Beatriz Rivera-Barnes: Unearthing Her-Story: An Eco-Feminist Reading of Alegría’s and Flakoll’s Ashes of Izalco

Unearthing Her-Story: An Eco-Feminist Reading of Alegría’s and Flakoll’s Ashes of Izalco

First and foremost, an ecofeminist reading of Claribel Alegría’s Ashes of Izalco will bring awareness to the Central American landscape and ecosystem. It will also serve to represent the plurality of voices emerging from this place, or this space, the loud as well as the silenced voices, the masculine vs. the feminine ones, the natural vs. the cultural, the past vs. the present, and it will finally shed light on the relationship between the literature and the ecology of Central America. Claribel Alegría not only belongs to two Central American countries, El Salvador and Nicaragua, she also belongs to all of Central America. The place sense of Alegría’s literary imagination is precisely this isthmus that much resembles a branch of the ceiba, an ancient tree and always a symbol. For Alegría the ceiba is her childhood and she feels she is like the ceiba because its foliage is much like the map of her own country.¹ (Boschetto-Sandoval 240)

In spite of her many years spent in exile Alegría always remains connected to a place that has witnessed many upheavals and massacres, to a place with many wounds as well as serious ecological problems such as the loss of topsoil and the progressive destruction of the tropical rain forest. Through her writings and her own sense of place and of loss Alegría speaks for these countries whose fragile ecosystems could easily be representative of their political, economic and social fragilities.

Although Ashes of Izalco is not natural history literature and Alegría and Flakoll are certainly not nature writers, they do make a significant contribution to the understanding of the environment of Central America precisely by responding to the landscape and bringing the reader’s awareness to it.

This response to the landscape is not only the response of the female protagonists, Isabel and Carmen, but a male protagonist’s response as well. Frank Wolff is representative of the North American response to the Central American landscape. It is an ambivalent response because before his arrival in El Salvador Frank was expecting a virginal landscape and at the same time wilderness to define his virility. But the plurality does not stop there. The application of Bakhtinian dialogics to a text such as Ashes ofIzalco places an emphasis on the contradictory voices. The primal contradictory voices are the voices of the authors themselves, Alegría/Flakoll, the feminine and the masculine, two voices that soon become two other masculine vs. feminine voices, Frank/Carmen who, in turn, constantly allude to the silenced Frank/Isabel voices. These are simply the three primary groups of contradictory voices. There are, however, many more, mother/daughter, woman/nature, man/nature, nature/culture, and present/past, just to name a few. It is through these responses and this plurality of voices, sounds and noises, that Alegría and Flakoll open the dialogue between past and present, and nature and culture.

The reading of Alegría’s text in light of ecofeminism first calls for a definition of ecofeminism and an explanation of how it is to be used in this context.

Just as Cheryll Glotfelty suggests that ecocriticism remain suggestive and open, so should ecofeminism. (Glotfelty xxii) Initially, ecofeminism was a movement that sought to establish a connection between women’s oppression and the exploitation of nature and natural resources. The thesis of the French feminist Francoise d’Eaubonne was that the ecological crisis had two names: destruction of natural resources and overpopulation. “[…] le conflit des sexes se relie étroitement à l’écologique” (28). In other words, the ecofeminists saw a relationship between the domination of women and the domination of nature. Just like nature needed to be tamed and capitalized so that it yield crops and cease to be dangerous, likewise women needed to be domesticated and rendered dull, so that they obey, remain faithful, bear children, and take care of the house without questioning their role. In other words, many ecofeminists considered both women and nature to be silenced, used subjects. Obviously, such a definition of ecofeminism is far more militant than it is open or suggestive.

It is not necessary, however, to totally rid ecofeminism of its subversiveness. On the contrary, William Rueckert asks his readers to bear in mind that, “Ecology has been called, accurately, a subversive science because all these ecological visions are radical ones and attempt to subvert the continued-growth economy which dominates all emerging and most developed industrial states” (107-108). Rueckert then proceeds to invoke the first law of ecology: Everything is connected to everything else. In other words, there does not necessarily need to be a bold dividing line between nature and culture.

But before delving deeper into that dichotomy it would be most helpful to stop and attempt to define nature. What is nature? Frederick Turner replies that most of us begin by making a gesture toward a patch of green vegetation and saying that nature is what is out there as opposed to what is in here. However, as Turner soon points out, “It should be clear that this nature has very little in common with natural reality as it is illuminated for us by science. Nature, according to science, is as much in here as it is out there” (42). This statement, obviously, is reminiscent of the first law of ecology.

In this search for a proper definition of nature Turner then affirms that it is of no help to fall back on saying that nature is something that has not been interfered with because, “Quantum theory shows that nothing can be observed or measured without being interfered with; if nature is what has not been interfered with, nature does not exist” (43).

Instead of being quiet and untouched, Turner points out that nature is violent, unbalanced, improvisatory and dynamic. (Ibid) Those are adjectives that can all be attributed to women and particularly to shrews.

Shrews need to be tamed because they go against the ideal of femininity which is linked to all that is quiet and untouched. But there seems to be a collective contradiction here. On the one hand, nature and femininity as ideals have to do with pastoral bliss and purity, while on the other side of the spectrum, nature is often opposed to culture, technology, and reason. It is often said and widely accepted that women are closer to nature and men are closer to reason. This is not simply an ecofeminist argument, it is a feminist one as well and Richard Twine points out that the difference between the ecofeminist and the feminist view is that feminist theory only concentrates on what this means for women whereas ecofeminist theory concentrates on what this means for women and for nature.

In an effort to determine what this means for women and nature Charlene Spretnak begins by defining body, nature, and place,

Once again, Spretnak’s definitions are reminiscent of the first law of ecology. Everything being connected to everything else is suggested with Spretnak’s use of terms such as unified, bodymind, and not separate. This same law will apply to ecofeminism, a term that was first coined by Francoise d’Eaubonne in 1974, before a coherent ecofeminist theory even existed, since it was only at the end of the eighties that ecofeminism finally became an academic discourse with Ariel Salleh and Val Plumwood who gave it a global dimension and a presence in the US, Canada, Europe, India, and Australia.

Regardless of this current global dimension Richard Twine believes that it is problematic to refer to a singular ecofeminism because ecofeminism is not a homogeneous point of view. In fact, the only thing that all ecofeminisms have in common is this vision of the relationship between women and nature and that the two are connected.

As far as an ecofeminist approach to Ashes of Izalco goes, I propose that the eco of ecofeminism remain true to its etymon. It is the same as the eco in economy and in ecology and, obviously, it means house. The eco is this house in which women dwell. It is the place where their lives go by, where they learn to love or stop loving, to lead, to bear children, raise children, work and nourish. The house is also where Carmen, one of the voices speaking in Ashes of Izalco, hears herself. “[…] speaking on sticky sweet tones: the brave little heroine in a television household drama” (Ashes 108).

Again, the first circle in this succession is the house. Nature can be seen as a house as well; and nature has often been portrayed as a woman.

However, the point here is not to victimize women and nature or to demonstrate that Alegría and Flakoll are ecofeminist theorists. Nonetheless, I do wish to approach Ashes of Izalco while keeping certain ecofeminist precepts in mind. These involve the connection between women and nature, nature being not only the Central American ecosystem, but also the nations, the cities, the towns, and finally the house. It would be easy to oppose nature and nation. Perhaps nature could be to women what nation is to men, but that is too simplistic an analogy. The truth of the matter is that nation has much to do with the birth cycle. As the etymon implies, in the nation there is the natal.

Alegría’s birthplace inhabits her just as Gioconda Belli is also inhabited by her birthplace, and it should be quite clear why Belli’s testimonies always refer to this lack of boundaries between her body and her country. For one, there is La Mujer habitada; then there is El País bajo la piel. Likewise, Alegría is an inhabited woman, inhabited by her house and by her landscapes that are under her skin as well.

Water, air, vegetation and fire are four elements that can be found throughout Alegría’s prose and poetry. Of these four elements, fire is the most prevalent one in Ashes ofIzalco. The element of fire includes heat, ashes, passion, silencing, secrets, volcanoes, and volcanic eruptions.

Before proceeding to find this element in Ashes of Izalco, I would like to point out a few details pertaining to this novel and its circumstances. First of all, this is a novel written by two people, Claribel Alegría and her husband, Darwin Flackoll. Nowhere in the novel is the reader told who wrote what, nor does it really matter. In an interview with the scholar Consuelo Meza-Márquez, Alegría explained that she and her husband decided to write this novel together so that it would be both a masculine and a feminine text. To do so they played out the Frank-Isabel love affair and apparently had bitter arguments while doing so and simultaneously writing and constructing Ashes of Izalco. Nonetheless, they managed to produce this novel.²

Written sometime before 1964, Ashes of Izalco marks a transition from poetry to the novelistic form. Not only is it a feminist and political novel, it is a testimony as well. Nancy Saporta Sternbach points out that this is a testimony of a woman imprisoned in a man’s text. In part this has to do with the structure of the novel. Carmen returns to Santa Ana, a town in El Salvador because Isabel, her mother, has died. This, however, is something that the reader has to discover since Alegría never gives anything away to her readers.

Ashes of Izalco begins with talk of the heat. It is extremely hot and this reminds the narrator — Carmen — of the eruption of Izalco. This memory is not hers, however, it comes from a text, and more precisely from a man’s diary that Carmen’s mother bequeathed her. For the time being Carmen simply refers to Frank. The reader later discovers that Frank is Frank Wolff. Some of the townspeople refer to him as a Communist, while others consider him to have been a liar because he came to Santa Ana pretending to be a novelist working on a novel set in the lush tropical jungles of El Salvador. Not even Frank Wolff supplies a better description of himself by writing that since his arrival in Santa Ana he has, “[…] accomplished little other than to serve as host to hordes of microscopic fauna and as target for a knife-wielding drunk […]” (109).

The novel is indeed a meshing of Frank’s diary and Carmen’s voice. Carmen wonders, feels nostalgic, lives and relives through other people’s memories, and asks questions, some of which will never be answered. In this sense Carmen is indeed imprisoned or ensnared in a man’s text and the ecofeminist message is delivered through this imprisonment that has different strata or levels. Carmen is a prisoner of Frank’s text because her voice and her past are weaved in it. Carmen’s mother is also a prisoner of this text because this is what is left of her truth. Furthermore, Isabel was also a prisoner of Frank’s text because it could be said that Frank’s text is all that is left of her. Isabel was also the prisoner of a small town in El Salvador, Santa Ana. She always dreamt of Paris, but only her father and grandfather were able to spend a number of years there. As a young girl Isabel’s daughter, Carmen, felt like a prisoner of Santa Ana as well, and now that she is living in Washington she is still a prisoner. Her husband plans and controls everything. Washington turns out to be nothing more than a slightly bigger prison than Santa Ana.

Carmen writes, “Carmen existed once: where did she go? Did she dissipate and vanish behind her masks and roles and labels? What ever happened to Mother? Did husbands and children drain us both of our substance and leave only an empty shell?” (108). Like Russian painted dolls, one prison inside the other, the mother and daughter are or have been prisoners of their house. Now that Isabel has managed to escape the prison of her house, through death, she turns herself over to her daughter, in a man’s text. Finally, they are prisoners of their nation.

Saporta Sternbach writes that this poltical dimension of the text is woven into three different stories: the volcanic eruption, the 1932 massacre, and the love affair between Frank and Isabel. All three of these stories contain the element of fire. “The trauma of the massacre is actualized in literary terms as the narrator attempts a resolution to the conflicts represented in her personal memory as well as in the collective memory of the country, both of which visit her like angry ghosts. This meeting point and playing field for al these issues erupts in the problematized mother-daughter relationship” (Boschetto-Sandoval 62-63).

By reading Frank’s diary Carmen discovers something about her mother and about her country. In other words, the reading of a masculine text allows her to discover her mother and her history. Sternbach comes to the conclusion that in this sense both Carmen’s and Isabel’s stories become the history of El Salvador. The novel, therefore, is a feminist novel because it suggests that women count enough for their stories to become confused with the history of their country. The novel also alludes to women’s discontent, because Carmen is no happier in Washington than her mother was in Santa Ana. She even regrets that her mother didn’t keep her in Santa Ana. As a matter of fact, every time her mother visited her in Washington and told her about how lucky she was to live there Carmen felt a pang. “She [Isabel] was sure we would turn out differently just because we had gotten away from home. […] It didn’t work, Mother. You should have let me stay here, let me shift the blame to Santa Ana” (Ashes 67).

According to Sternbach the novel is also feminist because it suggests that the way to the history of a country is through a family’s documents. Almost always these documents are considered feminine objects because they are usually in women’s safekeeping.

Sternbach believes that the answer to Carmen’s question is that Isabel and her story are trapped within Frank’s story and that El Salvador’s history is trapped within the collective memory of its people. In fact, Alegría attempts to un-silence this history particular when it comes to the 1932 massacre of 30,000 peasants in Izalco by members of the Salvadoran army in retaliation for an uprising led by the revolutionary Farabundo Martí. Frank’s diary reveals two secrets: Isabel’s secret and the 1932 massacre that a series of dictators had tried to erase from the country’s history.

The volcano contributes to this unearthing. “In Alegría’s text volcanic metaphors inform her readers of another revolution being prepared: that of a woman who begins to take the reins to control her own freedom and destiny” (Boschetto-Sandoval 65).

Instead of victimizing woman therefore, an ecofeminist reading of Alegría’s message likens a woman to a volcanic eruption, this eruption suggesting a political and sexual liberation of women. At the same time, the landscape also changes, or at least the perceptions of it. What Frank expected to be an exotic, lush, tropical environment turned out to be a ring of fire, for Santa Ana is often portrayed as hell, this is where the volcano erupts, this is where the peasants were massacred, this is where all the secrets come out in the open, and this is the setting for this fragmented story, as fragmented as the story of two women, Carmen and Isabel and as fragmented as the history of El Salvador.

Boschetto-Sandoval, Sandra, Marcia Phillips McGowan, eds. Claribel Alegría and Central American Literature. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1994.

Buell, Lawrence. Writing for an Endangered World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.

D’Eaubonne, Francoise. Ecologie, Féminisme: Révolution ou Mutation? Paris: Editions ATP, 1978.

Glotfelty, Cheryll. “Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis.” In The Ecocriticism Reader. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, eds. Pp. xv-xxviii.

Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, eds. The Ecocriticism Reader. Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Rueckert, William. “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism.” In The Ecocriticism Reader. Glotfelty and Fromm, eds.

Salleh, Ariel. Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx, and the Postmodern. London: Zed Books, 1997.

Turner, Frederick. “Cultivating the Amerocan Garden.” In The Ecocriticism Reader. Eds. Glotfelty and Fromm.

vuelve 2. Consuelo Meza Márquez explained this to me at the 8th Central American Congress on History that took place in Antigua, Guatemala July 10-14, 2006.