In the essay "Casa" Judith Ortiz Cofer shows the reader how culture is transmitted from generation to generation. The purpose of the essay is to narrate stories in the daily life of a Puerto Rican family. The tone of this essay is anger towards men.
             The salient details are the cuentos told by Mama. This essay focuses on the narrative story that Mama transmits to her daughters and granddaughters when they get together and the boys are playing ball. Maria la Loca is the cuento always told by Mama, sometimes embellishing it with a little or more dramatic details. Maria is the pretty's woman in the pueblo, and she is supposed to marry to the most handsome and wealthy boy in the pueblo; however, she is left all dressed up at the altar the day of her wedding. She is traumatized by the experience and become disoriented and loses any notion of time, and from that time on she is known as Maria la Loca. Mama tells this story especially for the single girls in the house. She says that a girl should never trust foreign men coming to the pueblo; those men are only looking for a good time with women, and would never married women of the pueblo since the majority of these men are married in other cities of the island. Ortiz was a little girl when she heard this particular cuento. She was too young to hear this story; she was only twelve years old. However, Ortiz managed to hear Mama's cuento by pretending that she was playing with her doll and was not paying attention to the story. The cuento of Maria la Loca was directed towards her aunt Laura who was seventeen became engaged not long before, and she has been trying on a wedding dress for the past few days; nevertheless, Laura did not have a set day for her wedding. Mama continues with her cuento while she is sitting in her rocking chair and all of her daughters surrounding her; Mama said: "this macho made a fool out of her and ruined her life." Mama
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