Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories

Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories

by

Sandra Cisneros

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories makes teaching easy.
The narrator of “Remember the Alamo,” a dancer and performer whose stage name is Tristán. Initially, Rudy uses first-person narration, but he quickly slips into third-person narration to describe Tristán’s act to readers. This is because when he performs, Rudy is no longer Rudy, but Tristán, a fantastic dancer who mesmerizes crowds with flamenco, salsa, tango, fandango, merengue, cumbia, or the cha-cha-chá. Throughout the story, it slowly becomes clear that Tristán is a gay man and that he’s terminally ill, which he hints at by writing about dancing with Death herself. Despite his family’s homophobia, they accept him for who he is and even brag about his artistic accomplishments. Still, Tristán must face bigotry when he goes to bars and men come up to him and ask him if he is a “fag.” Above all, Tristán just wants to be accepted by the people watching him dance, and he embraces Death because she wants him so badly; indeed, he’s obsessed with finding a love that “is never used to hurt anybody” and “never ashamed,” a love that can “create a universe where nothing is dirty, no one is hurting, no one sick.”
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Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories PDF

Rudy (Tristán) Character Timeline in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories

The timeline below shows where the character Rudy (Tristán) appears in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Remember the Alamo
Love, The Joy of Life, & Interconnection Theme Icon
Loss, Longing, & Grief Theme Icon
The narrator of this story is named Rudy, but when he performs as a dancer behind the Alamo theater in Texas on Thursday... (full context)
Cultural & National Identity Theme Icon
When Tristán was a child, he explains, he used to listen to rice pop and sizzle in... (full context)
Love, The Joy of Life, & Interconnection Theme Icon
Cultural & National Identity Theme Icon
When Tristán dances, the crowd “throb[s]” along with him, watching as he twirls La Calaca Flaca—the skinny... (full context)
Love, The Joy of Life, & Interconnection Theme Icon
Cultural & National Identity Theme Icon
Loss, Longing, & Grief Theme Icon
Tristán’s dance with Death expands throughout the narrative as he speaks to her (Death) like a... (full context)