Oskar Schell of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Cecilia of Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas both share similar experiences in that they are both exposed to hardships at a young age and strive to overcome them. The two youths, one male in New York City and one female in Los Angeles, are presented with conflicts such as living inferior to those around them and feeling lost. Oskar is a young boy struggling to cope with his father’s death while Cecilia is a teenager facing the struggles of gang life in her neighborhood. Despite the very different obstacles each character has to face, both characters refuse to stay inferior to their troubles and seek forms of closure. First, Oskar and Cecilia both experience uncommon hardships
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Women there are thought of as completely inferior to the men around them due to the patriarchal environment. Cecilia, a young teenager, is specifically undermined by her big brother, Manny, and boyfriend, Beto. Besides the men, Cecilia is also peer pressured to join the Locas, a gang made up of women, but doesn’t want to. All her life, Cecilia has been accustomed to a patriarchal society: “No boss man listens to an old lady, and no patron lets his mama tell him what to do” (9). Her brother is even the top gang leader amidst it all: “Every no-name in the neighborhood with some extra time or a bad temper was answering to my brother like it was natural, like there wasn’t nothing else to do but plant themselves quiet and fixed to the ground in front of him, and then do whatever it was he said” (10). These gangs are made up of men while women have their own job in the society apart from the gang life: “Gangs are mostly a man’s business. The cholos don’t want no sheep to ever get a taste of their action” (15). Some of the women desire to rise up and create their own gang. Despite the gang life in her blood, Cecilia decides to go down a different path: “Them things ain’t for me. I didn’t want to throw down for nothing...I still had that gangbanging blood…” (85-86). Feelings of inferiority to the men in her society and the pressures of joining a gang are part of the everyday struggles that young Cecilia has to
Women there are thought of as completely inferior to the men around them due to the patriarchal environment. Cecilia, a young teenager, is specifically undermined by her big brother, Manny, and boyfriend, Beto. Besides the men, Cecilia is also peer pressured to join the Locas, a gang made up of women, but doesn’t want to. All her life, Cecilia has been accustomed to a patriarchal society: “No boss man listens to an old lady, and no patron lets his mama tell him what to do” (9). Her brother is even the top gang leader amidst it all: “Every no-name in the neighborhood with some extra time or a bad temper was answering to my brother like it was natural, like there wasn’t nothing else to do but plant themselves quiet and fixed to the ground in front of him, and then do whatever it was he said” (10). These gangs are made up of men while women have their own job in the society apart from the gang life: “Gangs are mostly a man’s business. The cholos don’t want no sheep to ever get a taste of their action” (15). Some of the women desire to rise up and create their own gang. Despite the gang life in her blood, Cecilia decides to go down a different path: “Them things ain’t for me. I didn’t want to throw down for nothing...I still had that gangbanging blood…” (85-86). Feelings of inferiority to the men in her society and the pressures of joining a gang are part of the everyday struggles that young Cecilia has to