A Search for Identity in Peel My Love Like An Onion by Ana Castillo
Laura Raymond
Dr. Herrera
Close Reading
December 9, 2012
A Search for Identity
In the book Peel My Love Like an Onion, by Ana Castillo, the only thing that can make Carmen happy is Flamenco dancing. But unfortunately, she is diagnosed with polio and dancing gets much harder for her to do. Because it gets so difficult for her, she tries to find other jobs to make money. Although she finds jobs here and there to earn money, she is unable to find happiness in her life without dancing. She feels that because dancing is such a huge part of who she is, she can’t be herself anymore. She feels that her life has no purpose because she lost herself. While comparing Ana Castillo’s life with Carmen, we can see patterns throughout both of their lives, implying that Castillo put some of her own experiences into her book about Carmen. In both Ana and Carmen’s lives, they try to find their true identities without losing themselves along the way.
When Ana was first starting out, she was not certain about what kind of career she wanted to do. As a lot of people do, she had thoughts about what might interest her and what she’d be good at, but she wasn’t positive about which job fit her the best. In an interview, Samuel Baker asked Ana when she decided to be a writer. She responded that writing was not something that she wanted to make a career out of. Even now, she does not think of it as a profession or career. She says, “I started out very much wanting to be a visual artist in an environment in Chicago”. But when she was a teenager, she was sent to a business school in order to be what her family wanted her to be: a file clerk. “I suppose I couldn’t have been a secretary because I’m a lousy typist and I’ve always had this aversion to authority, so I knew that I wouldn’t get far in that atmosphere.” She didn’t even really know where she wanted to live. When Samuel Baker asked where she had lived before she settled on Albuquerque, New Mexico, she listed off a few locations.
Dr. Herrera
Close Reading
December 9, 2012
A Search for Identity
In the book Peel My Love Like an Onion, by Ana Castillo, the only thing that can make Carmen happy is Flamenco dancing. But unfortunately, she is diagnosed with polio and dancing gets much harder for her to do. Because it gets so difficult for her, she tries to find other jobs to make money. Although she finds jobs here and there to earn money, she is unable to find happiness in her life without dancing. She feels that because dancing is such a huge part of who she is, she can’t be herself anymore. She feels that her life has no purpose because she lost herself. While comparing Ana Castillo’s life with Carmen, we can see patterns throughout both of their lives, implying that Castillo put some of her own experiences into her book about Carmen. In both Ana and Carmen’s lives, they try to find their true identities without losing themselves along the way.
When Ana was first starting out, she was not certain about what kind of career she wanted to do. As a lot of people do, she had thoughts about what might interest her and what she’d be good at, but she wasn’t positive about which job fit her the best. In an interview, Samuel Baker asked Ana when she decided to be a writer. She responded that writing was not something that she wanted to make a career out of. Even now, she does not think of it as a profession or career. She says, “I started out very much wanting to be a visual artist in an environment in Chicago”. But when she was a teenager, she was sent to a business school in order to be what her family wanted her to be: a file clerk. “I suppose I couldn’t have been a secretary because I’m a lousy typist and I’ve always had this aversion to authority, so I knew that I wouldn’t get far in that atmosphere.” She didn’t even really know where she wanted to live. When Samuel Baker asked where she had lived before she settled on Albuquerque, New Mexico, she listed off a few locations.
Cited: Cantu, Norma E. "A conversation with Ana Castillo." World Literature Today 82.2 (2008): 59+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. Castillo, Ana, and Samuel Baker. "Ana Castillo: The Protest Poet Goes Mainstream." Publishers Weekly (12 Aug. 1996): 59-60. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 151. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. -----, and Simon Romero. "An Interview with Ana Castillo." NuCity (1993). Rpt. in Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 21. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Dec. 2012. Castillo, Ana. Peel My Love Like an Onion. New York: Anchor Books, 1999. Print. "We_live_in_a_polarized_world_of_contrived." Columbia World of Quotations. Columbia University Press, 1996. 10 Dec. 2012.