Dialogical Ecofeminist Perspectives in “The Moths” by Helena María Viramontes and “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros

Abstract

[EN] This article analyzes two well-known short stories by two prominent Chicana writers, namely Helena María Viramontes and Sandra Cisneros, from an ecofeminist perspective. It is my aim to approach both texts having in mind previously published analyses, and to introduce an innovative theoretical frame that contemplates literary texts, women and nature as being in constant conversational relationships. These dialogical relationships subvert the traditional domination of nature promoted by patriarchal cultures, which set the human being, especially the male representative, as superior to other living entities and as the only one with “agency,” thus rendering the rest as passive. Women, traditionally associated with nature because of their reproductive and nurturing qualities, have been discriminated and identified with the passive and submissive attitude attributed to nature as well as other ethnic and sexual minorities. Since the 1980s and 1990s, however, Chicana writers have been attempting to provide agency to Chicana women and the natural elements they portray in their narratives and poetry. A very clear example is represented in Viramontes’ “The Moths,” where even the title states the importance of the little insects in the story as well as that of the three generations of women whose lives intersect in the narrative. Cisneros’ “Woman Hollering Creek” deals with a parallel story of submission and resistance in which a dialogical relationship with the river and the surrounding nature serves to provide agency to the protagonist.