Essay #3
English 1B, Fall Qtr. 2006
"The Powerful Powerless"
The word “feminist” today brings to mind the image of a demanding, promiscuous, outspoken woman in a suit. While appearing on the outside to be held together and strong, in her own personal world, she is confused and still searching for something to satisfy a secret place within her. Through Teresa’s dialogue to Alicia, Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters depicts two women confused about their own identity as they desperately seek a feminist way of life. The Mixquiahuala Letters uses dialogue and imagery to reveal a deep feminist connection between two women of a pioneering generation, a connection which prevails through racial tensions but which will inevitably lead them back to the place they first began: cheapened by man.
Teresa, the speaker, often uses language to develop the idea that her generation of feminists views marriage itself to be a terrible thing. Letter nine expresses Alicia’s feminist view as Teresa writes to her: “Since we met that summer in Mexico you believed I’d no business being married, eyed my wedding band as if it were a shackle, found it incomprehensible that any women of your generation could willingly commit herself to slavery” (Castillo 38). In this single quote alone, there are several literary indicators giving marriage a negative perception. First, Alicia had “eyed” Teresa’s wedding band. Rather than saying she saw it or noticed it, our speaker clearly states she “eyed” it. Marriage in this statement is compared to slavery. In the United States the most common form of slavery was that of the black man enslaved to the white man. In slavery, the black man was considered to be less than a man; His existence did not count.
Likewise, Teresa explains to us that feminists believe by avoiding marriage, they can avoid such an inferior status. The symbolic wedding band is regarded as a shackle. Shackles were used to keep prisoners confined in older times; Handcuffs are the new shackles. Therefore, the use of the word shackle connects the idea that a wedding band or rather what it stands for, holds women captive to their subordinate status from the old days. Again, in Letter eight, Teresa says “I was on my way to my husband, stopping off in New York to spend just a few days with you—as if postponing a sentence to Siberia” (Castilo 37). The reference to serving a sentence here again supports one of the themes in Castillo’s novel that marriage is bondage, a life served in prison. While one woman was married and the other single, they both agreed on one central theme, that the idea of marriage made them feel held hostage.
The use of imagery suggests the reason marriage is so dreadful is that men failed to fill the need women have for an equal partnership. Teresa for example, knew from her observations, that a woman may be a wife with considerable influence, but that a man’s woman could never compete with another man (Castillo 41). The end of letter nine illustrates this idea quite clearly when Libra and Melvin ride home in their new car together, abandoning their two women to fend for themselves, forcing them to hitch a ride home from a stranger. In fact, this is the exact point in the story when Teresa who had been the married one, had enough, “packed [her] duffle bag with jeans, books, and poems and moved out on [her] own” (Castillo 41). The speaker here is making a statement without directly saying, that the cause of the feminist movement was man’s failure to care for women.
More powerful than racial differences is this connection between women: that they are and do not wish to be any longer, second class citizens whose needs are left un met. Letter thirteen perfectly paints this connection as Teresa dialogues why she hated white women, including Alicia who was half white. Teresa’s reasons for hating white women had been that men seemed drawn to them, they were privileged, and had seemingly acquired everything they ever wanted, including the attention of men in her own race.
This tension Teresa had felt regarding the dissatisfaction of her own relationships with men had been directed toward white women. White women, she finally realized, were not the problem. At the end of this letter, Teresa realizes that Alicia was “flat-chested, not especially pretty and bore no resemblance to the ideal of any man [she] encountered anywhere” (Castillo 50). Some may misconstrue this quote to be an insult on Alicia, however, it is more likely Teresa’s empathy over Alicia’s similarly unfortunate situation with men that is revealing itself. For example, throughout the entire letter, Teresa says she hated white women, hated being used in the past tense. Also, the reasons she listed for hating white women, turned out at the end in her depiction of Alicia, to have been untrue. More importantly, in the letter following this, Teresa begins by calling her “hermana” meaning sister (Castillo 51). If Teresa had not felt that her connection to Alicia through their shared status as a woman was not stronger than their racial or class differences, she would not have viewed her like a sister, nor gone on to say how beautiful she really was, which she does in fact do in letter fourteen. (51).
Unfortunately, much of the text more clearly illustrates a confused identity among these women as they struggle for equality in the world. Many times, Teresa dialogues about their times together and their feminist views which guide them, however, their actions point to a different conclusion, one which suggests their feminism did not do anything but put them right back where they did not want to be. For example, Teresa speaking of a time when Alvaro Perez Perez had pursued her reflects back: “He sought me out, in the grand stubborn fashion of the Mexican man, and finally I believed that beneath his rebellion was a sensitive human being with an insight that was unique and profound. This is a woman conditioned to accept a man about whom she has serious doubts concerning his legitimate status with the human race” (54). At another time, Alicia desires the affections of a random painter she meets in Mexico. She speaks of her jealousy because Teresa had acquired the body most desirable to men (Castillo 62).
Another example is encapsulated in Tanya Bennet’s note this of the texts wording: “[The speaker’s] choice of "i" as pronoun for her self undermines the notion of the authorial "I" in that it refuses to indicate the authority representing dominant discourses. Yet in saying "i," Teresa, through her letters, can voice a self, a fragmented self that resists ideological definition” (Bennet 1). To expand on this, I must say she is correct in perceiving that the lower case “i” challenges the conventional forms of grammer, however, again I must turn your attention to the fact that a lower case “i” also suggests a lower status being inferior to the upper case “I.” Clearly, the two women remain bound to a desire to please men and be noticed as objects to be desired only now instead of being quiet, they go out seeking male partners. In essence, while Teresa and Alicia have serious feminist convictions, their acceptance of many inadequate suitors, promiscuity, and dialogue about a desire for men speaks volumes of something else: of confused women who still after recognizing the wrong of their inferior status in a predominantly male society, can not deny they need men as much as they detest their ways.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that feminism as it is expressed today, is another form of captivity, one inflicted upon one’s self. Teresa and Alicia repeat their journey to Mixquiahuala because they are fascinated with its native, pre-conquest beauty. The village for them is a reflection of their dream to live free in a world before man conquered and imprisoned the woman race, stripping them of the very essence and beauty of their womanhood, and claiming it to be evidence of their inferior status. For example, Teresa admires Alicia’s long, virgin hair and the angular lines of her legs “reminiscent of a child transforming into a woman” (Castillo 51). It is as though she sees the pure, untouched, untarnished Alicia. Teresa reveals in letter twelve, Alicia’s rape by her father and points to the image of the tiny red stain on his sheets which made her his (Castillo 47). These images give light into the darkness of woman’s status and conquest by men before feminism. Later Teresa observes feminists in San Francisco who painted red circles around their bare nipples (Castillo 44). It is ironic that red is used here to symbolize liberation because later Alicia the feminist, “closed [her] eyes and waited for the circling patters on his expert fingers” as the coarse rug she laid on “painted red irritation” (Castillo 45). While she stands against the bondage of marriage, she is “provoked nonetheless to seek approval from man through sexual meetings” and in fact is quite promiscuous (45). The image of red most strongly, is woven through all three of these images. First, as innocence is taken away, then as a symbol of “liberation,” and finally as the liberated lies in wait for another man to have her intimate parts. It is as though instead of having innocence taken from them, feminists now give it freely to many men, cheapening themselves in their own way by beating men to the punch, so to speak, which they’ve somehow convinced themselves is liberating.
Overall The Mixquiahuala Letters in its full use of language and imagery, reveals the deep rooted connection between women concerning their second class citizenship and the vicious circle of feminism. Clearly, there is a common thread between the oppression of women which supersedes any racial differences which has led to the feminist movement. Unfortunately, however, as we have seen, this is a vicious cycle which will no matter what, lead to women being cheapened. Ana Castillo’s Mixquiahuala Letters does not promote feminism, but rather provides a critique of the feminist movement’s eventual return to the conquest of women.
Works Cited
Bennett, Tanya. “No country to call home: a study of Castillo's 'Mixquiahuala Letters.’” Style. Fall 1996.
Castillo, Ana. The Mixquiahuala Letters. New York: Anchor Books, 1992.
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