full extent of her might is only seen at the end, when she flies off in a golden chariot. This hated foreigner is deft in the way of politics and magic and her potential scandalizes the Greek elite who were accustomed to more conventional, less threatening women.

In Moraga’s play, Medea’s efforts to strengthen her supernatural powers possess a distinctive feminine quality. The characters speak of a Madre Coaticue,a great source of power, capable of creating deities. Similarly to Bless Me, Ultima, Medea’s temporal world is populated by strong males but the supernatural realm can be accessed through feminine figures.  This element of female power links the play with the traditional gothic treatment of the fantastical- witches working in the darkness and the like- and also further emphasizes the subtly feminist character of this work. Unable to use her political skills, Medea finds an unorthodox, mighty and strongly feminine way of regaining her authority by making use of the ancestral magic of indigenous people.

The moment when Jason becomes interested in his long forgotten son is also essential to understand the gender conflict of this play. Medea’s son is thirteen, an age where childhood and adolescence coexist within the developing boy. He is far from being a man but he begins to learn the ways of the world and consequently, the ways of his father and the patriarchy. Medea teaches her son about the reality of life and the treacherous ways of his father. She bluntly tells him of the injustice of men and the cruelly exclusionary nature of normalcy. Through these lessons, Medea hopes that her son will become a better men than those she has known. However, when she sees that Jason is trying to interfere in this process by entering his life (with complete disregard for the child’s well-being), she can predict the kind of men Chac-Mool  could potentially be. Moreover, Jason’s intrusion would also mean a return to the evil town that rejected her. Fearing for her son, Medea commits a grave crime. To save the integrity of her son’s soul, still uncorrupted and ignorant of the ways of men, she murders him. She stops her son’s journey to manhood, leaving him with an incomplete gender forever. With this tragic action, Medea prevents the patriarchy from taking the innocence of another young boy and turning them into agents of suppression and violence. Although unquestionably immoral, her decision to kill her son possesses a redemptive quality; she murdered to maintain her integrity and her son’s purity. The apparition of her son’s ghost strengthens the gothicness of the work and also blesses Medea with forgiveness and understanding. After so many tormenting memories and delirious scenes from her past, her actions become partially justifiable through his comforting presence.

Reading Response-Group 2

The play from Moraga has many gothic, Chicano/a and Greek elements. Firstly, it is the story of Medea, beginning from her sorrow from getting divorced from Jason because he cheated on her with another woman to her having to question if she is loosing her two children to him in a custody battle. It is interesting to see how the Greek mythologies and indigenous religious practices come together in this story. “You betrayed us, Madre Coatlicue. You, anciana, you who birthed the God of War”(92). The gothic elements come through with the indigenous religious practices, such as when Medea, dressed in black stands before the altar of Coatlicue burning copal and says, “…teach me your seductive magic…make him shiver within the folds of my serpent skin”(51). Here we see the elements of what makes gothic literature like; fire, magic and darkness. Another example of darkness is when Cihuatateo says that her child was born “from the dark sea of Medea”(9).
It also has many Chicano elements because it explains their Mexican background, as in Jason’s case, and the struggles that Chicanos are faced with. Jason is described as having come from a “U.S. Air Force father, the quarter-breed mestizo-de-mestizo cousins, your mother’s coveted Spanish coat-of-arms”(70). This quote shows us that Jason was of mixed blood, Mexican, American and Spanish, making him Chicano. The struggles that the Chicano group face are in “Uniting the disenfranchised diaspora of Indian-mestizos throughout the Southwest”(23). Also in the finding a homeland, “”We seek our home” And the seeking itself became home”(24). The struggles to find land that Native American ancestors had has been very troublesome because of dual-colonization creating so much destruction and ethnic mixtures. The history of the southwest lands is seen in the play when Medea says, “I will teach her of her own embattled and embittered history”(70), which goes to tell the reader of their long history and the many battles the indigenous and mixed cultures in this region have had to go through.

The Hungry Woman: The Importance of Corn

One of elements that I found intriguing about this play was how the presence of corn was interwoven in the fabric of the story.  We see it right away in the first scene of the play when Luna and Chac-Mool appear in Medea’s memory.  Luna questions why there is no corn in the garden and Chac-Mool responds that the garden is for growing herbs for medicine.  Luna then replies “Plant corn.  A single corn plant can produce enough grain to feed person for a day” (Moraga 13).  While the corn may seem insignificant in this interaction, I found it to hold a lot of symbolism.  One gothic element that we have discussed this semester is the tension between the good and evil.  The corn represents the good.  It serves as a source of nourishment and connection for the characters throughout the play.  The herbs however represent the potential for evil in play as they are eventually used by Medea to kill her son Chac-Mool.

 

The corn serves as a connection between Chac-Mool and Luna.  In scene four of act one Luna shows Chac-Mool the proper ways to plant and harvest the corn.  Luna says, “After the first rains the planting begins.  You burn incense at the four corners of the field.  Smoke the seed to be planted with copal candles.  You fast” (Moranga 25).  Luna describes planting the corn in a very spiritual and ritualistic way.  By doing this she presents the corn as something somewhat holy and sacred.  By teaching Chac-Mool the ways of growing corn Luna is giving him a piece of independence and his manhood.  Mama Sal says to him later in the play, “If you can grow corn and you know how to light a fire, you’ll never be hungry Chac-Mool.  Never” (Moranga 30).   This statement just reinforces how important skills like growing corn are Chac-Mool’s maturity.

 

The corn is also present towards the end of the play when Medea poisons Chac-Mool.  The mother and son spend their last moments together in an embrace overlooking the cornfields.  When Chac-Mool apologizes about his negligence in collecting the harvest Medea says, “No te apures.  In Aztlàn, there’s plenty corn to harvest” (Moranga 90).  This statement reminds the audience that corn is universal and will act as a link of the past with the present.  Chac-Mool never gets to experience the corn in Aztlàn because after this his mother poisons him.  Once she does this she drags his body out to the corn field and makes an altar for his body.  This reinforces the idea that the corn is sacred and a source of the good.  The juxtaposition of her evil action with the good of the corn ties back to the gothic element of good versus evil.  There is also the presence of the super natural with the Cihuatateo, who are the ghost of Aztec warrior women.  The corn represents natural abundance and growth, whereas the Cihuatateo represent death and loss.  This connects to another gothic theme of the natural, with the corn, versus the supernatural, with the Cihuatateo.  Corn was a staple food for many Native American tribes, including the Aztecs.  The presence of corn in this play not only has a lot of symbolism but incorporates the Native American influence as well.  Native culture has greatly influenced and shaped Mexican and then Chicana/o culture.  For that reason its presence in the play through the corn speaks to the importance of recognizing and appreciating its presence in the culture.

Works Cited:

Moraga, Cherrie L. The Hungry Woman.  New York: Theater Communications Group, 2000. Print.