Never Marry a… (Week 6)

The “Never Marry a Mexican” story of Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros follows a character whose likability and sympathetic qualities were debated in class. We also debated on whether or not we believed she was intended to come off as (un)likable and (un)sympathetic as she did. I’m not quite sure how much I like her, myself. Like it’s been said, one of the factors for how likable a reader can find her is how they personally feel about the subject of infidelity in a relationship. The fact that she practically fetishizes the act of cuckolding other women and engaging in affairs with their husbands without their knowledge really sours her as a person. Honestly, a big factor in her not being quite as sympathetic as she might want to come off as is the fact that the brunt of the pain in her backstory is experienced by her mother and not her. Her mother is the one who faces the familiar experience of being looked down upon by her in-laws for being Mexican-American rather than fully born and raised in Mexico like them. While there is a parallel drawn between her mother’s pain from having married into such a condescending family and her own pain when the words “Never marry a Mexican” are turned on her, it kind of pales in comparison given that she’s being told this by her illicit lover. The fact that she later goes on to sleep with his son who was being born while she was having sex with his father is also really creepy and really does not help her case for being likable, though I suppose it further reinforces how screwed up she’s supposed to be. Much of the mitigating elements in her backstory that explain her behavior and attitude somewhat fall flat when the person who suffered most is her mother and not her.