“Without Memory, We are Lost”: Cherrie Moraga and Ancestral Influences

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In this candid interview, Chicana author  Cherrie Moraga discusses the influence of her ancestors, especially of her mother a cuentista, in her writing process. She encourages young artists to surrender the limitations of their ego and embrace the memory of others to allow “much more profound truths” to inspire them. She criticizes mainstream American culture for being exclusively focused on the future, not recognizing the past as an important guide that leads us ahead.  She warns us about the danger of constantly moving forward without paying attention to the memories that are destroyed in this transition.  Moraga makes an important connection between this obsession with the future and the gradual weakening of Mexican roots in third, fourth generation Chicanos.  She calls this disassociating process “cultural amnesia” and remarks that many young people are not even aware of the valuable identity they are losing.

As a strong advocator for Latino pride and activism,  she denounces the saddening treatment of  undocumented Mexican immigrants, who despite being natives, are treated with profound desprecio and are viewed as a social disease.

Although I found a longer talk, I chose to share this particular interview because I think the ideas she expresses here are relevant to our study of “The Hungry Woman”. Moraga clearly sees Mexicanos as being treated as “the other”: disrespected, disenfranchised and pushed aside.  This reminded of me of how Medea was penalized after her lesbian relationship, deprived of her role as a revolucionaria, despised and forced into exile. The presence of memory in the story, the constant flashbacks and the allusions to ancestral indigenous practices,  was another commonality I found between the play and this talk.

 

Cherrie Moraga Talks About Identity

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In this YouTube video, Cherrie Moraga discusses our first topic of the class, self-identity and what it means to be Chicano/a. She considers Chicano to be of Mexican “herencia” but born in the United States, and that she considers herself a Chicana writer. Continuing on the Chicano movement, she explains how it was first used as a political term used for self-identification for Mexican Americans in the 1960s. The purpose of the Chicano Movement, she says, was to claim the indigenous origins of Mexican in the Americas. She states how the movement helped framed feminism and the “queer identity.” Moraga continues on to explain her background and how she was raised in a Mexican American culture, her mother being Chicana, and her grandmother not speaking a word of English. She concludes the interview with her decision to become a writer and what her purpose was going to be. Moraga explains how she had a choice in writing: she could “copy the great white masters” in literature that she learned in school or find her own origin of voice. It is evident that Cherrie Moraga chose to find her own voice, a voice that represents the queer community and Chicano/as, and a voice that she says, “took her home” to her indigenous origins. This interview was quite interesting because Moraga discusses the exact topics that we had in the beginning of the course. The characteristics that we had described Chicano of being, she had said as well. She expands how the Chicano Movement influenced her ideologies and shaped her writing.

La Llorona Characteristics within Bless Me, Ultima

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la_llorona_by_nativecartoon-d5qd7gcComparing the story of La Llorona with Bless Me, Ultima, there are many parallels that can be seen when a close reading is applied. Tony’s upbringing and his interactions with both his dreams and nature show definite signs that suggest La Llorona had an influence on Rudolfo Anaya when writing Bless Me, Ultima. As La Llorona captures her victims through her comforting, peaceful, and compelling presence, we see this explicitly when Antonio learns about the mermaid and the golden carp from Cico: “He said it was a women, resting on the water and singing a lonely song. She was half women and half fish — He said the song made him want to wade out to the middle of the lake to help her, but his fear had made him run” (p. 109). Showing consistencies with the water as being the setting in which La Llorona is seen, the loneliness and weeping, as well as the profound affect the presence has for one to join and rescue, are all present within this scene with Antonio.

Another example of how La Llorona relates closely to Antonio’s upbringing is the constant cries Antonio hears. “Hey Toni-eeeeeee. Hulooooo” (p. 106) as well as “Antonioooooooo” (p. 52). These mysterious cries Antonio consistently hears also relate closely to La Llorona, as the weeping women lures her victims through her cries and her own distraught.

Further paralleling this, we see a strikingly similarity with La Llorona within one of Antonio’s dreams: “In the dark mist of my dreams I saw my brothers. The three dark figures silently beckoned me to follow them….we walked across the well-worn path in silence. The door to Rosie’s opened and I caught a glimpse of the women who lived there” (p. 70). This scene especially struck me as hinting toward La Llorona — three dark figures that mystically persuade one to follow them in silence to a woman. Although this scene includes four people total, whereas La Llorona usually has three, the compelling and mystical urge to follow the figures to a women’s presence is an overarching motif of La Llorona.

 

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As scholar Jane Rodgers tells us, “Antonio knows he must get home before storm worsens, yet he is compelled to linger “at the gate of the evil women”” (Rogers, 66). This is, once again, a key example of the story of La Llorona showing through Antonio’s life. The mysterious and attractive nature of the women at Rosie’s have a unique affect upon Tony, as he knows he needs to get home but simply cannot pull himself away. It is the odd fascination that Tony shares with the victims of La Llorona — they lose rationality and become immersed in the charismatic women that lure them.

Pinpointing these La Llorona qualities allows us to view Bless Me, Ultima in an even more Chicana/o gothic light. Weaving a traditional Spanish parable into the novel, though subtly, brings the novel to life and creates a more intimate connection with the gothic. Tony’s dreams and the constant cries he hears which may seem arbitrary at first, now come into light as being another element of the gothic. I thought it was also notable to point out how La Llorona is used with Tony as he is just a child, once again being consistent with the tale, as La Llorona is aimed toward children.

Cited:

Rogers, Jane. “Latin American Literary Review.” JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

Anaya, Rudolfo A. Bless Me, Ultima. New York: Warner, 1994. Print.

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A Chicano Duality

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Imprinting; entrusting your own dreams onto a child that barely understands what it means to be alive in the world. This type of hope is common in the modern day just as much as it most likely was in the past. Parents hold this expectation of having their child(ren) live out the careers that they never had to opportunity to pursue. While it may be an innocent push or want for something better for their child, sometimes they fail to see just how much pressure they are putting on a child’s shoulder. The young one barely has had time to explore his/her self let alone find the career that can make them happy. In Bless Me, Ultima this act of enforcing one’s own dreams and desires is very much evident on Antonio. However, it is not just by the efforts of one parent but of both. What really made me curious, though, are the psychological effects that it could possibly have had on Antonio. As the story progresses, he find no true connection between the two options that are presented to him by his mother and father. Although he is tied to the church, he sees that the church is more focused on tradition as opposed to spiritual growth, which is what he feels he needs. Yet, on the other hand, the free and sensual culture of the vaqueros does not appeal to him either. So how does internal duality represent the Chicano experience?

From personal experience, I know the conflict in choosing between education and working. In a study entitled “First in My Family,” college students speak out about the struggle that they have faced in being first generation. While the issues extend to various parts of their lives, students did speak of the struggle between parents wanting them to work versus wanting them to stay in school to finish their education. This becomes part of the Chicano experience in that it becomes a battle between tradition and this new concept of studying in order to aim for something more.

Works Cited:

Saenz, VB, Hurtado, Barrera, Wolf, and Yeung. “First in My Family: A Profile on FIrst Generation College Students at Four-Year Institutions Since 1971.” (2007): n. pag. Web.

Love Vs. Power

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The Hungry Woman is a great struggle story of love and power. Take into consideration Madea’s love for Luna. Perhaps it is obvious that she loves her. After all, they have been together for seven years and they constantly have sex throughout the play. But is their sex a product of love or lust?
Take for account the scene where Luna comes home to find Madea drunk. Madea expresses her longing for Luna’s touch. In her drunkenness she wants her body. Luna however, has a similar mind set. After they have sex in that scene, Luna asks Madea to tell her about who she was while she was with her husband.

Luna: Tell me who you were with him?
Medea: It still interest you?
Luna: Yes
Medea: Why?
Luna: It gives me something… somehow.
Medea: What?
Luna: I don’t know. That I have you that way, like he did. But different. Knowing he wasn’t-
Medea: Enough?
Luna: Yes.
Medea: You haven’t changed.

After seven years of being together, Luna is infatuated with the idea of her having Medea’s attention in a way Jason didn’t. Luna knows that she is sufficient for Medea, or at least enough for her to stay with her for so long. Luna sees this as power she has over Jason and also power that she has over Medea. If Luna wasn’t able to give Medea, to some degree at least; her desires and fill her needs, Medea would have no reason to be with her. In a sense, Luna Keep Medea grounded.
Furthermore, Medea admits that “her kind [of lesbians]” are a “dying breed.” She explains, “My tragedy will be an example to all women like me. Vain women who only know how to be beloved.” In a sense, Medea does not know how to be the lover, she only can be the beloved. She does not know how to give herself away because she is not in love, she is lust. In many ways Medea is with Luna because she has to be. Luna feeds Medea’s flesh. That’s why Luna has so much power over Medea.
Another odd struggle of love and power is Medea’s relationship with Choc-Mool. Throughout the play Medea’s love for Choc-Mool is very apparent. However, there are scenes that question whether Medea loves Choc-Mool or the power she had over him. In one part of the play, Medea describes what it was like when Choc-Mool stopped breast feeding from her. She claimed it was “peer pressure,” but she completely over looks the fact that he was three years old, “on his way out to play.” It was such a dramatic memory for Medea because it was a moment when her son became dependent of her. She could not accept the fact that her son was growing up because it meant she would no longer have power over him. He would no longer need her. Ultimately, it is her need for power that is her demise, and he reason she kills Choc-Mool. She could not bear the though of him being completely independent from her that she kills him. His murder was her ultimate act of exercising her power. She believed that she was entitled so much power over her son that she could take his life.
Madea’s need for power over ruled the love she had for others. She allowed her obsession to control Choc-Mool’s life lead to his death, and in the process endanger her relationship with Luna.

Normalcy vs the Outsider

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Without a doubt, what struck me the most about The Hungry Woman was the depiction of sexual orientation and just how much it resembles the way it is not only viewed today but even treated. While there is no “Banished Lands” where open homosexuals are sent, there is definitely the feeling of being an outsider. Of being kept on the outside so as to keep status quo constant. It does not matter what you may have done that would benefit society, just by loving the same gender you are ostracized. But let’s add the Gothic aspect to this by introducing the idea of multiple perspectives to add onto the feeling of an outsider. Not only is Medea banished from her home, but she is also forced to see her life change. Having been married to a man and served in the war, she knows what it means to live the life of the privileged; to have others look at you without questioning you and who you are. However, by sacrificing the life of norm and privilege for love, she gives herself over to the judgmental looks. To being forced away from her home. Similarly, when someone comes “out” they are putting their homes and sense of belonging at risk. Depending on how those closest to them react, they become outsiders. They begin to see the world through this new lens that only few that get to see. It is the noticing of a difference that sets one apart from the rest—a difference that was originally denied in order to keep this sense of normalcy, which in itself is a very Gothic trait.

This acknowledgement of a new perspective, also serves as another possibility for refusing to let Chac-Mool go to Jason. By letting him go back to this world that is perceived as perfect but only by maintaining very structured social norms, she surrenders herself and her decision by acknowledging that her son would grow more from a “normal” life. Just like how same-sex couples are at times denied adoption for the sake of having children grow in a “normal” environment. These attempts to keep order resemble the Gothic trait of separating reality from fantasy. Reality stays intact by keeping the status quo–this normalcy that has become so prevalent. whereas fantasy would be living in a world of acceptance.

The Gift of Gothic Death: Providing A Space for Commentary

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In her essay “The Gothic Gift of Death in Cherríe Moraga’s The Hungry Woman: AMexican Medea”, Tanya Gonzalez constructs a case in favor of sympathy towards the version  of Madea Moraga has constructed in her play. Gonzales argues that Moraga takes the “gothicness” inherent in the La Llorona legends and employs it in a manner that can allow the reader to be sympathetic towards the horrible actions taken by Madea. According to Gonzalez, the “gothicness” of Chac-mool’s ghostly figure appearing to Madea to subsequently “take her home” has a redemptive quality for this classic character. The final scene of the play depicts Madea dead in the arms of the apparition of her diseased son. The cyclical nature these two characters’ relationship in their deaths allows for a somewhat cathartic ending, in that Madea’s monstrous actions against her son did not dissolve without some sort of moment of closure. Had Chac-mool’s ghost not returned to “bring his mother home”, it would have been much easier for the reader to see Madea’s actions as strictly manifested from jealousy and madness. The implementation of this scene taken straight from the handbook of the gothic genre, however, allows for a reading of this play that portrays Madea as a woman combatting the patriarchal construction of it means to be a mother.

The notion introduced by Gonzalez that historically, the gothic genre provides an aesthetic space for social commentary was an aspect of this essay that I found most intriguing. Having done extensive research on Shelley’s Frankenstein, the notion of the gothic providing a space for controversial critiques is also a substantial aspect of the novel. The motifs of the gothic and the sublime are interwoven throughout the novel and it is in the presence of these two motifs that the monster and Dr. Frankenstein are most able to interact and the bulk the religious and scientific commentaries can be found. Whether it be the sublime terrain of the Swiss Alps or the gothic environment of a thunderstorm, an aesthetic space is created where both characters are on level ground and the two conflicting forces of slave and master come to the fore. I found this element of freedom found in the gothic present in Moraga’s The Hungry Woman because it is through Chac-mool’s ghostly reappearance that the reader can finally begin to identify with the selfless intentions behind Madea’s horrific acts; attempting to preserve her son’s innocence to the patriarchal society constructed in Aztlan, and, more generally, make a stance against the male dominated definition of what it means to be a mother.

 

 

 

The use of mirrors in Hungry Woman, La Llorona, and Bloody Mary

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I thought it would be interesting as we are discussing the literary technique of the uncanny and The Hungry Woman, which partially stems from the Mexican urban legend of La Llorona, as a springboard to compare it to another American folklore legend of “Bloody Mary”. There are many similarities to both stories and their ultimate cultural admonition but what I found in each was their use of mirrors as a reflection of something supernaturally skewed from reality.

There are many different variations of the story of La Llorona but one in particular has become one that stands out above the rest. A young Indian woman becomes infatuated with a Spaniard who is a part of higher society. His opinion of her lower status becomes a reason he won’t marry her. She births three children by him but he still cuts all ties. In order to win his affection, she drowns the three children one by one in the lake but he still refuses her. Her actions lead her to madness and her spirit is said to represent “death and misfortune”.

The most popular version of the legend of “Bloody Mary” is said to have stemmed from Queen Mary I of England who was cursed from numerous miscarriages and false pregnancies. The legend says that people stand in front of a mirror and chant the name “Bloody Mary” numerous times until she appears behind covered in blood.

One of the main things I took from both legends is the identity of women in both stories. They are represented as destructible, vengeful, and temperamental women who should be feared and avoided. With the discussion of doubling in the uncanny in literature, I found it noteworthy that this author made the connection between mirrors in connection to Bloody Mary, and the reflective nature of the lake to La Llorona. Both have the supernatural feeling of gloom and perpetual dread. They also both share a connection with eyes, which are also a form of reflection. La Llorona’s eyes, in some versions of the legend are deformed because of all the crying she has endured over the loss of her children and the loss of her lover. In the case of Bloody Mary, she has been said to scratch the eyes out of anyone who dares look directly at her.

In The Hungry Woman, we are first introduced to the character of Medea in a psychiatric ward. She is driven to madness after her exile for being a lesbian and an ex Revolutionary in a dystopian society. The very first introduction has the stage directions including a mirror: “MEDEA is downstage, looking directly into a one-way mirror through which all activities in the psychiatric ward can be observed” (Moraga 10).  The mirror represents a glimpse into her soul and as a literal representation of the actions she has taken and the consequences of those choices. Mirrors are described again as a mediatory of her past and present: “She abandons the breakfast, crosses back to the wall of mirror, examines her face” (Moraga 11). Mirrors are in the middle of her present conditions in the ward and her past reflections in Arizona. These stage directions are pivotal and can be easily passed over if not examined closely. Medea is in a state of self-reflection in her time in the ward. She has nothing to do except sit with her choices in life and deal with them in her own way. That’s why a mirror literally and figuratively separates her past and her present situation: “(At the mirror) My chin is dropping … One morning I’ll open my eyes and the shades will be drawn permanently” (Moraga 12). Mirrors offer her a glimpse into the woman she has become.

All of these women act out of pure emotion and suffer the consequences of their actions. The reflective nature of a mirror plays a huge part in all their stories and add an uncanny element of distortion.

Works Cited:

“Bloody Mary and La Llorona”. California Folklore. N.p. 1 Aug. 2007. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.

Moraga, Cherrie L. The Hungry Woman. Albuquerque: West End Press, 2001. Print.

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Medea and the Patriarchy (on Tanya Gonzales’s “The (Gothic) Gift of Death”)

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“Indeed, Moraga allows her play to speak back to the many versions of the tale that only replicate false notions that a woman would sacrifice a child to simply spite a partner: ‘The official version was a lie…Who would kill their kid over some man dumping them? It wasn’t a strong enough reason. And yet everyone from Anaya to Euripides was telling us so. Well, if traición was the reason, could infanticide then be retaliation against misogyny, an act of vengeance not against one man, but man in general for a betrayal much graver than sexual infidelity: the enslavement and deformation of our sex? (2000, 145)’”  (48).

I found the segments in Tanya Gonzales’s piece “The (Gothic) Gift of Death in Cherríe Moraga’s ‘The Hungry Woman'” particularly noteworthy as it explains the reasoning behind Moraga’s attempt to flesh out to mad-mother archetype. I felt that the murder of Chac-Mool did convey this sentiment, as Medea is constantly broken by men, she would rather have a son immortalized as a boy through death than see him live to become a man.

Through a feminist reading of this novel, her decision is not quite as far-fetched as we’d like to think. Often, women who do not comply with the  hetero-normative, feminine ideal are marginalized or looked down upon. Essentially, a socially acceptable role for a woman is to be a good wife and mother. Moraga expands upon this with Medea, as she was not stereotypically domestic; she was a revolutionary, and, in the end, not a traditional mother.

Moraga and Gonzalez also explore the idea of the virgin-whore dichotomy that is typical of our patriarchal society today. This is exemplified in Mexican/Chicana/o culture by “good women/mothers” being like the Virgin Mary, and “bad women/mothers” being the blood traitor La Malinche, playing “the whore” to Cortez (51). Moraga states that women who “do not conform to the expectations of the patriarchy” are labeled “whore/witch/dyke/madwoman” which can be seen in the play through the discrimination towards homosexual people and their eventual removal. This has been seen throughout many of the works we have read in class: Concepcion’s refusal to be emotionally subservient helps label her as a witch (‘Calligraphy of the Witch’), Luna is not traditionally feminine so she is considered a dyke (‘The Hungry Woman’), Ultima’s intelligence (regarding medicine) makes her a witch (‘Bless Me, Ultima), Medea is a whore because she is open with her sexual nature, and is also mad because she could not stand to see her son become someone who will dominate her. In essence, these labels are put on anyone who challenges the patriarchy.

In fact, the myths this play is based on conform and support a patriarchal society. Because the women kill their children to spite a lover, it suggests that all women’s lives revolve around men and that little is more important to them. Moraga skillfully plays on this by fleshing out Medea as a victim of a patriarchal society, not a member of it. As someone who has had their life destroyed by men, it makes sense that Medea would find less pain in her son dying than of him becoming another person that will oppress her.