"Bien Pretty" and Feminism in Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros

In "Bien Pretty," Cisneros definitely tries to show the reader that there are alternative possibilities for women. Certainly she has presented the reader with some bona fide relationships or mistresses, but this story presents a woman who becomes satisfied with herself and her life alone.

Even though Lupe falls for Flavio very fast and hard, she is able to rise above those feelings in the end. Lupe tells the reader of love in Spanish. "To make love in Spanish in a manner as intricate and devout as la Alhambra. To have a lover sigh mi vida, mi preciosa, mi Chiquita, and whisper things in that language crooned to babies, that language muttered by grandmothers, those words that smelled like your house, like flour tortillas, and the inside of your daddy's hat, like everyone talking in the kitchen at the same time, or sleeping with the windows open... " (153). Lupe has fallen in love with love itself and the tender words that men utter as much as she has fallen in love with any one particular man. Since Hispanic women are brought up to marry and have children, Lupe has been conditioned to some extent to want to be taken care of. So, when men say these tender words, she falls in love with them. It is the romance straight from the telenovelas that everyone dreams of. This is not the love that actually exists in the world.

She believes that she loves Flavio so much that she actually cries after she and Flavio make love and Flavio rocks her like a baby. With all that love that she feels for him, she cannot believe that he leaves her so coldly. When he tells her that he must leave, their conversation ends with "Es cool. Ay te wacho, I guess" (157). She is blasted by the silence in her life thereafter and by his complete willingness to walk away. She tries to be brave in the day but ends up worst at night. She has many horrible days and nights trying to get over this man. However, the grief remains palpable. "Just the void. The days raw and wide as this drought-blue sky. Just this nothingness. That's what hurts" (157). She coems to a final conclusion about herself. "I have always been in love with a man" (160). This becomes a real catalyst statement for making some changes in her life.

One thing she does to cope with all these feelings is to bombard herself with telenovelas, or Spanish soap operas. She begins to heal as she identifies with the characters on the screen. "And in my dreams, I'm slapping the heroine to her senses because I want them to be women who make things happen, not women who things happen to" (161). She wants these women to be the real women she knows in real life. She decides that women should be both passionate and powerful, tender and volatile, and brave and fierce. Men should not be the only ones who retain these powerful qualities, while women are either evil or sweet. She wants to see women who are "passionate and powerful, tender and volatile, brave. And, above all, fierce" (161). This sudden need to see real women on the telenovelas symbolizes Lupe understanding real women. She can be everything to herself. She does not need a man to save her or make her life endurable. She can be everything for herself and to herself. She can be stronger than the women on telenovelas. In fact, she already is. She is like the girlfriends, aunts, and mothers she knows, not like these actresses.

Another thing she does to dramatize her shift in beliefs is to change around the fairy tale of the Prince and Princess, which is like the story of Sleeping Beauty. The old fairy tale that we have all been told implies that a woman is somehow not whole until she is with a man. Instead of the sleeping Princess helplessly and endlessly waiting for her Prince to rescue her, the Prince is the one lying around waiting. The man is helplessly waiting for a woman to come and kiss him and rescue him. This signifies Lupe's shift in beliefs. A woman no longer needs to wait passively for a man to come and rescue her. In this case, the Princess becomes the rescuer. Women can do things for themselves and take responsibility for their own happiness. This is shown later in the story as well.

By the end of this story, she understands so much more about herself. She wants to learn to "live our lives the way lives were meant to be lived. With the throat and wrists. With rage and desire, and joy and grief, and love till it hurts, maybe. But goddam, girl. Live" (163). She describes herself as part of her watching herself and the other part of her living her life, but over and over again, "everywhere I go, it's me and me" (163). She has learned to love herself and support herself emotionally. She lives with ultimate anticipation of each day, enjoying herself and doing what is good for her. If love comes into her life, she may be willing to accept it, but she is not looking for it. She is finally okay with being by herself. She ends with a profound statement showing her new view of life. "Just because it's today, today. With no thought of the future or past. Today. Hurray. Hurray!" (165).