Analysis of Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
Caramelo has been quite an interesting novel. It describes a Hispanic family to the tee. Sandra Cisneros chose her title perfectly for this book. Life’s hardships and possibilities are explored throughout this fascinating novel.
The author describes the word caramelo in different ways and in two different occasions. The first occasion was to describe Candelarias’ skin color. Celaya quoted: “Her skin a caramelo. A color so sweet, it hurts to even look at her.” (p.37). She also says: “Her skin is as smooth as peanut butter and deep as burnt-milk candy. The other occasion caramelo is mentioned was to describe the awful grandmothers’ rare, old, unique, and unfinished silk rebozo. “The grandfather pulls out a cloth from the walnut-wood armoire of caramel, licorice, and vanilla stripes.” (p.58) These two events are mostly connected by the description of color. The author describes Candelarias’ skin color being so sweet it hurts, much like a very sweet candy would. Much like the candy is sweet, so is Candelaria and her personality.
I believe Cisneros chose Caramelo because a caramelo or candy cane has dark and bright long stripes on it. To me the stripes indicate a person’s life span. They also symbolize the dark, dreadful times we all go through and the bright stripes would tell the joyous, wonderful times we have in life. In addition, the stripes twirl around and around similar to our lives. Everyone’s life has a curve or tu...
This novel is a story of a Chicano family. Sofi, her husband Domingo together with their four daughters – Esperanza, Fe, Caridad, and Loca live in the little town of Tome, New Mexico. The story focuses on the struggles of Sofi, the death of her daughters and the problems of their town. Sofi endures all the hardships and problems that come her way. Her marriage is deteriorating; her daughters are dying one by one. But, she endures it all and comes out stronger and more enlightened than ever. Sofi is a woman that never gives up no matter how poorly life treats her. The author- Ana Castillo mixes religion, super natural occurrences, sex, laughter and heartbreak in this novel. The novel is tragic, with no happy ending but at the same time funny and inspiring. It is full of the victory of the human spirit. The names of Sofi’s first three daughters denote the three major Christian ideals (Hope, Faith and Charity).
Candide’s initial encounter with this condition comes in the form of “… a beggar who was covered with pustules, his eyes were sunken, the end of his nose rotted off, his mouth twisted, his teeth black, he had a croaking voice and a hacking cough, and spat a tooth every time he tried to speak.” (105) With wickedly cynic humor, Voltaire reveals to us that this beggar is the perennially optimistic Pangloss. Not recognizing him, Candide gives the beggar money. Pangloss gratefully falls on Candide, who recoils in horror and wonders what happened. Yet his question regarding Pangloss’ fate, without waiting for an answer, is quickly followed by questions about Cunégonde. Candide’s reaction, unlike that of the Buddha, betrays that he remains fixated on the bloom of his desired Cunégonde. Candide faces more infirmities throughout his story, including that of the old woman who is missing a buttock due to cannibalism (118), and the disfigured slave who bleakly tells him that “If we catch a finger in the sugar mill where we work, they cut off our hand; if we try to run away, they cut off our leg: I have undergone both these experiences. This is the price of the sugar you eat in Europe.” (131) Here Voltaire reveals to the reader Candide’s empathy as he weeps for this complete
“Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, is a beautiful romantic tale of an impossible passionate love during the revolution in Mexico. The romance is followed by the sweet aroma of kitchen secrets and cooking, with a lot of imagination and creativity. The story is that of Tita De La Garza, the youngest of all daughters in Mama Elena’s house. According to the family tradition she is to watch after her mother till the day she does, and therefore cannot marry any men. Tita finds her comfort in cooking, and soon the kitchen becomes her world, affecting every emotion she experiences to the people who taste her food. Esquivel tells Titas story as she grows to be a mature, blooming women who eventually rebels against her mother, finds her true identity and reunites with her long lost love Pedro. The book became a huge success and was made to a movie directed by Alfonso Arau. Although they both share many similarities, I also found many distinct differences. The movie lost an integral part of the book, the sensual aspect of the cooking and love.
Cisneros depicts Mango Street as a rough neighborhood, but she also conveys a sense of community. She writes down that “we are safe,” (Cisneros, 28) to indicate that she can find the sense of community. Even if the author does not think she belongs to Mango Street, she does not deny that her community lives there. At the beginning of The House on Mango Street, Cisneros states that “I had to have a house. A real house,” (Cisneros, 5) illustrating that after knowing the American society’s evaluation criteria of success, she wants to follow the upward mobility and be viewed as a successful figure not only because she wants to be appreciated but also because white people will change their stereotypes of Hispanic people if they see that a Hispanic woman can be as successful as other whites. Her ambition triggers her to want to explore the meaning of being a Hispanic girl in the real world. Furthermore, in the “My name” session, the author depicts her great-grandmother’s life. “She looked out the window her whole life… but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.” (Cisneros, 11) Cisneros wants a marriage formed because of love, like most white people do; her desire indicates that she wants to live like the whites, so that they will respect her and the Hispanic race later. In addition, Cisneros points out that she
In addition to these similarities, they are both wide-eyed young boys, extremely impressionable and eager to please. Candide accepts Doctor Pangloss’ theories of metaphysico-theologoco-cosmonology without question. In layman’s terms this is a ridiculous take on the belief that everything happens for a reason. Voltaire is making a satirical jab at religion as well as philosophers [2] ; Candide blindly follows the teachings of Doctor Pangloss, even though he does not fully understand the ideas, as if they were words from a god.
In the novel Candide, Pangloss is not a believable character. He is an exaggeration, a representation of the kind of philosopher whose personality is inseparable from his philosophy. His continued optimism is subject to most of the satire found in the novel, and through forcing Pangloss to interact with the cruel world around him, Voltaire can attack the ideas Pangloss represents. His idea that this world is the best of all possible worlds is attacked frequently by Voltaire in the novel, and when covering the subject of idle philosophy, Pangloss is an example of how not to behave. It is through Pangloss that we truly see Voltaire’s feelings, as he uses Pangloss as an exaggeration of what not
Voltaire's Candide is a novel which contains conceptual ideas and at the same time is also exaggerated. Voltaire offers sad themes disguised by jokes and witticism, and the story itself presents a distinctive outlook on life. The crucial contrast in the story deals with irrational ideas as taught to Candide about being optimistic, versus reality as viewed by the rest of the world.
As the first major U.S. success for a Spanish language film, Como Agua Para Chocolate (Alfonso Arau, 1992) has had a major impact on Hispanic culture and the future of Hispanic cinema. This film has many implicit and explicit layers that challenge typical cultural ideals, not only in Hispanic culture, but in various cultures across the world. Based on his wife, Laura Esquivel’s novel, Arau used this film, known commonly as Like Water for Chocolate, to bring to the surface the liberation of females through the empowerment of food. Although food and cooking are often associated with the oppression and generalization of Hispanic women, Like Water for Chocolate captivates an empowering view of women using intimate and heightened cinematography of the food.
She was not a master of style, plot development or characterization, but the intensity of feeling and aspiration are evident in her narratives that overrides her imperfections. Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, written in 1984, and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, published in 1925, are both aimed at adolescent and adult audiences that deal with deeply disturbing themes about serious social conditions and their effects on children as adults. Both books are told in the first person; both narrators are young girls living in destitute neighborhoods; and both young girls witness the harsh realities of life for those who are poor, abused, and hopeless. Although the narrators face these overwhelming obstacles, they manage to survive their tough environments with their wits and strength remaining intact. Esperanza, a Chicano with three sisters and one brother, has had a dream of having her own things since she was ten years old.
Writing in the 20th century was great deal harder for a Chicano then it was for a typical American at this time. Although that did not stop this author, Sandra Cisneros. One of her famous novels, Woman Hollering Creek was a prime example of how a combined culture: Mexican-Americans, could show their pride and identity in this century. In conjunction, gave the opportunity for women to speak their voice and forever change the culture of Latino/a markets. Not only did it express identity/gender roles of women and relationships, but using these relationships to combine the cultures of Mexican and American into a hybrid breed. This novel, should have been a view-point for the future to show that there is more to life than just gender and race. Concluding this, the articles that helps define this is “The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature” and “What is called Heaven”.
...book. These symbols and recurrences are not coincidental or superficial, but upon investigation, give deeper insight into how deeply the mindset of our main character was affected. We now know that Felipe had almost no choice and was lulled into this household. Then there is a plausible explanation about the true relationship between Aura and Senora Consuelo. This book turns out to be a very strange life/death cycle that still leaves questions that need to be answered.
When looking at the women in Voltaire’s “Candide”, a reader will see that this lines up exactly to the characters actions and traits. Trying to define the females of “Candide” is important because we can begin to understand the motives and reasoning behind each decision and thought that is made. These women understand that they have no real voice or power to change the world. The only way they can make an impact on the world is through the body of a man. These women may not have had the most successful or happy life, but they made the best life they could despite the hardships they had to
“Home is where the heart is.” In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops this famous statement to depict what a “home” really represents. What is a home? Is it a house with four walls and a roof, the neighborhood of kids while growing up, or a unique Cleaver household where everything is perfect and no problems arise? According to Cisneros, we all have our own home with which we identify; however, we cannot always go back to the environment we once considered our dwelling place. The home, which is characterized by who we are, and determined by how we view ourselves, is what makes every individual unique. A home is a personality, a depiction of who we are inside and how we grow through our life experiences. In her personal, Cisneros depicts Esperanza Cordero’s coming-of-age through a series of vignettes about her family, neighborhood, and personalized dreams. Although the novel does not follow a traditional chronological pattern, a story emerges, nevertheless, of Esperanza’s search to discover the meaning of her life and her personal identity. The novel begins when the Cordero family moves into a new house, the first they have ever owned, on Mango Street in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza is disappointed by the “small and red” house “with tight steps in front and bricks crumbling in places” (5). It is not at all the dream-house her parents had always talked about, nor is it the house on a hill that Esperanza vows to one day own for herself. Despite its location in a rough neighborhood and difficult lifestyle, Mango Street is the place with which she identifies at this time in her life.
These points may be amply demonstrated through an analysis of Candide itself and also through the views of important critics. To best appreciate this novel, however, some background concerning its origins and its relationship to the author's preoccupations should be mentioned.
Voltaire's Candide captures the extremes of human suffering, providing a disparaging account of what many of us would deem an unbearable cross to carry. While the author's message was not to glorify his characters for their resilience, the reader will clearly feel humbled after learning of the intense suffering that Candide and friends endure. In particular, it is the story of the old woman, who perhaps best explains the spirit of the characters, when she says 'A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but I always loved life more.' Considering that she has been raped repeatedly and essentially gone from riches to rags, her passion for life should remain unquestioned. Candide also displays this sense of hope in light of his many hardships. He honors his commitment to marry Cunegonde at the end of the story despite the physical abnormalities that have plagued her. Cunegonde, as you may remember, was also raped and taken as a sex slave. In addition, she was a victim of cannibalism and her face has clearly made a turn for the worse. Essentially, her once beautiful physique has undergone a complete transformation.