Entry Eighteen: Viramontes

"The Cariboo Cafe"
Helena María Viramontes

"But her legs are heavy and she crushes Geraldo against her, so tight, as if he wants to conceal him in her body again, return him to her belly... screaming, howling, sobbing, shriveling and crying because he is only five years old, and all she wanted was a mango. But the crying begins all over again. In the distance, she hears crying."

This is the fourth time I’m attempting to write this analysis. The issue isn’t with story and its contents, but more with myself. Even more so, I think that this story overwhelmed my senses in ways that usually physicality is only capable of. I find myself lost and confused, because this reading took my on an emotional adventure that I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on. Regardless, it was necessary, and I found myself very much heartbroken by the final page.

Something I found fascinating was how this story was written – the jumps and changes in narrator gave each passage a new perspective, and with that a new range of emotions to grapple with. In many instances, I found myself sick to my stomach, because the emotions were so raw and real and terrifying. These people were suffering through every day, forcing themselves to go that one step further because there wasn’t much else left. The use of multiple narrators was fascinating, but with it, I found myself very confused.

As far as I’m aware, the story is centered on one family – a mother and her two children, a daughter and a son. The confusion that came with this story, both with its choice of narration and content in general, communicated a very important theme throughout the story. This life of poverty is a challenging one, and for children who can’t speak a language enough to communicate, their world quickly becomes large and intimidating. This barrier was shown throughout the story, either in a physical or nonphysical way.

Regardless of such, this family fought through these barriers the best they could.

What gave me the most trouble, and by many regards has left me stunned and confused, was the last page or so. In it, the police is hunting these children, for reasons I’m still not entirely sure of. What I can’t quite understand is who gets shot at the end?  At first, it felt like his sister, who’d been struggling to keep her brother to her chest.

But with the last sentence, it felt like the words of a mother.
Perhaps, they’re one in the same?