Chapter 02 Part 3: In which Panda wraps up the Hero's Journey of Woman Hollering Creek in "Eyes of Zapata"

Woman Hollering Creek

“Eyes of Zapata” follows Ines, the cursed wife of revolutionist Emiliano Zapata, and her tragic Hero’s Journey to remain with her lover.

Ines’s journey is unique in that, traditionally, the hero embarks on a quest to improve life, usually for a group of innocent people; however, Ines’s stubborn refusal to leave Zapata actually endangers not only her life, but the lives of her family. After accepting the Call to Adventure – by kissing Zapata under the avocado tree (Cisneros 107-108) – her father disowns her, saying “You’ve turned out just like the perra that bore you,’” (89).

Her father is a Threshold Guardian, someone who attempts to block the heroine from beginning the Descent into the adventure. During the Descent, the hero makes allies and enemies; after defying him, Ines makes her father an enemy. He is also a victim; one of Ines’s trials is the capture of her father (Cisneros 91).

Ines suffers many other trials including hard labor (89); lack of food (93, 102); and burning down of her house by Zapata’s enemies (103).

Ines’s greatest trial, however, is Zapata’s infidelity. “I saw you asleep next to that woman from Villa de Ayala” (98).

Zapata seems to have the role of God/Tempter; however, he is an alteration of the archetype. The Temptress’s role is to test the hero by tempting him to leave the quest. If he overcomes it, he proves himself. Instead of tempting Ines to quit, Zapata tempts her to continue the journey despite the growing destruction it has on her life.

However, Ines insists that she has power over Zapata, a Spiritual Weapon, which lures him back to her after he commits adultery (Cisneros 99).

Ines’s actual Spiritual Weapon is prophesy; she is convicted of being a witch (105). “The women in my family… always had the power to see with more than our eyes,” (105).

It is only through her visions that she is able to return to her Eden; “My sky, my life, my eyes. Let me look at you. Before you open those eyes of yours… Before we go back to what we’ll always be,” (113). They “become her source of power” because they are “able to create an acceptable world...” (Thomson 421).

In the end, the only Boon Ines receives are the nights Zapata comes to sleep with her. Ines has essentially achieved her goal, yet her life has become a Shadow of what it was. This outcome usually results when a hero has failed his quest.


Psychologist Carl Jung viewed the Hero’s Journey as a process of individuation, reconciling the conscious with the unconscious. To him, heroes are “a metaphor for the human search of self-knowledge and wholeness.” Despite their success or failure to achieve their desired goal, the three heroines come to an understanding of their identity and take an active role in their destiny; according to Jung, they have completed their Hero’s Journey.

Thomson states: “This is the power of Cisneros’s women, to see and to remember, to master the pain of the past and understand the confluence of all things… they become themselves through the honest acceptance of the world beyond the body” (416).


Additional Reading:

Thomson, Jeff. "What is Called Heaven: Identity in Sandra Cisnero's Woman Hollering Creek." Studies in Short Fiction 31.3 (1994): 415-24. Acedemic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Dec. 2009.

Chapter 02 Part Two; In which Panda examines the Hero's Journey in "Never Marry a Mexican"

Woman Hollering Creek

Sandra Cisneros

“Never Marry a Mexican” embodies a different version of the hero myth than “Woman Hollering Creek” because its heroine, Clemencia, is more of a conqueror than a woman in search of liberation.

Clemencia essentially fails her Hero’s Journey to be with her lover, Drew, and subsequently takes revenge on him by seducing his son, therefore transforming from a hero into the Goddess, or Temptress, in the life of her lover’s son.

Clemencia’s Call to Adventure is her mother’s warning, “Never marry a Mexican,” (Cisneros 68). Clemencia obeys her mother and becomes the mistress of Drew, a white man. Clemencia’s Road of Trials, unlike Cleofilas’s, are outcomes of her conquest on Drew’s life.

She calls Drew’s house one night, drunk; his wife answers (77). Clemencia dares herself to let Drew’s wife know about the affair. In the narration, she tells Drew’s son about her last night with Drew: “I don’t know how to explain what I did next… I went around the house and left a trail of [gummy bears] in places I was sure she would find them,” (81).

The greatest trial to Clemencia’s conquest was the birth of Drew’s son, (74-75).

At the Final Battle, when Clemencia meets Drew and his wife at an art exhibit, she realizes her defeat: “And he comes up to me… and says in the most sincere voice you ever heard, ‘Ah, Clemencia! This is Megan.’ No introduction should have been meaner. This is Megan. Just like that,” (79). After her failure in the Final Battle, Clemencia begins to seduce Drew’s son and he becomes her Boon.

Using her Spiritual Weapon, her sexuality, she becomes the Temptress of the boy’s Hero Journey. Campbell’s Goddess “embodies both the nurturing and protective power” but also the power of destruction. According to an article by Jeff Thompson, Clemencia’s “power rises from the misuse of sexuality.”

Like his father, Drew’s son desires the comfort of Clemencia’s maternal nature and the pleasure of her sexual nature (82). However, Cisneros does not share his hero’s journey.

Clemencia’s closing words reflect these attitudes: “Sometimes all humanity strikes me as lovely. I just want to reach out and stroke someone, and say “There, there, it’s all right, honey.” She wants to both comfort and control these “hollow ‘guitars’” (Cisneros 83).

Further Reading:
Thomson, Jeff. "What is Called Heaven: Identity in Sandra Cisnero's Woman Hollering Creek." Studies in Short Fiction 31.3 (1994): 415-24. Acedemic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Dec. 2009.

Chapter 02 Part One; In Which Panda examines one of her favorite devices: the Hero’s Journey in one of her favorite books: Woman Hollering Creek

Woman Hollering Creek

Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros, a prodigious writer of Chicana literature, creates true-to-life heroines who face the hardships of poverty, disappointment, and familial strife. Her work includes Caramelo (a novel), House on Orange Street, and Woman Hollering Creek.

The women in Woman Hollering Creek are on what Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey. Campbell states that all hero myths address the transformation of one’s consciousness by a Road of Trials.

In a series of three posts I will examine each heroine of the three longer stories in the collection: “Woman Hollering Creek,” “Never Marry a Mexican,” and “Eyes of Zapata” in terms of the Hero Myth, and will evaluate the heroine’s success or failure to mature as a hero.

“Woman Hollering Creek” tells the story of Cleofilias, a once naïve young woman who marries too early and leaves her family to move to America with her husband, Juan Pedro. When he becomes abusive, Cleofilias begins her hero journey to escape the abusive hand of her husband, saving her unborn child.

Each Hero’s Journey begins with the Call to Adventure which offers Cleofilias the opportunity to face the unknown and gain something of physical or spiritual significance. Cleofilias’s Call to Adventure comes from the telenovelas she watches, which embody the life she covets. Through viewing them, she realizes how miserable she is:

“Not that he’s not a good man. She has to remind herself why she loves him… This man who farts and belches… this man, this father, this rival, this keeper, this lord, this master, this husband till kingdom comes,” (Cisneros 49).

The creek, La Gritonia (translated: Woman Hollering) behind her house becomes her Spiritual Weapon: a power used to overcome the antagonist. The creek is a symbol of escape and freedom from abuse.

The first time Juan Pedro beats her “she was so surprised she didn’t cry out or try to defend herself… She had done nothing but reach up to the heat on her mouth and stare at the blood on her hand,” (47-48). Cleofilias remains passive through most of the narrative, relying on Graciela, a nurse in the hospital, to be the deciding force that helps her accept the Call to Adventure and leave Juan Pedro. Graciela, therefore, is Cleofilias’s Spiritual Mentor.

If the story had ended with Graciala’s call, Cleofilias would have failed as a heroine; however, her transformation is revealed after facing the Final Battle as she waits at the Cash N Carry for Felice to drive her back to Mexico. “All morning that flutter of half-fear, half-doubt. At any moment Juan Pedro might appear in the doorway,” (Cisneros 55). Cleofilias doesn’t break under her fear and as Cleofilias rides over the bridge (the Final Battle), she begins her Triumphant Return to “Eden:” her father’s house.

Felice, the Trickster archetype of Campbell’s Hero Myth, who embodies the mischief and desire for change, gives Cleofilias her Boon, or, reward for her new level of awareness that each hero much acquire.

Her Boon is Felice’s yell as they cross over Woman Hollering Creek, (Cisneros 56). The final step in the hero’s transformation is a moment of death and rebirth, symbolizing the part of the hero that must die in order for the new part to begin. Felice’s yell proves to Cleofilias that women can have power. She is reborn, realizing she can have it, too.

I highly recommend Woman Hollering Creek, even if you’re not familiar with the Hero’s Journey.

Further Reading:

Cisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek; and other stories. New York: Vintage, 1992. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, California: New World Library, 2008. Print.