Gender Roles In Reyna Grande's Across A Hundred Mountains

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Natalie Batista English 1A Professor Perales Feb 6, 2015 A woman who rewrote her own ending Reyna Grande 's novel, Across a Hundred Mountains, focuses on the dynamic of the development and rethinking of the concept of a traditional Latino patriarchal family built up around male dominance. In low income and uneducated cultures, there are set of roles that throughout time have been passed by from generation to generation. These gender roles most often consist of the men being the breadwinner for the family. While the women stay home to cook, clean, and raise the children. Women are treated as possessions with limited rights and resources. Throughout the novel, Grandes challenges gender roles in the story of a young woman named Juana who, despite all adversity, fights stereotypes and is able to rewrite her own ending. Grande introduces to the audience various characters that cross Juana 's path to either alter or assist her on her journey to find her father. Through those individuals, Grande offers a strong comparison of female characters who follow the norms, versus those that challenge gender roles that …show more content…

Never really encouraged or allowed to play ball with the boys. One day on her way to wash clothes at the river Juana passed by some boys playing soccer, “the ball came flying her way and landed near her feet. One of the boys started running toward her to come get the ball, but Juana lifted her foot and then kicked. The ball rose into the air in a perfect arc”(Grande 122). The boys were shocked, at how good Juana was when she kicked the ball. This is a perfect example of gender roles, girls are to stay home and help their moms while boys get to go outside and play and get dirty. Juana, even with something as insignificant as being able to kick the ball, and impressing the boys. Comes to show that she did not allow society to subject her only to roles to be only for women or

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