D.Q. #6

01 October 2015

Memoir Discussion Question

6a. Before I read this selection, the title suggested to me that this selection was going to be about a woman who lived in fear of someone or something. The title implies that she could never fully relax or even sleep because she had to constantly be watching her back. The woman could have been paranoid because she antagonized someone and might have caused them to retaliate against her.

b. After reading this selection, the title ties into the meaning of the cuento that was told during the selection. The cuento is about a women who marries one of the vicious gang members that terrorizes her community and attempts to kill her. She out smarts him and he finally asks for her forgiveness but because of that she always sleeps with one eye open. She doesn’t necessarily do it out of fear but she does it because of her courage and intelligence. “But as a writer, I choose to interpret the tale of the women who outmaneuvers the killer, who marries him so she does not have to fear him, as a metaphor of the creator” (80). “The transaction that took place between Maria Sabida and her assassin husband was a trade off on macho….. He understood that” (81).

c. I believe that the writer was trying to tell us that we need to be courageous and wake up from the person or thing that is keeping us hostage in fear. I believe that she wants us to have the courage to look at fear in a different way and have it work for us not the other way around.

“It is easier to sleep while life happens around you. Better to dream while others do. The writer recognizes the poisoned fruit. She may pretend to sleep and bear the pain of hot wax as she prepares herself for battle.” (81).

d. The title helps me figure out the significance of the selection because as my professor once told me, “Writers but purpose into the title” and so it helped me see that his selection was going to be about a women who slept with one eye open and not necessarily because of fear like I had originally thought but out of courage. It helps give away a piece of the selection without giving the whole thing away.