Literature often words complex phenomena, which otherwise possibly remain ignored. One example of such complex phenomena is the coexistence of two contradictory elements, dominance and love. Dominant personalities in Like Water for Chocolate and The House of Bernarda Alba, Mama Elena and Bernarda Alba respectively, do not explicitly display love towards their daughters, but it is revealed by their behaviour and uncharacteristic actions.
Some elements of characterization or narrative mode in both the works try to limit the reader’s perception of the dominant personalities to their static characteristics. In Like Water for Chocolate, we are told the story from a limited subjective third person point of view. Tita’s grandniece is a limited narrator, who knows absolutely everything about a single character of Tita and every piece of knowledge in that character's mind, but it is ‘limited’ to that character – that is, things unknown to the focal character (Tita) are not described. So, this point of view may be considered unreliable. The presence of Tita’s hatred towards Mama Elena almost throughout the book, and the portrayal of Mama Elena as a ‘haunting’ character as a ghost, also contribute to limited perspective of the work. We are presented with only one static feature of Mama Elena. In The House of Bernarda Alba, even though the use of dialogue broadens the range the perspectives, Bernarda’s dialogue compared to that of others is limited. The fact that there is no soliloquy with Bernarda can imply a limitation to the perspectives open to the reader. We are shown only the dominant side of Bernarda’s character. The hatred of Poncia, who is one of the few characters shown from different perspectives, towards Bernarda can also be considered as a limiting factor of the perspectives. Thus, the reader’s perception is narrowed down.
While Mama Elena and Bernarda Alba are seen as tyrants from a rather narrow perspective, they can otherwise be seen as traditionalist mothers. From this fresh perspective, it could be argued that Mama Elena is nothing more than an orthodox mother who assorted to cruel methods including corporal punishment to mould her children in her own best way. From Mama Elena’s perspective, she makes choices that are, as she “[thinks] best for [them]” (p. 167). This perspective is particularly relevant to the upbringing of Tita: “Magi never brought [Tita] what she asked for, but instead what Mama Elena thought best for her.” (p. 167) Mama Elena’s character as a traditionalist mother is further revealed from specific incidents: providing Tita something “better” than Three King’s Day Bread, forcing Tita to re-sew her stitches because she did not baste it (p.
...ave begged for her son and grandchildren life instead of trying save her life. The type of literary element shown here is conflict. The type of conflict that is shown is man versus man because the grandmother is constantly trying to convince someone in doing something else. It also shows conflict because the grandmother was begging for her life, but at the end that did not work because she ended up getting killed either way.
To keep her daughter’s “virtue” intact Macaria beats her. In this way the mother establishes complete control over Marcela’s sexuali...
Write-up: Tita is the main character of the story, also the narrator, who suffers from unjust oppression from Mama Elena, her mother. She is raised to excel in the kitchen and many entertaining arts where she is expected to spend her whole life taking care of her mother. This is following the family tradition that the youngest daughter takes care of the mother until she dies. With her frivolous wants, Mama Elena denies her marriage and happiness to any man especially Pedro. She eventually breaks down and meets John Brown, the family doctor, who recovers her until she finds happiness again after Mama Elena's death with Pedro. Overall, Tita goes through a very dynamic change in the story which obviously entitles her to be a main character.
"Love in L.A.," written by Dagoberto Gilb, is a story full of irony and multiple themes. The story is set in Hollywood during the summer time. Written in third person objective, "Love in L.A." guides the reader along through the story as opposed to an omniscient point of view.
The story begins with Titas birth prematurely when Mama Elena was chopping onions. Tita grows up with Nacha the most dominant figure in her life, and follows Mama Elenas routine of cooking, cleaning and sewing. At every incident she can, Mama Elena criticizes Tita and even beats her if she tries to speak up. One day Tita tells her mother that Pedro wants to come and ask for her hand, but according to the family tradition she cannot marry because she is the youngest daughter. Mama Elena tells Pedro he can marry Rosaura- one of her older daughters, and Pedro agrees to the arrangement just to be closer to his true love- Tita.
Women will do almost anything for love, to be loved, or to keep love. That is their mission. When women become jealous, however, the love they want to hold onto disappears, becomes selfishness, and one does not know if it is love anymore. In the short story “The Lady, or the Tiger?” written by Frank R. Stockton, a semi barbaric princess motions which door her lover, the accused man, must open to either receive punishment or a reward. The punishment is to be devoured by a fierce tiger and the reward is to be married to a lovely damsel of the court. This semi barbaric princess loves the man and chooses which door the man deserves to open. Like many women in love, this princess would not dare to let another woman take her lover away from her. Instead, jealousy takes over and the door that opens will emerge a tiger because she will go berserk to see her man happy with another woman, and will prefer to have him eaten by a tiger and await the princess herself on a heavenly earth.
In the story “Love in L.A” written by Dagoberto Gilb, the main character Jake is living his life as a lie. Jake is daydreaming about a better car and life when he causes an accident on the L.A. freeway. Instead of Jake driving away, he decides to face the issue and realizes the person he hit is a beautiful young woman. From there Jake begins to tell lies to impress the women but, the truth was, Jake didn’t have a steady occupation or insurance and his fear of the unknown kept him untruthful. In the fiction story “Love in L.A.”, irony is used because, although Jake dreamed about a better life he wasn’t willing to do anything to change his current life, as well as make better decisions.
To understand fully the implicit meaning and cultural challenges the film presents, a general knowledge of the film’s contents must be presented. The protagonist, Tita, suffers from typical Hispanic cultural oppression. The family rule, a common rule in this culture, was that the youngest daughter is to remain unwed for the duration of her mother’s life, and remain home to care for her. Mama Elena offers her daughter, Tita’s older sister Rosaura, to wed a man named Pedro, who is unknowingly in mutual love with Tita. Tita is forced to bake the cake for the wedding, which contains many tears that she cried during the process. Tita’s bitter tears cause all the wedding guests to become ill after consuming the cake, and Tita discovers she can influence others through her cooking. Throughout the film, Tita’s cooking plays an important role in all the events that transpire.
We all have expectations, something that we expect as a result of something we did, but what about the unexpected something that we did but never fathomed the consequences? We often times call the unexpected a “curve ball” and that’s exactly what happened to the couples in the short essays “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and “Good People” by David Foster Wallace, they were thrown a curve ball. The couples in the short stories have extremely hard decisions to make. The woman have the most important decision to make and the men have to decide to support the women in the lives or make a decision to move on. Sheri will most likely have her baby because she cancelled the abortion and she has bonded with her baby in her womb, and Lane Dean Jr. will marry her because he realizes he loves her. On the other hand Jig will most likely have the abortion because she fears the American will leave her if she doesn’t, and the American will stay with her because now they can travel without a baby spoiling his plans.
In the gothic novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the author hides motifs within the story.The novel contains two major love stories;The wild love of Catherine, and Heathcliff juxtaposing the serene love of Cathy,and Hareton. Catherine’s and Heathcliff's love is the center of Emily Bronte’s novel ,which readers still to this day seem to remember.The characters passion, and obsession for each other seems to not have been enough ,since their love didn't get to thrive. Hareton and Cathy’s love is what got to develop. Hareton’s and Cathy’s love got to workout ,because both characters contained a characteristic that both characters from the first generation lacked: The ability to change .Bronte employs literary devices such as antithesis of ideas, and the motif of repetition to reveal the destructiveness of wild love versus a domestic love.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of Love in the Time of Cholera, depicts his characters by having them act in certain ways, in ways of love and care towards others. Each character acts certain ways to certain people, either to gain respect, love, friendship or hatred. Marquez’s character Florentino Ariza, is desperately in love with Fermina Daza, a beautiful young lady (early in the novel), who promises him her hand in marriage then breaks that promise by marrying Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Although heartbroken Ariza’s love for Fermina would still continue over many long years, thus showing how much he was in love with her.
In the "Widower's Tango", the relationship between Pablo Neruda and Josie fell apart due to jealousy, distrust, anger, mental abuse, the threat of death, Neruda's infatuation. Pablo Neruda was deeply in love with a woman named Josie, who reciprocated his affection, and they became lovers. Despite their feelings for one another, the bond between them was broken. Josie was too in love with Neruda. She was clingy and worried that Neruda would leave her; however, her fears would be founded, for Neruda only saw her as a passing fancy.
The human relationship can be interpreted as interpersonal or intimate; stemming from these two classifications are many of the reasons for characteristic development within human nature. By studying literary works we can glimpse into human behavior and learn what actually causes a person’s actions and downfalls. Many of these works have shown the effects a dominant and inferior relationship may cause, ranging from self-independence to parental influence. We’ve seen the defiance of rulers, the mimicking actions of father and son, the comparison of siblings, and the rebellion of a son.
In The House of Bernarda Alba readers get to know Bernarda the mother of five daughters. Bernarda often comes across as a mean woman who just wishes to control her daughters, while in reality she just wants to do what she feels will best protect them. “Until I leave this house feet first, I will make the decisions—my own, and yours!” (Lorca, 223) This makes Bernarda sound like bit of a control freak, as she is basically telling her daughter Angustias that over her dead body will she fight with her sister Magdalena; however, she really is just trying to keep peace and protect them. Then in The Family of Pascual Duarte readers are introduced to Pascual’s mother, whose actions do not show that she cares much about protecting her children. “My father and mother didn’t get along at all. They had been badly brought up, were endowed with no special virtues, and could not resign themselves to their lot.” (Cela, 24) Pascual’s parents, but especially his mother, did not care enough about the safety and well-being of the child in the home to lay aside their differences or find a better way to deal with the problems at hand. Not only that, but it could be a fight over the simplest of things. “So that any circumstance,
Fermina Daza was raised in an environment where women’s success is based on her ability to marry a man of honor and monetary value. She is expected to be brought up in this manner by a fellow female or mother; however Fermina’s mother died when Fermina was very young, thus her father, Lorenzo Daza, an illiterate mule trader, was left to take on the role. Márquez identifies Lorenzo’s motives and expectations for Fermina as he states, “When [Lorenzo Daza’s] wife died, he had set only one goal for himself: to turn his daughter into a great lady.” His emphasis on his one goal for Fermina infers that he did not necessarily have the to intentions to build or establish a communicative relationship with his daughter. He wanted better for Fe...