Ritual Structures in Chicana Fiction

by Helane Androne

Overview

This book argues for the necessary and further examination of the sacred as it is ritualized within Chicana fiction. It suggests that religious, spiritual, linguistic and political symbolisms reveal rites that structure narrative performances of coping with and healing from trauma. Helane Androne examines these rites of spirit, service, and story as they occur in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God, Denise Chávez’s Face of An Angel, and Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo. Beginning with the implications of Gloria Anzaldúa’s spiritual vision of Chicana identity alongside structural principles of ritual criticism, this study extends the discourse about the impact of the sacred in Chicana fiction. an>

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137596703
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	09/21/2016
Series:	Literatures of the Americas
Edition description:	1st ed. 2016
Pages:	134
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Helane Androne is Professor of English and directs the Ohio Writing Project at Miami University, USA. She is the author of Multiethnic American Literatures: Essays for Teaching Context and Culture and has published in journals such as Pedagogy, MELUS, and Phoebe.

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Chapter 1: “A Place from where to think”: The work of ritual criticism on Chicana fiction.- Chapter 2: Loca Malinalli: Centering the Spiritual in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God.- Chapter 3: ‘…an actress in a play’: Service as Sacred Performance in Denise Chávez’s Face of an Angel.- Chapter 4: Reality Shifts: The Language of Nahuala in Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo, or Puro Cuento.- Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Approaching Chicana fiction from the field of ritual criticism, Helane Androne navigates familiar ground with groundbreaking, innovative methodological instruments to shows us new angles. This alone makes for an exciting reading of the de-colonial, egalitarian impetus behind Chicana literature. Each chapter provides a different optic for recognizing the dimensions of ritualization and performance and reveals a process of becoming that is larger than bildungsroman. Thoughtful and provocative, this book brings what is easily obscured in literary studies into full presence.” (Clara Román-Odio, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature, Kenyon College, USA, and author of “Sacred Iconographies in Chicana Cultural Productions”)