Pat Mora's Sonrisas

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In Pat Mora’s “Sonrisas,” A woman tells the audience that she lives in between two worlds: her vapid office workplace and a kitchen/break-room with family members or colleagues of her same heritage. Mora includes many sensory details to enrich our understanding of the speaker’s experience in both “rooms.” The speaker is content living in the “hallway” between the two rooms because she can put on a metaphorical mask, as mentioned in Jungian psychology, which fits what is acceptable to the different social society that is in each room of her life. Adrienne Rich on the other hand, is not content with peeking her head into the doorframes of the roles she must play in order to be accepted. In her poem, “Diving into The Wreck,” she pursues, in my opinion, a form of individuation by diving into the wreck of her inner consciousness to find who she is among the wreckage of the world and its effects on her. Both Pat Mora and Adrienne Rich explore the dangers of being defined by others and the rewards of exploring different worlds. Pat Mora was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, the city in which her four Spanish-speaking grandparents migrated during the Mexican Revolution. Her firm belief in promoting cross-cultural understanding and the appreciation of Hispanic culture often reveals itself in her works. She often writes about the elements of the Southwest to relate to and empower Hispanics to embrace the cultural traditions that are so significant to their identities (University of Minnesota). The two stanzas in “Sonrisas,” work together as parallels, comparing the two main rooms that have been the most influential in shaping her as a person. In the first stanza, the speaker describes what I assume is her workplace with the words, “budgets... ... middle of paper ... ...ualities and influences we want to accept as truth instead of blindly accepting the book of myths. She encourages women to descend the ladder and find the “thing itself” and the meaning that thing has for each individual woman. Works Cited Boeree, C. George. “Personality Theories: Carl Jung.”Webspace. Shippensburg University, 2006. Web. 7 April 2014. Frager, R., & Fadiman, J. Personality and Personal Growth. New York: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.Sofia University. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. Mora, Pat. “Sonrisas” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013.1050-1051. Print. “Pat Mora: Voices From the Gaps.” University of Minnesota. University of Minnesota, 2012. Web. 7 April 2014. Rich, Adrienne. “Diving into the Wreck” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013.1010-1012. Print.

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