Gloria Anzaldúa Analysis
Gifty Mensah
Andrew Maines
2/15/17
Perception
“You really must understand I and my husband hate homosexuals. It’s a sin. It’s fornication. Against nature. God in his wrath will smite those who live in such a sin…” These are the words of Lovisa Granath from the article Too late shall the sinner awaken (pg 354) . This article talks about a police officer who was investigating the death of a 19 year old gay guy, who happened to had been beaten to death by his own father due to his sexual preference. A female detective, Charlotta Hugn, who also happens to be a homosexual, was in charge of investigating the death of the boy. It turned out that, the mother of the boy knew for a long time who killed her son, yet, she kept quiet all these while …show more content…
because of, as I see it, her religion. Even though, Lovisa, Erik’s mother, didn’t tell upfront who killed her son until later on just before she died, as a reader I could foretell who killed Erik Granath because of Lovisa’s choice of words like “ I would appreciate it if you didn’t touch that...she’s my favorite. I don’t want her dirtied” ,when Charlotta touched the porcelain statue on the side table in the room they were sitting in when she invited her to confess to her about who had killed her son. It might not be clear to some people, but to me it was in view of her strange and someone indirect choice of words. Before I realized why she made that particular statement, she got me thinking about why someone wouldn’t let someone else touch just a common statue. It wasn’t until I started to ponder on it, that I realize she didn’t really mean Charlotta’s hands were dirty physically or anything. Rather, she meant because Charlotta was homosexual, she wasn’t spiritually clean, and touching her statue will make it ‘dirty.’
As a Christian myself, I kind of notice what she meant by Charlotta dirting her sculpture. I understood this personally by using the bible as a lense. I believes she said that because of the set of rules she has from the bible and its viewpoint on homosexuality. Which according to Leviticus 20:13 in the bible says, “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death. ” The emphasis on the last sentence. When I started pondering about what she meant by the statement she made, this bible verse was the first thing that popped into my mind. And I went like “ha, I think I know where this is getting at.” So if Lovisa knew, at that time before Erik was killed, that he was gay, that means her husband might have known too. And if her husband, Lennart, per Lovisa’s words, “was so clear in his faith, so strong and uncompromising.” That means he couldn’t tolerate his son’s choice of becoming gay. Hence he might have killed Erik. That was my conclusion before proceeding to read the next sentence. Yet, I realize also that Charlotta couldn’t see this until Lovisa clearly spilled it out that her husband was responsible for her son’s death. Even though Charlotta was a detective and gay, she still couldn’t see what all the hints given to her by Lovisa was going. However, this doesn’t make detective Charlotta any unskilled for her job, rather, she saw things as they were because she only had one viewpoint and that was whatever was in front of her; whatever Lovisa was to tell her. Whereas, I the reader had more than one viewpoint. I could use clues to predict what was to happen whereas, Charlotta wouldn’t be able to do that. It could also be that Charlotta wasn’t a christian and so she didn’t know anything about what the bible say about homosexuality and so it wouldn’t even cross her mind that Erik’s own parent might have killed him. And even if she knew something about what the bible’s standpoint is regarding homosexuality, she probably didn’t know that it comprise of getting killed for becoming one. In other words, she didn’t think that Erik’s own parent could’ve killed her due to his sexual choice. We can see that coming true when the article stated that “part of her wants her to lean closer to Lovisa and slap her face. A good slap. You fucking nut. Kill your own son. Protect a murderer. Just because of God.” This shows that Charlotta wasn’t didn’t believe in the Jesus not to talk about what the bible say to do, unlike Lovisa and her husband. To her, it seemed absurd that that would ever happen, hence her refusal to draw conclusions. This leaves me thinking, did Lovisa then do the right thing by covering up for her husband even though she had a religious base point as to why she did what she did? In the article “Entering Into The Serpent”, the author, Gloria Anzaldúa analyzes the meaning of the false native goddess connected with the “Earth goddess” Coatlalopeuh whom she seems to naturally understand.
In the opening paragraph, she talks about how she had a dream about serpents, and her mother's warning her not to go outside at night because a snake can crawl into her buttocks and make her pregnant. She then jumps to when she went into the woods with her mother one day and was almost bitten by snake but it only got her shoes and have ever since been immune to its venom forever. Saying she bought “sought and shunned them.” She then talked about the experience she had from being a catholic. She talked about the “Pagan” beliefs that somehow connect to that of Catholic religious faith. She compared the Earth Goddess, Coatlalopeuh, to that of the Virgin Mary in the bible. She also touch upon how the “dominated-male-Azteca Mexica culture” deformed the female goddesses and pushed them underground. She talked also about what each of the sexes stand for by relating the female figure or “mother figure” to the Indians and the male or “father figure” to the Spanish which in all unites the Mexican culture to a female figure. She also connected the meaning of snake to woman, when she allegated that she has “died several times” and daydreamed and every time she see snakes, which is a “pre-human ideas of women's sexuality, her creativity, her energy, and life.” In the last subtitle of “Entering into the Serpent”, she talked about how we are more likely to lose ourselves if we accept and follow only the rules of our religion, when she said, “Catholic church fails to give meaning to my daily act...It and other institutionalized religions impoverish all life, beauty, , pleasure.” My first time reading Anzaldua’s article, I found it very complex and difficult to understand due to her constant change in language from English to spanish and vice
versa.
As Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “Entering into the Serpent” suggests that following set religious rules can not only make you lose touch with yourself but also your own dignity and pleasure, it makes me think about Lovisa from Too late shall the sinner awaken. I can clearly see Anzaldua’s argument applying in the case of Lovisa. Lovisa considers herself a very devoted christian. And as a Christian wife, the bible suggest that she submit to the leadership of her husband. Submission being “the action of submitting to authority, a conquering or ruling power: surrendering to one’s will or power” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. So it was just normal that Lovisa would surrender completely to her husband’s needs including covering up for him. Even though, I realized that that wasn’t what she wanted personally when she started talking about the birth of Jesus and said, “..Oh Jesus, what have I done? Forgive me God. Forgive me, Erik.” From this statement, I could conclude that covering up for her husband wasn’t something she wanted to do, however, she did it all the same because she was trying to be a ‘good’ wife and christian for her husband and God respectively.
My opponents might argue that, Lovisa was in no way being good to anyone. That, what Lovisa did was rather evil because she even contradicted herself by saying “I despised those other weaklings, all those who imagined that you could pick and choose among the words of the bible and still call yourself a Christian” when she herself did that. Which in other words, she despise herself too because she did exactly what people she claim to despise do: picking and choosing from the bible, because the same Bible condemns hiding sins.
While both arguments might be true, Anzaldua’s statement tie it all together. Lovisa thought she was doing something ‘good’ by covering up for her husband, only to realize later that by doing so she lost her own voice, interest, dignity, happiness and who knows what else. She did exactly what she said she detested. She was ‘blinded’ by her husband to even realize that the set of religious rules she was following wasn’t what she wanted. Even though she didn’t say it specifically that she was being bribed by her husband not to tell anyone that he killed Erik, her actions and choice of words seem to speak for itself and action speaks louder than words.
In retrospect to my own life, I realize that most of the time I tend to be more like Lovisa. In the sense that, as a teenager and a college student, sometimes it is only normal for me to do something just to fit into my surroundings only to regret it later. Example, one time I went to the school cafeteria to buy snack. I run into some classmates who were talking about their Biology test grades, and according to them, the Biology teacher was very strict in his grading. That they don’t understand why they got the grades that they got even though they studied really hard for the test. Long story short, one friend of mine said that there was no way anyone could’ve passed the exam even if they studied. Fortunately or unfortunately, I passed. So she asked me what I got. Because I didn’t want to be labeled as ‘the-only-one-I’ve-seen-who-passed’ or the center of attention, I simply lied by saying “oh please I failed too, this biology teacher is horrible.” Just to fit in at that moment. It wasn’t after later when I left the cafeteria that it hit me hard that I had just lied to not only my friends but my elf as well. And it wasn’t a good feeling. For me maybe it was just a matter of two minute, while for Lovisa, it was for years.
My point: even though Anzaldua specifically suggested that religion can make one lose touch of him or herself. While I agree, I also believe that sometimes not only religion can make one lose touch but sometimes our immediate surrounding can also make us lose our true self and dignity.
Works Cited
Entering Into the Serpent
Too late shall the sinner Awaken
"Anzaldà ºa, “Entering Into the Serpent”." A Collage of Citations. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Smiley, Jacob. "Chapter-By-Chapter Summary and Discussion of "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza" by Gloria Anzaldúa." Soapboxie. Soapboxie, 12 July 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2017. .
Andrew Maines
2/15/17
Perception
“You really must understand I and my husband hate homosexuals. It’s a sin. It’s fornication. Against nature. God in his wrath will smite those who live in such a sin…” These are the words of Lovisa Granath from the article Too late shall the sinner awaken (pg 354) . This article talks about a police officer who was investigating the death of a 19 year old gay guy, who happened to had been beaten to death by his own father due to his sexual preference. A female detective, Charlotta Hugn, who also happens to be a homosexual, was in charge of investigating the death of the boy. It turned out that, the mother of the boy knew for a long time who killed her son, yet, she kept quiet all these while …show more content…
because of, as I see it, her religion. Even though, Lovisa, Erik’s mother, didn’t tell upfront who killed her son until later on just before she died, as a reader I could foretell who killed Erik Granath because of Lovisa’s choice of words like “ I would appreciate it if you didn’t touch that...she’s my favorite. I don’t want her dirtied” ,when Charlotta touched the porcelain statue on the side table in the room they were sitting in when she invited her to confess to her about who had killed her son. It might not be clear to some people, but to me it was in view of her strange and someone indirect choice of words. Before I realized why she made that particular statement, she got me thinking about why someone wouldn’t let someone else touch just a common statue. It wasn’t until I started to ponder on it, that I realize she didn’t really mean Charlotta’s hands were dirty physically or anything. Rather, she meant because Charlotta was homosexual, she wasn’t spiritually clean, and touching her statue will make it ‘dirty.’
As a Christian myself, I kind of notice what she meant by Charlotta dirting her sculpture. I understood this personally by using the bible as a lense. I believes she said that because of the set of rules she has from the bible and its viewpoint on homosexuality. Which according to Leviticus 20:13 in the bible says, “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death. ” The emphasis on the last sentence. When I started pondering about what she meant by the statement she made, this bible verse was the first thing that popped into my mind. And I went like “ha, I think I know where this is getting at.” So if Lovisa knew, at that time before Erik was killed, that he was gay, that means her husband might have known too. And if her husband, Lennart, per Lovisa’s words, “was so clear in his faith, so strong and uncompromising.” That means he couldn’t tolerate his son’s choice of becoming gay. Hence he might have killed Erik. That was my conclusion before proceeding to read the next sentence. Yet, I realize also that Charlotta couldn’t see this until Lovisa clearly spilled it out that her husband was responsible for her son’s death. Even though Charlotta was a detective and gay, she still couldn’t see what all the hints given to her by Lovisa was going. However, this doesn’t make detective Charlotta any unskilled for her job, rather, she saw things as they were because she only had one viewpoint and that was whatever was in front of her; whatever Lovisa was to tell her. Whereas, I the reader had more than one viewpoint. I could use clues to predict what was to happen whereas, Charlotta wouldn’t be able to do that. It could also be that Charlotta wasn’t a christian and so she didn’t know anything about what the bible say about homosexuality and so it wouldn’t even cross her mind that Erik’s own parent might have killed him. And even if she knew something about what the bible’s standpoint is regarding homosexuality, she probably didn’t know that it comprise of getting killed for becoming one. In other words, she didn’t think that Erik’s own parent could’ve killed her due to his sexual choice. We can see that coming true when the article stated that “part of her wants her to lean closer to Lovisa and slap her face. A good slap. You fucking nut. Kill your own son. Protect a murderer. Just because of God.” This shows that Charlotta wasn’t didn’t believe in the Jesus not to talk about what the bible say to do, unlike Lovisa and her husband. To her, it seemed absurd that that would ever happen, hence her refusal to draw conclusions. This leaves me thinking, did Lovisa then do the right thing by covering up for her husband even though she had a religious base point as to why she did what she did? In the article “Entering Into The Serpent”, the author, Gloria Anzaldúa analyzes the meaning of the false native goddess connected with the “Earth goddess” Coatlalopeuh whom she seems to naturally understand.
In the opening paragraph, she talks about how she had a dream about serpents, and her mother's warning her not to go outside at night because a snake can crawl into her buttocks and make her pregnant. She then jumps to when she went into the woods with her mother one day and was almost bitten by snake but it only got her shoes and have ever since been immune to its venom forever. Saying she bought “sought and shunned them.” She then talked about the experience she had from being a catholic. She talked about the “Pagan” beliefs that somehow connect to that of Catholic religious faith. She compared the Earth Goddess, Coatlalopeuh, to that of the Virgin Mary in the bible. She also touch upon how the “dominated-male-Azteca Mexica culture” deformed the female goddesses and pushed them underground. She talked also about what each of the sexes stand for by relating the female figure or “mother figure” to the Indians and the male or “father figure” to the Spanish which in all unites the Mexican culture to a female figure. She also connected the meaning of snake to woman, when she allegated that she has “died several times” and daydreamed and every time she see snakes, which is a “pre-human ideas of women's sexuality, her creativity, her energy, and life.” In the last subtitle of “Entering into the Serpent”, she talked about how we are more likely to lose ourselves if we accept and follow only the rules of our religion, when she said, “Catholic church fails to give meaning to my daily act...It and other institutionalized religions impoverish all life, beauty, , pleasure.” My first time reading Anzaldua’s article, I found it very complex and difficult to understand due to her constant change in language from English to spanish and vice
versa.
As Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “Entering into the Serpent” suggests that following set religious rules can not only make you lose touch with yourself but also your own dignity and pleasure, it makes me think about Lovisa from Too late shall the sinner awaken. I can clearly see Anzaldua’s argument applying in the case of Lovisa. Lovisa considers herself a very devoted christian. And as a Christian wife, the bible suggest that she submit to the leadership of her husband. Submission being “the action of submitting to authority, a conquering or ruling power: surrendering to one’s will or power” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. So it was just normal that Lovisa would surrender completely to her husband’s needs including covering up for him. Even though, I realized that that wasn’t what she wanted personally when she started talking about the birth of Jesus and said, “..Oh Jesus, what have I done? Forgive me God. Forgive me, Erik.” From this statement, I could conclude that covering up for her husband wasn’t something she wanted to do, however, she did it all the same because she was trying to be a ‘good’ wife and christian for her husband and God respectively.
My opponents might argue that, Lovisa was in no way being good to anyone. That, what Lovisa did was rather evil because she even contradicted herself by saying “I despised those other weaklings, all those who imagined that you could pick and choose among the words of the bible and still call yourself a Christian” when she herself did that. Which in other words, she despise herself too because she did exactly what people she claim to despise do: picking and choosing from the bible, because the same Bible condemns hiding sins.
While both arguments might be true, Anzaldua’s statement tie it all together. Lovisa thought she was doing something ‘good’ by covering up for her husband, only to realize later that by doing so she lost her own voice, interest, dignity, happiness and who knows what else. She did exactly what she said she detested. She was ‘blinded’ by her husband to even realize that the set of religious rules she was following wasn’t what she wanted. Even though she didn’t say it specifically that she was being bribed by her husband not to tell anyone that he killed Erik, her actions and choice of words seem to speak for itself and action speaks louder than words.
In retrospect to my own life, I realize that most of the time I tend to be more like Lovisa. In the sense that, as a teenager and a college student, sometimes it is only normal for me to do something just to fit into my surroundings only to regret it later. Example, one time I went to the school cafeteria to buy snack. I run into some classmates who were talking about their Biology test grades, and according to them, the Biology teacher was very strict in his grading. That they don’t understand why they got the grades that they got even though they studied really hard for the test. Long story short, one friend of mine said that there was no way anyone could’ve passed the exam even if they studied. Fortunately or unfortunately, I passed. So she asked me what I got. Because I didn’t want to be labeled as ‘the-only-one-I’ve-seen-who-passed’ or the center of attention, I simply lied by saying “oh please I failed too, this biology teacher is horrible.” Just to fit in at that moment. It wasn’t after later when I left the cafeteria that it hit me hard that I had just lied to not only my friends but my elf as well. And it wasn’t a good feeling. For me maybe it was just a matter of two minute, while for Lovisa, it was for years.
My point: even though Anzaldua specifically suggested that religion can make one lose touch of him or herself. While I agree, I also believe that sometimes not only religion can make one lose touch but sometimes our immediate surrounding can also make us lose our true self and dignity.
Works Cited
Entering Into the Serpent
Too late shall the sinner Awaken
"Anzaldà ºa, “Entering Into the Serpent”." A Collage of Citations. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
Smiley, Jacob. "Chapter-By-Chapter Summary and Discussion of "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza" by Gloria Anzaldúa." Soapboxie. Soapboxie, 12 July 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2017. .