The antagonist Mama Elena in the novel, Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquivel, portrays, throughout the novel, an authoritarian woman. Her authoritarian characteristic is the reason why Mama Elena makes Tita´s life, her youngest daughter and the protagonist of the novel, impossible. Mama Elena´s downs on her life, like having to take over the ranch on her own after the death of her husband, build up a strict woman: “Ignoring Tita completely, a very angry Mama Elena left the kitchen, and for the next week she didn’t speak a single word to her” (12). She imposes severe punishments towards disobedience. Tita, as her sisters and the people who work there, knows the rules established by Mama Elena, and they are afraid of breaking them. Mama Elena learns to intimidate, for her being a strict woman, needs a single look that would make you shiver. Intimidate became one of her best armaments. For Mama Elena intimidate, always seemed to work, even with a Capitan of the Mexican Revolution, who didn’t escape from Mama Elena´s best armaments: “It was really hard to meet Mama Elena´s...
Minerva is able to show her courage at a dinner party thrown by Trujillo, the dictator at the time. At the party she went to reluctantly, Trujillo asks Minerva to dance. Knowing of Trujillo’s offensive past with females, she is hesitant to accept, but says
To keep her daughter’s “virtue” intact Macaria beats her. In this way the mother establishes complete control over Marcela’s sexuali...
Derby Lauren, The Dictator's Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime, Callaloo 23.3. Summer 2000, pp. 1112-1146.
1. Tita Quote: "Tita was so sensitive to onions, any time they were being chopped, they say she would just cry and cry; " (Pg. 5) 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.
In both Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate and Robinson Jeffers’ Medea hypocrisy and familial oppression engender subversion of societal convention and gender norms in Medea and Tita; who thus strive to attain justice and defeat their oppressors, albeit through different means. It appears as though, in both works, it is the acts of the family and society against the women, which consequently extinguish or smother some sort of romantic love, that are the root cause of their subversive actions. Needless to say, both protagonists strive to uproot their oppressors and either enact vengeance or kindle a romance. Both women go against their pre-designated role in society, and at times ironically dominate over their male counterparts. The way both characters finally attain freedom and defeat their oppressor is by directly defying them, by going against established cultural and gender roles. Incidentally the feminist sentiment that naturally accompanies this is purposeful, and is used by the authors to show how women need to be powerful in order to attain what they want in a male dominated society. The final ways they conquer their oppressors is by freeing themselves symbolically and becoming outsiders that are away from the all too unjust world they knew.
“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.
From an early age, family enables one to face a challenge with good judgment and confidence. When Isabel is informed of the news of Ruth being sold, she develops a strong malice towards Madam (133). Because she knows the repercussions for harming her superior, Isabel demonstrates strong self-control by accepting the news without physically retaliating. In addition to self-control, Isabel exemplifies her courage. After attempting to run away, she is branded with the letter "I" for insolence, which to her is supposed to be detrimental (148). Rather than be torn down by this symbol, Isabel remembers the advice of her father. Similar to her father considering scars as a symbol of strength, she considers the branding as a symbol of strength. In fact, she even determines that the letter "I" will
The story of “Cane River” follows the lives of three woman; Suzette, Philomene, and Emily. These woman experience many hardships, and tragedies throughout their lives, but through it all they still find a way for their family to prosper. I chose this story to write about because there was one woman “Cane River” that reminded me my mother. Suzettes mother Elisabeth is the one who made the lives of all these woman possible. She isn’t really mentioned, and she is kind of invisible, but has her say-so’s throughout the story. I also believe she is not understood by her daughter because to me they tend to bump heads a little in the story. This reason in particular is why Elisabeth reminds me of my mother, Diane.
Grande introduces to the audience various characters that cross Juana 's path to either alter or assist her on her journey to find her father. Through those individuals, Grande offers a strong comparison of female characters who follow the norms, versus those that challenge gender roles that
An oppressed soul finds means to escape through the preparation of food in the novel, Like Water for Chocolate (1992). Written by Laura Esquivel, the story is set in revolutionary Mexico at the turn of the century. Tita, the young heroine, is living on her family’s ranch with her two older sisters, her overbearing mother, and Nacha, the family cook and Tita’s surrogate mother. At a very young age, Tita is instilled with a deep love for food "for Tita, the joy of living was wrapped up in the delights of food" (7). The sudden death of Tita's father, left Tita's mother's unable to nurse the infant Tita due to shock and grief. Therefore Nacha, "who [knows] everything about cooking" (6) offers to assume the responsibility of feeding and caring for the young Tita. "From that day on, Tita's domain was the kitchen" (7). Throughout the novel, food is used as a constant metaphor for the intense feelings and emotions Tita is forced to conceal.
The starting point of this book shows how much she hates Ms.Leone and complaining about her current situations. For example, in one of her first entries, she talks about when she got in trouble for coming home late from school. Her foster parents think she is doing drugs, so they search her. After that they lock her in the laundry room. ...
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.
Relating to Alvarez and her struggle is very easy and well known in every generation. Society puts a ridiculous high standard on outer appearances, especially for girls and women. Women grasp the perspective of the standards that are set and put them into drive. Women become stressed, emotional, and nutcases because they want to please others instead of pleasing themselves. In some cases, women have died trying to live up to these customaries, if not becoming dangerously ill. As a young lady, knowing what could happen, frightens but doesn’t phase me. Wi...
Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, set in the late 1900’s, tells a story of Oscar Wao, an overweight Dominican “ghetto nerd”, his mother and rebellious sister who live together in Paterson, New Jersey. Throughout the novel, Diaz incorporates many different stories about each character that show acts of resistance. One of the most prominent stories of resistance in the novel is through Oscar’s mom; Beli, who is prompted by great tragedy, known as the Trujillo curse, to love atomically and thus follow a dangerous path. Beli’s family history plays a large role in her choices that eventually compel her into a different life than what her adopted mother, La Inca, had wanted
...re many similarities when it comes to technique, characterization, themes, and ideologies based on the author's own beliefs and life experiences. However, we also see that it appears the author herself often struggles with the issue of being herself and expressing her own individuality, or obeying the rules, regulations and mores of a society into which she was born an innocent child, one who by nature of her sex was deemed inferior to men who controlled the definition of the norms. We see this kind of environment as repressive and responsible for abnormal psyches in the plots of many of her works.