Gloria Anzaldua and Ralph Ellison

A detailed Summary of Gloria Anzaldua and Ralph Ellison

Anzaldua talks about her cultures identity problems in a brooder scale then Ellison. While Ellison incorporates personal experiences, Anzaldua talks about her people in a more general way. Anzaldua examines her culture's crisis in many different facets. "Entering the Serpent", is more directed towards problems of spirituality and the role of female. While, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue", is directed more at Chicano's present day struggles with their own identity.

In "Entering the Serpent", Anzaldua uses the Ancient Goddess Coatlalopeuh, as her main example. She first explains the history of the goddess, the processes and changes that she went through over time. In the beginning she was a powerful Female God, who was a balance. The goddess had both good and bad powers, and stood to balance the male gods. She was the mother, but like real life mother's, she was also the punisher. Coatlalopeuh was a source of power to the women. Over time, as male dominated societies, like the Aztecs and later the Spanish took control over Central Mexico, the role of the goddess changed. The male dominated societies started to divide her up into different goddess, each with a different purpose. Eventually this powerful goddess became th

As we saw with these two authors, both of them came from a minority group and both found a sort of peace with their past. The essay showed how minorities cultures need to be very careful with their identities, because there will always be a desire to match what is considered normal. Both of these authors did not go against the majority groups but showed that you need to resist them to a degree. Every person must find their own identity based upon who they are in the present, but they need to remember and use their past also.

Anzaldua explains how Guadalupe is a very popular goddess and does not insult her in any way. Instead she sums her up, "Guadalupe, like my race, is a synthesis of the old world and the new, of the religion and culture of the two races in our psyche, the conquerors and the conquered" (Anzaldua p.26). Anzaldua asks the question what happened to the other aspects of this goddess and how has this affected us? She relates the answer to this question into two parts, the effect on woman and on her culture.

The author expands to include her whole her culture, and shows how they have let go of their spiritual sense. Intuition and connection to the spiritual world were a major part of her people's past. While she does not say that this connection is completely forgotten, it is at least shunned upon. Anzaldua writes, "We're supposed to ignore, forget, kill those fleeting images of the soul's presence and of the spirit's presence" (Anzaldua p.32). The author tells how from an early age you are supposed to ignore these natural feelings that come to you.

With her other essay, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue", the author gets more involved in a solution. She is very avivd about her Chicano's finding their own identity. She talks about her own personal expierences and how through trail and error, she is able to respect her culture and therefore herself. She explains how her cultures self image is improv

Some common words found in the essay are:
Central Mexico, Western Society, Wild Tongue, Shame Low, Cesar Chavez, Spanish English, Female God, Catholic Protestant, America Mexico, English Spanish, western society, spiritual world, tame wild, own identity, wild tongue, tame wild tongue, anzaldua talks, connection spiritual world, main example, supposed ignore, spiritual connection, ignore natural, male dominated societies, essay tame wild,

 1306
 5 

Category: Miscellaneous