Chips and Salsa
Don’t you hate it when you have too much of one and not enough of the other? There has to be the appropriate amount of chips to salsa for it to work, to taste good.
Or Thinking Rhetorically.
Examples
End of Cisneros’ Stories
The last stories are much more subtle in their messages than the first stories. To understand these stories you need to read carefully, closely, in between the lines. Try to figure out what is the author’s purpose.
- Why did the author write this?
- What is the author’s purpose?
- What is the lesson or message?
There was a Man, There was a Woman (133)
There was a Man, There was a Woman Video
Smart Reading
- Read to deepen what you already know.
- Read above your level of knowledge.
- Read what makes you uncomfortable.
- Read against the grain.
- Read slowly.
- Annotate what you read.
How to Read a Book Summary
Free Writing
We worked on finding lessons in our story. Comment below with your chips and salsa for the story.
- Chip: The lesson
- Salsa: Evidence from the story
- Explain: Explain the evidence and how it helps us see the chip, lesson we took away from the story.
Sample Essays
The Hidden Complexities of Clemencia
Homework
- Chapter 5 (“And Yet”: Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say)
- Read SANDRA CISNEROS “Bien Pretty” (137) JOURNAL 7
Professor Ramos' Blog 
The chip for my story is Appearances can be deceiving.
The salsa for my story will be going into depth from the quote by C.C. in Code Geass “False tears can only heart others, but a false smile can only hurt oneself.” I will go into further depth with this about maybe trying to understand why people show false faces and hide true emotion. What makes us want to deceive how we really are.
I am choosing to go this route because the characters laugh at the bar with friends but when they are in solitude they experience very different emotions.
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Lesson:
No matter what situation or what you’re feeling, whether it’s like the two people in “There was a man, There was a woman” and you feel loneliness, or any other feeling or situation, there’s someone out there feeling the same way as you. This feeling or situation connects those who have gone through the same thing since it causes a greater understanding between those who have felt or experienced the same situation.
Detail/Quote:
“At home when the night came down and the moon appeared, the woman raised her pale eyes to the moon and cried. The man in his bed contemplated the same moon… [as he] looked and swallowed.”
Explanation:
The man and woman are doing the same action, looking at the moon crying or trying to hold back tears, as they both have the same feeling of loneliness. The moon connects the two as they stare at the same thing that covers both of them, both having the same feeling of loneliness under the sky.
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For the reading of “There was a man, there was a woman”. The details Sandra gave about the man and woman both going to the same bar, drinking with their friends, and discussed the emotions the man and woman when they would be home, looking up at the moon. “The man was paid on the second and fourth Friday of the month and the woman was paid on the first and the third of each month. Because of this the man and the woman didn’t know each other. (Cisneros 246). We learn that the universe or god didn’t conspire to make the man and woman meet together or get to know each other and we are left to wonder what will happen but we learn that there’s many determining factors as to why they didn’t meet. This short story really made us come to realize that love can be around the corner but we may miss opportunities because when it’s for you it’ll come to you, rather than search for it.
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The chip was the irony of life. The story shows how the man and the woman will never meet because they go to the same bar on different Fridays. They are so similar it’s uncanny and both stair up at the moon each night to think to the person who is there soul mate even thought they are only one week off from each other which is super funny when you think about it. “The man was paid on the second and fourth Friday of the month. The woman was paid on the first and third Friday. Because of this the man and the woman did not know each other.”(Cisnero p1) It is ironically sound she made what happens in life so close that you just wish they would meet each other to create a better life. We all want that but won’t achieve it and that’s what it’s all about.
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An appearance of someone close to you or even a complete stranger can be fabricated. There may be a deeper meaning behind the half smile that you are receiving from the person in front of you. For instance in the short story, “There Was a Man, There Was a Woman” the characters they refer to fit the context of a fabricated smile. “The women raised her pale eyes to the moon and cried. The man in his bed contemplated this same moon”, therefore tying in how these two are going to the bar to escape this loneliness feeling(Cisneros 271). When in reality they seem to be internally struggling. Fate will not allow these wounded soldiers to unite to fix the healing. Although the moon is their security in making them feel whole.
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The lesson I took from the story is that life can be very ironic on how things fall out. Cisneros states they “contemplated the same moon” to me that makes it very ironic that they both are looking at same moon possibly thinking the same thoughts. They could perfect for each other but life works in mysterious ways.
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Lesson: There are people out there just like you
Quote:”..the woman raised her pale eyes to the moon and cried. The man in his bed contemplated the same moon”.
Explanation: We are all connected in one way or another and we share similar experiences. The man and the woman are contemplating life by looking at the moon. Both don’t know about each other’s existence, yet, they are going through the same trial/obstacle.
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The lesson Sandra Cisneros tries to bring across in her short story “There was a Man, There was a woman” is that although we may feel alone in the things we are feeling there are always other people out there who feel the same. In her story she narrates the man’s thoughts, “The man in his bed contemplated the same moon, and thought about the millions who had looked at the moon before him, those who had worshiped or loved or died before the same moon, mute and lovely”. Although the character couldn’t see himself there were others like him, such as the millions before him or the woman in the story, he wasn’t alone in his feeling of loneliness and despair.
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You find yourself alone with your mind at night time, some look at the moon outside their window or lie in bed in late hours of night thinking about million of things. “The man in his bed contemplated the moon, and thought about the millions who had looked at moon before him, those who had worshipped or loved or died before the same moon, mute and lovely.” (Cisneros, 134) The man knew he wasn’t the only one or the last one looking up at the moon at night so many have been there and probably felt the same way he was feeling either lonely, unhappy or empty inside.
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While the characters in “There was a man, There was a woman” may look like they are having a good time, they are actually feeling isolated and alone. “Every friday in between the woman drank her beer and laughed loudly. At home when the night came down and the moon appeared, the woman raised her pale eyes to the moon and cried.” Looks can be deceiving. A person can seem happy and seem like their life is normal, but in reality, that very same person can be suffering from depression. Sometimes it seems that the happiest people are the one suffering the most. The woman in the short story goes out to a bar to have a good time. However, she feels like there is a part of her thats missing. Her soulmate is right around the corner but because of the irony of life, they don’t get a chance to meet even though they both go to the same bar to drink. They both express the same feelings that they have towards solitude.
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Chip: There are many people just like you, some you may meet and some you will not, but do not lose hope because if you have just a little patience, you will find the one that is right for you.
Salsa: In the story, a man and a woman are perfect for each other but never meet. This is shown when said, ” The man was paid on the second and fourth Friday of the month. The woman … on the first and third… Because of this the man and woman did not know each other.” This makes the reader ponder if the man and woman will ever meet because if they were to meet their time of loneliness would be over and they would make a perfect couple. But the reader can also understand from this that the same situation could happen to any person and because of this they can see that if they take more risks and opportunities, they may end up meeting who they are destined to meet.
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My chip to take from “There was a man, There was a woman” Sandra Cisneros is the lesson to be learned about appearances can be deceiving.
In the story many facts are introduced setting the stage for a punch line that is for some reason not delivered. The line that caught my attention was “Every other Friday the man drank his beer and laughed loudly. Every Friday in between the woman drank her beer and laughed loudly.” (Cisneros P133)This line stands out to me because in my imagination i imagine all smiles, lots of fun and this is why the writer Sandra says “laughed loudly” This saying is an example to me that they were outwardly happy, having fun, and socially displaying how happy they were.
We have been deceived, because not a few sentences later we are told “At home when the night came down and the moon appeared, the woman raised her pale eyes to the moon and cried.” This tells me that she was not as happy as she had shown the people in the bar. The man too looked at the moon, “the man looked and swallowed” of course because men don’t cry, rather he swallowed the tears away from his eyes, likely having also deceived the people at the bar, and now the man and the woman find themselves with no one, on opposite Friday nights, looking at the moon, one crying, and the other swallowing.
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