Click Here for the poem.
An analysis is conducted by breaking down the object into its major component, and examining these parts for their particular qualities and attributes. Literary analysis appears to be an easy enough task in this sense, because phrases conveniently break down into words, which hold specific concrete meanings and even have specific abstract associations. But an analysis can also be the taking apart of a philosophy, or concept, and arguing that it is built from simpler, more basic theories. Now the analysis of a literary piece becomes a more daunting task. This essay intends to analyze Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Green Chile using words in the poem for their literal meanings as well as conceptual associations to build an argument wherein the speaker of the poem intentionally portrays his grandmother as a vital and sensual woman.
In the beginning of the poem, the speaker describes himself as “prefer[ring] red chile,” and the stanza which describes his grandmother began: “[b]ut grandmother loves green chile”. There is a small and arguably inconsequential difference between the manners in which their preferences are worded. But the rest of the poem quickly dispels any doubt that the diction here is anything but intentional. Specifically, at line eleven, the poem begins demonstrating this “love”. The green chile, which the speaker sees his grandmother holding when he visits, is given a full, sensuous sketch. It is “voluptuous, masculine” and exudes “an air of authority and youth”. In describing the green chile in her hand, the speaker employs language which appeals to nearly all five senses. Beginning with sight, then scent: “fermenting resinous spice”. This leads to a metaphor which compares the chile to a visitor and then an appeal to the sense of touch. At the end of the poem, we will come back and reconsider the visitor-chile metaphor as a controlling metaphor. But first let us examine the appeal to sense of touch which brought the intimacy and sensuality of the poem to the next level from observations (sight, smell) to interaction (touch).
The notion of touch is carefully explored in the poem. The speaker moves on to details like watching his grandmother “rubbing [the chile]’s firm glossed side” and “caressing the oily, rubbery serpent/with mouth-watering fulfillment”. Some very sexually suggestive words packed into those few lines, including rubbing, firm, caressing and oily.
The serpent is yet another interesting word choice. In western culture, since the Garden of Eden, the serpent has always represented something sinister and involving temptation. Since Sigmund Freud, western culture/literature often uses “serpent” as an euphemism for a phallic figure. The next line is still subtle, and also uses ambiguous words strategically. Mouth-watering, for example, functioning as an adjective generally pertains to food. But, as it appeals to the sense of taste, read in the given context, it could also be applied to sexual desires. Fulfillment is also a vaguely suggestive term; once again, the ambiguity of these words contributes to the general tone of the poem, and does not distract from it
As the poem takes a different turn, the green chile is compared to a “well-dressed gentleman at the door” whom his grandmother “takes sensuously in her hands”. The expression taking in hands in the English language often implies courtship, or intimate relations. Also, sensuous is a word whose connotation and denotation operate on very different levels. Literally speaking, sensuous is that of or pertaining to the five senses, but its connotations often incline people to use the word as a discreet replacement for ‘sexual’.
Next, the speaker goes on detailing the way the chile looked: “magnificent and taut” and comparing it, in a metaphor, to “flanks of tiger in mid-leap”. Here the poem becomes not only visual, but active, in motion. The switches of the sensory cues in the poem used to describe the chile become the stages of sexual attraction. It is probably that a desired sexual object is first seen, then smelled, and lastly touched, perhaps in the context of other motions and activities. After switching into the realm of motion and touch, the speaker abandons the mask of ambiguity and chose words which were much more blunt, “she thrusts her blade into/and cuts it open with, lust/on her hot mouth, sweating over the stove”. Here, “thrust” is clearly identified with sexual connotations. “Lust” is another unambiguous word choice. “Heat” and “sweat” are no so obviously associated with eroticism but in the given context, we can assume that they are relevant to the discussion of lust.
The speaker continues “bandana round her forehead/mysterious passion on her face”. These are the most intriguing lines of the poem (pertaining to his grandmother)—what does the mysterious passion represent? If we continue with the metaphor compared the chile to a gentleman at the door, we can say that cooking green chile is like a secret affair for his grandmother. We can then go on to say that the sensuous (here I am using this word ambiguously!) description as culminating and ultimately resulting in the “affair” which the grandmother partakes in. First, she is assessing its (or the gentleman’s) physical attributes, “voluptuous, masculine”, then she lays her hands on it, “rubbing its firm glossed sides” etc. Eventually she “takes it in her hands” and “thrusts her blade into” “with lust”, “mouth-watering fulfillment”, and “a mysterious passion on her face”.
I seriously expected this post to be about Chile (the country). That was interesting nonetheless. I like red chile!