Describe symbolism in Telling Tales by Migdalia Cruz

One of the most potent symbols that Cruz uses is fire and flames. Fire itself was physically present in the South Bronx in the years of Cruz's childhood, as landlords and tenants set their apartment buildings on fire, the former in hopes of getting insurance money and the latter in hopes of getting better low-income housing. It has been estimated that between 1970 and 1975, there were 68,456 fires in the Bronx—more than thirty-three each night. The apartment building in which the family in "Fire" lives most likely was part of this phenomenon.

Fire represents different things to Cruz's narrators. To the narrator of "Fire," the apartment building fire initially is negative because it leads her to believe that her mother is dead. When the "angel" neighbor brings the three girls to her apartment, "under the cover of a bright orange blanket," the narrator panics, thinking that she is dead and that the blanket is a fire itself. The fire eventually transforms into something positive, for a month later, the family moves to a new apartment, to a "better place." The narrator's choice of words recalls heaven and suggests a figurative death and rebirth. The narrator will, like the mythical phoenix, rise from the ashes to be reborn. Fire brings an end but it also brings a beginning.

Fire also figures prominently in "She Was Something . . ." The titular "she" has "eyes like flames . . . and, ooh, she made fire appear on most everything." Her "fiery pupils" singe the wings of the crows that cannot stop from turning their heads to stare at her. The fire represents the girl's power, drive, and ability—she has some special quality that other people in the South Bronx lack. Fire also has destructive capabilities, however. "People burn there" in the South Bronx, and "[F]lames shoot out of their mouths." In this case, fire represents both the physical landscape of the arson-assailed neighborhood as well as the anger of its "coffee-colored" denizens. Even the girl cannot help but burn the soles of her feet on the ground, but instead of trying to distance herself from the anger and ugliness that surround her, she swallows these feelings; her toenails pop off because of the heat, but still she "caught each nail in her mouth." The girl will take the might of fire and transform it into a force that she can use for her own benefit.