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
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