SOURCE: “Remapping the Territory: Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters,” in Epistolary Responses: The Letter in 20th-Century American Fiction and Criticism, University of Alabama Press, 1997, pp. 132–50, 194–95.

In the following essay, Bower explores Teresa's relationship with herself, Alicia, and the other characters in The Mixquiahuala Letters.

Epistolary novels place primacy on the acts of writing and reading. I have contended that as they write to others of various events, feelings, and thoughts and as they read others' responses to their letters, characters in these novels rewrite or redefine themselves. In addition, they offer to themselves and others the possibilities of rereadings. That is, the epistolary heroine may use the letter as a place to solve mysteries, undo misconceptions, and perceive patterns previously hidden from her view, discovering new interpretations of past happenings that she can present to herself and others. We might call this use of the epistolary response site...