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Under the Feet of Jesus

Helena Maria Viramontes' Under the Feet of Jesus portrays the coming-of-age of a young Latina, Estrella, but that awakening takes place in social, political, economic, cultural and gender contexts. What gives the book its power and effectiveness is the author's use of Estrella, a very sympathetic character, as the focal point of all these larger issues.

The story of Estrella, and her romantic relationship with Alejo, serves as the grounding force for the author's indictment of a system which exploits poor workers for the sake of increased profits for the wealthy landowners and agribusiness corporations. The evil done by those capitalist forces are not presented in the abstract or in theory, but in the very real suffering of the workers and the tragedy of Alejo who has been poisoned by the pesticides of the corporate agribusinesses.

The element which most makes Viramontes' novel effective is the non-sentimental way she presents her characters and situations. This shows a respect for the reader, letting the reader interpret the points being made, without romanticizing the farmworkers or making their adversaries the spawn of the devil. Certainly she wants the book to bring sympathy for the hard lives of the farmworkers in California, and anger against their exploitation, but she does so with a strong style and talent that gives her work a powerful and quiet authority.

There is also a fine subtlety to Viramontes' writing that respects the reader's ability to see what is happening without having everything spelled out explicitly. For example, she writes of Estrella early in the book: "She picked up the doll and felt kinks in her back" (7). In one brief sentence, Estrella's young life is summarized. She is a child with the physical symptoms of a hard-working adult. She is forced to grow up while still a child, forced to worry about adult matters and responsibility for larger things than the care of her doll in a child's worl...

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Under the Feet of Jesus. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 02:59, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702186.html