Woman Hollering Creek And Other Stories (1992) - Plot & Excerpts
Sandra Cisneros in her short story “Women Hollering Creek” exposes all the sadness of a young woman’s life and entwines it with a meandering creek. The main character, Cleófilas, first crosses the creek when she is exiled to Texas with her new husband. It comes to be reflective of her new life as she ponders whether the woman that the arroyo represents is hollering as the result of pain or rage. In the new village no one seems to care about her and no one shares her interest in the name. When she asks them about the name “the townspeople shrugged, because it was of no concern to their lives how this trickle of water received its curious name.” However, the creek is important to Cleófilas because the creek is like Cleófilas: quietly wandering, swelling, and trickling, but longing for passion and the ability to scream out to the world whether it be from pain, rage, or even joy. Metaphorically Cleófilas, like the creek, is accepting of her fate. The creek travels where the water collects and flows between the low-lying hills. Its size dependent on nature just like the size of Cleófilas. As the seasons change so does the size of the river. When Cisneros vividly describes the creek she also describes Cleófilas when she writes, “The stream sometimes only a muddy puddle in the summer, though now in the springtime, because of the rains, a good-size alive thing, a thing with a voice all its own, all day and all night calling in its high, silver voice.” Similarly Cleófilas’ size is also dependent on nature as she swells with the life inside her and is beaten into shape when the storm of rage engulfs her husband. Cleófilas wants to be free like the river. She longs to have a voice, a voice of passion in a different type of town where woman are not dependent on their husbands and forced to stay at home. When given the chance to esecape she is ironically freed by a woman who is emancipated in all respects. Cleófilas is amazed by her deliverer and realizes that “Felice was like no woman she’d ever met.” Although her time with Felice is very short, she is impressed by her independence as she begins her new life of freedom away from brutality and back to her loving family. When they cross the Woman Hollering Creek, Felice gives a “hoot” of excitement and laughter. Felice gives Cleófilas a new perspective on life; a life she quietly longed to experience, but until now was afraid to express. An ironic twist comes at the end when Cleófilas begins laughing like Felice and her laughter flows long like water, like the river.
Very lyrical and suggestive of not just immigrant women, but of women as a whole. She suggests sisterhood with Felice and Graciela, and that men are not justified in any way to suggest that women have nothing to do with their own daily lives. Keeping house is not as easy as it looks, and Juan Pedro's audacity to even suggest that Cleofilas is too ignorant to even comprehend the own work he does is simply unjust. He himself is not perfect, and I think it picks up on and highlights the fact that men tend to have a one-sided relationship with their wives. They create a different persona of their wife after living apart from them so long, and when the real personality starts to bleed through, mental abuse takes place. In Cleofilas' case, she is bullied into thinking that she is a submissive and inferior aspect of the marriage, and everything that Juan Pedro does is in the right. Because he does not see her for what she is, a wife, a friend, a human being, he makes up her side of the marriage to justify his violence against her. The one thing that frustrated me was that Cleofilas allowed herself to be treated this way. I understand that she did not have many friends to talk to, and if she did try to seek help, she might have been put in the way of more harm, but she should have realized that her reality was never going to suddenly change, and should have recognized the ugliness of her husband. The irony when Felice (I believe it was her) comments that Cleofilas' life was like a soap opera was intensely perfect. Cleofilas has all the drama necessary, but no saving grace, no knight in shining armor. Instead, she has to rely on herself and strangers to get her back home, which I think is truly heartbreaking about her predicament. Overall, Cisneros constructed a beautifully written short story that speaks to women of all different sorts, and can even identify with men through its narrator who seeks to include readers in the action.
What do You think about Woman Hollering Creek And Other Stories (1992)?
I expected to like this more. I really enjoyed her poetry collection "My Wicked Wicked Ways." I recommend people check it out. However, this collection of short stories were bland to me. Can Cisneros write beautifully? Yes, she can. But these stories are don't have much plot driving them. Some of them are simply vignettes. The collection's literary value comes from the variety of Chicana experience it includes. There are many different women here. However, a man is central to almost all of them and certainly to all of the more developed stories. This became monotonous for me. I may have been particularly sensitive to that monotony because I recently red Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, whose heroine is also dominated by male influences, though not all negative. Those two books plus Their Eyes Were Watching God would make for an interesting seminar on the way women allow men to form their lives. When were they making choices NOT to be autonomous? When were they acting instead of reacting? Henry James' Daisy Miller could also be thrown in there.
—Jen
Well written and often moving, this is an excellent short story collection by Sandra Cisneros, a Hispanic author and poet. All of the stories feature female Hispanic characters from both sides of the border and many of the stories have a distinct feminist slant to them. The title story, "Woman Hollering Creek", in particular, offers a classic tale of a woman trying to escape a violent relationship. However, this isn't a depressing one note novel. There is a variety of tones and styles and some of the stories are whimsical, like the story, "Barbie-Q", where two girls find a treasure trove of Barbie dolls for sale at a local flea market. Many of them slightly scortched since they were toys scavenged from a recent fire. I enjoyed the book mostly due to the fact that it gave me a different perspective on the world. I was able to see things through someone else's eyes which is one of the main reasons why I read to begin with.
—Jon
“Woman Hollering Creek” explores the human condition from the perspective of a fragile feminine stereotype, a woman who leaves her home in Mexico and marries into an abusive relationship, which is very often happening these days. In the story, as her original fantasies of the married life are put to an end, she realizes that she must act independently of her husband to be able to live a happier life by leaving him. By finding strength in other feminine influences, she manages to escape back to Mexico to her family, which will always be there for her, as made clear by her father’s declaration at the beginning of the story. This is very commonly seen among relationships, I am pretty sure that a lot of women can relate their personal experiences to the text. In fact I have personally helped more than one of my friends when I was back in china to get rid of their abusive relationship, so I know how hard it was for them to do so. In this story, Cisneros portrays this stereotype in a positive light by giving the protagonist the ability to find strength to confront her situation which ultimately gives the reader hope for those who are afraid to get out of abusive relationships and encourage them to do so in real life.
—Claudefang
