The question of who holds the power in a heterosexual relationship is also evident in Cesar's six-month romance with Celia. Celia, a non-traditional woman accustomed to making her own choices, initially seems capable of halting Cesar's downward spiral into alcoholism and misery. However, their relationship encounters an unresolvable crisis one evening when Cesar becomes excessively drunk. In an attempt to keep him home, Celia ties him up with a clothesline. Feeling literally confined by domesticity, Cesar becomes enraged. Unable to forgive her for having "tried to reduce me in my stature," he ends the relationship, asserting that no woman "can be allowed to do that to a man." Although Celia overstepped, it ultimately harms Cesar more to leave her and ignore her valuable advice: "What you have to do is learn to be content with what you have in this world, hombre."