This essay will discuss Almodóvar’s portrayal of motherhood in the films of ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984), Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1987) and Carne trémula (1997). Also, this essay will answer the question, are ‘bad mothers’ treated more positively than ‘absent fathers’? Pedro Almodóvar has a unique way to portray certain subjects in his films, as Brad Epps and Despina Kakoudaki describe him, “Pedro Almodóvar is something of a paradox, scintillatingly so. Celebrated and denigrated by critics as serious and superficial, political and apolitical, moral and immoral, feminist and misogynist, experimental and sentimental, universal and provincial” (2009:1). One of the main subjects he portrays in his movies is family …show more content…
Pepa returns home from the airport to find that Marisa has just had the most wonderful erotic dream and feels as though she is no longer a virgin, even though nobody else (no other man) was involved in the process. It is at this point that Pepa tells for the first time that she is to have the baby and that she will raise the baby alone, without Iván. She has overcome her breakdown because she realises that she no longer needs Iván in her life to raise the baby, she realised that she is a strong, independent woman and she is more than able to raise a baby on her own. In this case Iván not only left Lucía with Carlos, he is also leaving Pepa alone with her baby. This shows that Iván is a terrible father figure, he is not only left one woman, but he is abandoning the second woman. This results that Pepa’s child will grow up in a broken family with an absent father.
In Carne trémula (1997) one of the main characters, Victor Plaza, who is presented to us as a good, if somewhat pushy, a young man who is very sexually inexperienced. Also demonstrates obsessive behaviour and a disinclination to hear ‘no’ particularly from women. The fact that his mother was a prostitute has affected his relationships with women. His misfortune is tied to his
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The movie follows a circular story line, as Almodóvar said in the same interview above,
I like the two births in the film – the first in a desolate city living in fear, the second in a city full of people and joy, a city which has forgotten its fear. And for me, that note of optimism, following on from a story that has more than a hint of tragedy about it, comes as a breath of fresh air (2006:180).
She cheated on her husband, David, once she didn’t feel guilty anymore about him being disabled and when she realised it was Sancho’s fault and Victor was innocent. As a result of this Elena and Victor has a love affair and this leads to her giving birth at the end of the movie. Where Elena and Victor were prepared for the baby and they were about to start their family together. Which means for once in the movie we see a good mother and father figure, unlike Victor’s parents, his mother as an uneducated and a prostitute, bad mother figure and his absent
Alfredo Corchado — is the author of the book named " Midnight in Mexico:A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness”. We are, probably, all interested in finding out the facts, news, and gossips about Mexico. This country was always associated with something mysterious. For me personally, the title of the book seemed to be very gripping, I was interested in revealing the secrets of life in Mexico, thus I decided to read this book. I was really curious, what can Alfredo Corchado tell me about the life in this country, the country, where the constant massacre is the picture, people used to see. In his book, the author tells the reader about the real situations, which took place in Mexico, reveals the secrets of the people’s lives and tells the story from the “inside”. He describes the way he lives his life, and does his work. The " Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness” is a memoir. Author tries to transform his own experience into the story line. Corchado shows the reader the darkest episodes of Mexican society, while relying on his own experience.
Doña Guadalupe is a woman of great strength and power, power and strength which she draws from her devout faith and her deep and loving compassion for her family, and power and strength which is passed down to her children. “‘Well, then, come in,’ she said, deciding that she could be handle this innocent-girl-stealing coyote inside. On going into the long tent, Salvador felt like he’d entered the web of a spider, the old woman was eyeing him so deliberately” (360). Doña Guadalupe is a very protective woman, which is extremely speculative when it comes to her children, this is especially true when it comes to boys, because she has not gone this far only for all of her hard work to be ruined by a no good boy. This shows how protective she is, she loves her family, and especially her kids so much that they themselves must pass her test before being able to pass on to her children. “The newborns were moving, squirming, reaching out for life. It was truly a sign from God” (58). Doña Guadalupe is also a very devout and faithful person. She sees God in everything and in everyone and by that fact, what she sees and who she sees is true, and she tries to be a model of clairvoyance for the family. “Doña Guadalupe put the baby’s little feet in a bowel of warm water, and the child clinging to his mother. He never cried, listening to her heartbeat, the same music that he’d heard from inside the womb” (57). Finally, Doña Guadalupe is very passionate which allows for a great model upon which her children follow. This further shows how she is clearly th...
To keep her daughter’s “virtue” intact Macaria beats her. In this way the mother establishes complete control over Marcela’s sexuali...
Write-up: Mama Elena is a stern and bitter woman who oppresses Tita to be her caretaker through the family tradition. She keeps Tita from her true love, Pedro, and it is later revealed that Mama Elena herself once suffered from a lost love, embittering her for the rest of her life. Any child of her is deemed unworthy when he/she does something that is against her "rules." She takes this to the extreme where the rules are imposed on her more "public family," John Brown and Pedro included. Her stern stature is noted when her daunting gaze makes the Revolutionary general Juan Trevino uneasy. Eventually, her pride and distrust is revealed to be her major flaw which causes her death.
Junot Diaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is focused on the hyper-masculine culture of the Dominican, and many argue that his portrayal of the slew of women in the novel is misogynistic because they are often silenced by the plot and kept out of the narration (Matsui). However, Diaz crafts strong women, and it is society that views them as objects. The novel recognizes the masculine lens of the culture while still examining the lives of resilient women. In this way, the novel showcases a feminist stance and critiques the misogynist culture it is set in by showcasing the strength and depth of these women that help to shape the narrative while acknowledging that it is the limits society places on them because of their sexuality
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.
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
Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.
Family is one of the most important institutions in society. Family influences different aspects of a person’s life, such as their religion, values, morals and behavior. Unfortunately, problems may arise when an individual’s belief system or behavior does not coincide with that of family standards. Consequently, individuals may be forced to repress their emotions or avoid acting in ways that that are not acceptable to the family. In the novel The Rain God, written by Arturo Islas, we are presented with a story about a matriarchal family that deals with various conflicts. One major internal conflict is repression. Throughout the novel the characters act in strange ways and many of the family members have internal “monsters” that represent the past that they are repressing. In his article, “The Historical Imagination in Arturo Islas’s The Rain God and Migrant Souls”, Antonio C. Marquez’s implicitly asserts a true idea that The Rain God is a story about repression. Marquez’s idea can be supported from an analysis of secondary sources and a reading of the primary text.
Growing up in a Latino base community there were numerous instances that metaphor,“si me voy con la Luna o el Sol”, which means either you choose the Sun (Dad) or Moon (Mother), was used just to see who the kids prefered .Therefore creating, the environment that children would be repeatedly asked to choose the ultimatum between parents. In the reading “Mamitis and the Traumas of Development in a Colonia Popular of Mexico City” by Matthew C. Gutmann and “Bad Boys and Good Girls: The Implications of Gender Ideology for Child Health in Jamaica” by Carolyn Sargent and Michael Harris correlations between class in their countries and how it impacts family developments. The Essay will focus on Gutmann’s reading on mamitis gender expectation, secondly how Sargent’s reading tackles the issue of
Junot Diaz's short story “Fiesta, 1980” gives an insight into the everyday life of a lower class family, a family with a troubled young boy, Yunior and a strong, abusive father, Papi. The conflict, man vs. man is one of the central themes of this story. This theme is portrayed through the conflicts between Papi and his son. Papi asserts his dominance in what can be considered unfashionable ways. Unconsciously, every action Papi makes yields negative reactions for his family. Yunior simply yearns for a tighter bond with his father, but knows-just like many other members of his family-Papi’s outlandish ways hurts him. As the story unfolds it becomes obvious that the conflicts between Papi and himself-along with conflicts between Yunior and himself-affect not only them as individuals, but their family as a whole.
Federico García Lorca’s poem “La casada infiel” depicts the story of a gypsy who makes love to a married woman on the shore of a river. When looking deeper into the poem, Lorca appears to provide a critical observation on the values of the conservative society at the time in which he lived. The woman, at her most basic reading, is treated as an object, elaborating on the sexist values in society at the time. Lorca addresses issues of sexism as well as issues of sexuality within society mainly through the poem’s sexist narrative voice, objectification of the female character and overriding sense of a lack of desire throughout the poem. His achievement to do so will be analysed throughout this commentary with particular attention to Lorca’s use of poetic techniques such as diction, personification and imagery.
...is wife and daughters"(Horowitz, 1983, p.68). "Fathers are seen as rigid, closed, and distant"(Horowitz, 1983, p.68). The father leaves the bonding to the mother and just disciplines and supports the child. In The Flats, most mothers take on all the responsibilities, whereas in the Mexican society, the mother takes on the role only as the caretaker.
Within the works of “Fiesta, 1980” it takes us in the lives of a Latin American family. We are described a traditional style Latino family were there is a dominate father figure, a submissive mother, and obedient children more or less. There are two boys the eldest Rafa and the youngest Yunior and their younger sister Madai. During the transgression of the story it is conveyed through the eyes of Yunior. And like any typical family it has its own story to tell.
From the mid-twentieth century to the present time, telenovelas have been a huge source of entertainment in Latino households. From comedies to melodramas, the purpose of telenovelas is to offer an escape from the monotony of daily life. Most of the themes that are present are topics relevant to the Latino community. In the words of Cynthia Duncan, “... soap operas tend to promote and uphold traditional values and are generally conservative in nature.” (Duncan 84) Telenovelas focus on family life and how the character’s decisions affect the whole. Those so-called traditional and conservative values tend to imprison women in cliché telenovela characters. Women are always presented as selfless, at times evil, or as women whose sole purpose is