Rosario Castellanos's Culinary Lesson By Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz

Rosario Castellanos was born during the takeoff of feminism. She was determined to go through life differently than her mother and grandmother did. Castellanos was greatly influenced by exploring past generations, but she was also influenced by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Sor Juana’s work shows how self-education convinces women to feel accepted and important regardless of what society says. Rosario Castellanos was greatly influenced by Sor Juana de la Cruz, and thus Castellanos’ works reflect her support for women in education, but in a more humorous sense. One of Castellanos’ short stories, “Culinary Lesson”, illustrates Rosario Castellanos’ firm belief that women should be educated and do things outside of the home; her influences came from her early life and from her studies of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. Castellanos’, Culinary Lesson, is a continuation of Sor Juana’s, “The Self, the World”, except with an added twist of humor and sarcasm.

Rosario Castellanos studied not only Sor Juana Ines de la Cruzs’ works, but her life as well. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was a powerful seventeenth century Latin American woman. Growing up Juana was a huge reader to the point where she would hide in chapels to read her grandfather’s books. At the mere age of eight years old, Juana composed her first poem. In her early teenage years she was already an expert on Greek logic, and was teaching Latin to young children. This is ironic because she was a young child as she was teaching young children. Juana went as far as attempting to disguise herself so she could go to a university to study, but her family forbade her to do so. Instead of disguising herself, she simply studied in silence until age sixteen, but the silence would not remain for long....

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...iety deemed, Castellanos incorporates humor and sarcasm. This brings a different light on the issue. Culinary Lesson is a continuation of “The Self, the World”. Knowing that Castellanos studied Sor Juana’s life, it is apparent that the two literary works go hand-in-hand. By the time the twentieth century comes along, it is clear that society is taking into consideration how ridiculous gender roles have been in the past. Sor Juana studied and became a nun to avoid having a husband, and Castellanos shows how having a husband bring stress from silly circumstances. The humor and irony used in Castellans’ story truly gets the point across of how women’s gender roles are rigged. Women’s roles in society are not fully there yet even in the twenty-first century, but thanks to Latin American authors like Sor Juana and Rosario Castellanos they are close to being equal to men.