Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Estela Portillo Trambley's Fictive Search for Paradise

1980; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 5; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3346037

1536-0334

Tomás Vallejos, Tomás Vallejos,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Much Chicano fiction can be seen as a search for values in a world that is hostile to those values. In the case of the Chicana artist, the hostility is twofold. She is the target of both racism and sexism. It is no wonder, then, when a Chicana's literary expression is rooted in dissatisfaction. One outstanding case in point is Estela Portillo Trambley's collection of short fiction and drama, ofScorpions and Other Writings. One aspect of Portillo Trambley's writing which distinguishes her from many male Chicano writers is her criticism, not only of American society, but of some Chicano traditions and social structures as well. Dissatisfied with the inferior position of women advocated by many Chicano traditionalists, Portillo Trambley turns to ancient mythical structures as models of an ideal balance in the cosmos. This original balance, she seeks to inform her readers, precedes and excels the inequity she exposes in traditional Mexican customs and social structures that aggrandize men at the expense of women. She also uses this primordial model as a basis for criticizing American corruptions of it, such as the exploitation of the land and workers by American industry in the novella Rain of Scorpions. Portillo Trambley envisions a paradise--an ideal state of mind and spirit--that turns to ancient mythical models as a basis for urging reform in both Chicano and American social attitudes and structures. In applying the paradise motif to of Scorpions, one can place most of the stories within it in either of two categories: those illustrating the failure to find paradise and those illustrating the successful quest. Paradise in Portillo Trambley's writings is a vision of cosmic wholeness within human consciousness. The author posits for her readers an ideal world where conflicting elements-male and female, reason and instinct, order and chaos--coexist in dynamic balance. In some stories she suggests this balance by creating characters who recognize and accept this world view. In others she creates characters in social environments that deny such a world view and demand the subjugation of one element by its opposite. When such an imbalance occurs, the result is destruction. This world view is derived from ancient Nahua cosmology, for the opposing forces of Portillo Trambley's works are remarkably similar to the ancient Mexican belief that the world is governed by the struggles for supremacy among the four sons of Ometeotl, the gods of the four directions. The domination of one god and his attendant qualities over the others is responsible for the cosmic cataclysms in the Nahua myth of the Five Suns.[ 1] In of Scorpions destruction occurs on a microcosmic level, for it is men and women, not gods, who inhabit her fictive world and give it motion. Motion is fundamental to interpreting the work of Estela Portillo Trambley, for the paradise of her vision is dynamic, not static. While a balance between opposites is crucial to the attainment of wholeness, this balance is paradoxically achieved, not through