How does Anzaldua use multiple languages in her essay? Do you use more than one language in your own life? Describe.
In the essay ” Tlilli, Tlapalli/ The Path of the Red and Black Ink” by Gloria Anzaldua , the author explains her strange and unusual experience she goes through during her writing process for her works of literature as a Mexican woman. The author uses imagery and three different languages to help us understand the phases that her body goes through when she writes and creates stories. The text is mostly written in English, but Anzaldua also incorporates snippets of Spanish and Nahuatl which is the language of the Aztecs. In the essay Anzaldua says ” When I create stories in my stories in my head, that is allow the voices and scenes to be projected in the inner screen of my mind, I, “trance”.” (pg.1258) Anzaldua mainly uses a second language when describing her “trance”or as she later describes it also as an “awakened dream”. In both the chapters The Shamanic State and Writing Is a Sensuous Act, the author describes the images she sees while in her “awakened dream” in Spanish saying ” Some pictures I fear, I cross the abyss that I have inside, seeing birds, snakes, rocks dragging everything I am, I am everything that someday I’ll be”, which was translated from Spanish to English. I think that she used two different languages in her text because she is cultural woman, and feels like she can describe herself more passionately through her own native tongue. Through her using her a language she is maybe more comfortable with she can truly give us a sense of her “trance” that she goes through she creating her literary works. I do not speak another language other than English, so I cannot relate to what she is doing, but i do know that if i did speak another language that was my native tongue I would feel like i can use it more to describe myself more.
