Teaching Philosophy and Materials
Under the Feet of Jesus II
Let's think more about Petra as "the mother"; never do we see a possessive pronoun used to describe her. Is she some kind of archetypal "mother" figure? Also, as "the mother," Petra is also marked symbolically and physically (to pick up on some of the "symbolism" ideas from the last set of notes): she is "veined." Veins are akin to many things, most notably perhaps for this novel to maps. If a map is a direction-giving or orienting device, what do the veins that cause her so much pain and mark her body give us "direction" to? Estrella too (a "star"), as one student pointed out, can signify "orientation," as starts have long been used for navigation. What is the significance, then, of "Star," of veins, of the references to maps throughout the novel, given the geographical dislocation - and away-from-home-ness - that marks this novel? And for some of these characters, can we even name their home? For Perfecto, yes. For Alejo, yes. But for Estrella? Where is her home? If American novels can be described, I might offer, as stories of how people create "homes" (as places of family, belonging, knowing, achieving) in new places, how does this novel fit into that genre? How do we fit the ever-present ramshackle "house" in which the family lives and the adjacent barn into this way of thinking about the novel? And what do we make of Perfecto wanting to tear the barn down (as a means to "get home" or to have money . . . for . . .)?
This is also a novel that uses language is an interesting way. We can look at the various "lingualisms" in the novel: Petra who is monolingual, the nurse who is monolingual, Estrella who is proficiently bilingual, and Alejo who is proficiently bilingual - his reference to Estrella is even an English version of her name: "star." Viramontes occasionally includes Spanish passages with no accompanying English translation. What is the effect of this "foreignness" or incomprehensibility for the reader who reads only English? Is it disorienting? Is that a literary tactic of Viramontes's? And what, in a larger sense, does it reveal? Similarly, Viramontes leaves the reader with many disconnected threads at the end of the novel. What is the reader to do with the lack of resolution?
To bring us back around to Edna from The Awakening, would you say that Estrella's "wings" (to connect us back to the bird references throughout these novels) are strong? We see her atop the barn in the final scene of the novel. Why is she up there? She is equated to an "angel standing on the verge of faith." Given what we know of Petra's syncretic Catholicism alongside the representation of Estrella as a mother-figure and a Moses-like leader (as when she "parts" the doors out of the hospital), what might Viramontes's suggestion here be?
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