Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2019, English

This thesis explores how Sandra Cisneros's writing uses the reinterpretation of myths to more fully realize mestiza identity. It uses Gloria Anzaldua's model of "the Coatlicue State" to explain how Cisneros addresses women's ownership of their sexuality in her novel The House on Mango Street and in three short stories. The Coatlicue State reflects the subterranean aspects of one's identity that are repressed by the societal and cultural milieu and encourages movement towards a reconciliation the the repressed parts of the self and an embrace of all parts of a mestiza's mix of identities. Anzaldua sees this integration of the self in mythic terms, regarding the tropes of la Llorona, la Malinche, and the Virgin of Guadalupe as dismembered versions of Coatlicue. Cisneros's characters exist is cultural circumstances where these tropes influence their ways of being. In The House on Mango Street, Esperanza begins to escape the traps of cultural mythologies by writing her own story, defining herself as a way of leaving behind mythic scripts enforced on women in her community. In "Never Marry a Mexican," Clemencia demonstrates the danger of what happens when Anzaldua's Coatlicue State is perverted; in it, she claims sexual agency by asserting dominance, reversing but still recreating oppressive dynamics. In "One Holy Night," Cisneros highlights the shame that a woman is expected to feel about expressing her sexuality. Rather than feeling ashamed, as authority figures in her life expect, the narrator's sexual awakening prompts an intellectual awakening in which she is able to better understand the world around her. In "Woman Hollering Creek," Felice shows that not only must destructive mythologies be reinterpreted, the reinterpretations must be shared for the empowerment of others.

Committee: Kate Polak (Advisor); Scot Hinson (Committee Member); Sheree Henlon (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Ethnic Studies; Gender Studies; Latin American Literature; Latin American Studies; Literature