Feminist Criticism In Never Marry A Mexican By Cisneros

I wrote an informational, analytical essay to enlighten my reader on the fluidity of a literary work. Much like the children’s game telephone, a story can change depending on who is telling it, where they chose to tell, it how they want the message to be interpreted and why they chose to tell that particular story. I chose to interpret the short story never marry a Mexican by Cisneros in a critical feminist view point as opposed to let’s say a racial or a psychological view point. “Feminist criticism is a literary form of criticism that gives the perspective of writing through a feminist perspective. It is a political form of literature that analyzes the questions of how male and females relate to each other and the world, the repression …show more content…
This is a feminist story because of how the main character’s personality directly correlates with the characteristics of a feminist, how she views the men in her life, and how she views the women in her life and how these view point shape her reactions and responses to day to day crisis. There is a point of view that everyone sees the world through. Although the world is not black and white but in some stories the divide is all too clear. In the short story never marry a Mexican, Clemencia makes some statements that make her sound bitter towards how females are regarded in today’s society. For example, in the story on one page she said “I’ll never marry. Not any man. I’ve seen the infidelities, and I’ve helped them into it. Unhooked and unzipped and agreed to clandestine maneuvers. I have been an accomplice and committed premeditated crimes. I have caused intentional pain to other women. I’m vindictive and cruel and I’m capable of anything. I admit, there was a time when all I wanted was to belong to a man. To wear that gold band on my left hand and be worn on his arm like an …show more content…
Women who want to live in this type of patriarchal society are weak minded and foolish. They have no capacity to think for themselves and are incapable of contributing anything to the society other than as a moderator of the home and as a bragging piece to egotistical men. All throughout the beginning she tells the read what a chauvinistic and materialistic person her father was. She herself felt that she had fallen prey to this barbaric way of thinking and of how society deems normality; but as she became Enlighted to a more civilized way of thinking in her mind, she saw that men are malleable though sex. The main character Clemencia’s view points on men can be clearly seen in the way she refers to the men in her life. ‘you were nothing without me. I created you from spit and red dust .and I can snuff you between my finger and thumb if I want to. blow you to kingdom come. you were just a smudge of paint I chose to birth on canvas… I paint and repaint you it the way I see fit, even now after all these years’ little fool. (never marry a Mexican) This quote shows how she believed that she could control men that somehow by having had an affair with him he now belonged to her. she could undo his life if she so chose to do it. Every decision he made was because she willed it. This is evident in the story when she said “I allowed your mother to give birth to you, you were just a thought in her mind until I allowed you to