Ethnic and Feminist Homecoming in “ Eyes of Zapata” by Sandra Cisneros

Abstract

In her short story published in 1991 collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros addresses the issue of reconstructing ethnic counter- history through feminist perspective of the main protagonist and narrator Inés Alfaro. This female character gradually moves from the margins of history into its center when it takes control of the powerful figure of her husband, historical Emiliano Zapata, who in Cisneros’s re-writing of history is not a powerful leader of the well-known revolution, but a merciless macho with many lovers and children he pays no attention to. The story is a first-person account of Inés who becomes a powerful witch (la bruja) in order to avenge the injustice of the patriarchal culture. I want to prove that Cisneros wisely complicates the ethnic story of looking for one’s history and identity proving that literary homecoming of Chicanas is far from reaching idealized Aztlán, but it is a feminist quest for the autonomy, not only visible on the level of content, but the form as well, which to some extent is a homage to oral tradition and to famous Mexican woman writers Rosario Castellanos, Elena Garro and Juan Rulfo.