Ever wonder if women can carry the role that men do or is it just a simple hypothesis? In the book “Like Water For Chocolate” by Laura Esquirel, portrays a lot of non-feminism and feminism at the same time. Feminism is the belief in which women could have the same opportunities, power, and rights as men. Although there are plenty of reason to not believe in this, there are far more evidence in the book proving that this belief is very possible in our society. The incredible characters that will be supporting the claim are Mama Elena and Gertrudis due to their strong, confident, and fierce personality traits. Throughout the book, Mama Elena was portrayed as the Darth Vader of Like Water For Chocolate. While one of Mama Elena’s daughter, …show more content…
Tita, had a conversation with Chencha, they mentioned how Mama Elena was the best at “dividing, dismantling, dismembering, and desolating” (Esquirel 97). Taking a step back, Mama Elena has never been shown as weak, fragile, or breakable she has been the man of the house, the Darth Vader. Mama Elena shows many characteristics of feminism due to her macho mindset, like when the farm was being invaded by bandits so “ Mama Elena trying to defend her honor, suffered a strong blow to her spine…” (Esquirel 129). In modern society, men are symbolized as strong, big, and very confident, supporting how Mama Elena does an excellent job in showing feminism. Often, men leaders that are very demanding, just like when Tita asked to marry and she got the response “You have to take care of me until the day I die” (Esquirel 10). Of course, Mama Elena could be stating this due to the fact that she lost her lover in her younger life and sees how Tita should not have a better life than her. However, I counter this due to the fact that even if Mama Elena didn’t lose her love life, she still would have her personality traits that no one could change or persuade. These reasons make many people respect Mama Elena, but also make her really rebarbative just like most leaders that are men in our modern society. Who else can support the claim than Mama Elena’s oldest daughter, Gertrudis.
The first impression of Gertrudis was quite odd and weird, but the story progresses making her “general in the revolutionary army” (Esquirel 178). Now not only does it take a lot of courage to be in the army, but a general leading thousands of men could be horrific. A job like this needs a person who is fortified with confidence, calmness, and leadership, which Gertrudis does prove to have these “manly” traits. Before Gertrudis actually embraced her true role in the book, she was just a simple girl that just wondered around. Sooner or later, her feminism act commenced when “along side of rode the man that carried her off” (Esquirel 178). The confidence it takes to leave home and go wander the outside world is pretty phenomenal. Although this might make me sound like a creep, she was naked on a horse and not caring if others saw her. With these examples, it proves with no questioning that Gertrudis provides perfect example of feminism next to Mama Elena. Overall, Mama Elena and Gertrudis illustrate the idea that Like Water For Chocolate is a feminist novel written by Laura Esquirel. The author does a marvelous job on foreshadowing themes/life lessons, but the most important one for the topic is that some women can be better in carrying the role of a man than most men. To conclude, the confidence, fierceness, ferocious mindset/actions of Mama Elena and Gertrudis presents how Like Water For Chocolate is a feminist
novel.
Like Water for Chocolate is a passionate story about the love between Tita De La Garza and Pedro Musquiz. It starts out with an explanation of how Tita was born into her life through the kitchen and she has always helped Nacha, the family cook, make the meals. In the first chapter Pedro comes to the farm to ask Tita for her hand in marriage. Her mother quickly declines and arranges the engagement of Pedro and Tita's sister Rosaura. Within a few weeks Pedro moves in with the De La Garza family making it harder for him to stay away from Tita. Tita, on the other hand is trying her hardest to forget about Pedro. She believes that since Pedro married Rosaura he no longer loves her. This all changes when, at Pedro and Rosaura's wedding, Pedro tells
“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.
to take care of her mother later in life. The novel follows Tita's life from
Mama Elena is the widow with three daughters: Rosaura, Gertrudis, and Tita, and she is also the main cause of Tita’s suffering in Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Because of Mama Elena, Tita’s entire life is distorted and she has to spend her time with tears and despair. Especially, Mama Elena abuses the power of family tradition and misuses the power as the head of the household to decide her daughter’s marriage and life.
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.
From the exposition to the denouement of Like Water For Chocolate, the character Tita represents an archetypal hero. One knows so owing to the fact that Tita experiences an unusual birth, wields a special weapon, experiences a traumatic event, receives supernatural help, atones for her mother’s wrongdoings, and is rewarded spiritually at the end of her life. Overall, Tita is not the most glamorous hero, but she fit’s the archetype nearly perfectly. Given this, it is important for one to remember that the subtleties of a character do, in reality, often represent the elements of an archetype. In finding these items, the reader may find deeper meaning within most any story, and Like Water for Chocolate does not stand as an exception.
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.
...ighted by the director’s choices in cinematic elements. 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 elements such editing, lighting, and setting in order to bring focus to the power of the food. The editing constantly brings attention back to the food. The setting reminds the viewer that the food impacts every aspect of the film. The lighting highlights the importance of the food over every other element. Every aspect of this film is aimed to show that the Hispanic woman, even in her typical role is a strong and central figure in the Hispanic culture. There is power in her life and everyday jobs that has a great impact on everyone around her, which is the precise thought that this film conveys and makes apparent to each viewer.
Love, tradition, emotion are just a few of the themes that are covered in the movie Like Water For Chocolate directed by Alfonso Aráu(1992) and bases on the novel written by Laura Esquivel(1989). The movie tells the story of Tita, a young woman that longs her life to marry her lover, Pedro but can never have because of her family’s traditions. The story develops on how Tita is trying to rebel against her mother and her tradition of the youngest daughter not marrying but taking care of her mother until the day she dies. The story takes place in Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century. The movie was amazing at showing these themes and really easy to identify them.
Mama Elena is a cold hearted woman. She doesn't feel any remorse or anything for crushing her daughter's love and then letting him marry Tita's own sister. Mama Elena seems like she loves all of her daughters. She is just too caught up in the whole tradition that she doesn't even see what she is doing to her own daughter.
Women and men fear the thought of an empowered woman and the thought of feminism. Women fear that will be punished by men if they stand against them and fear that being a feminist will make them cruel and lonely. Men fear that women will one day rise and surpass them. But it is with these women that great change can come. Being a feminist does not require a person to hate men nor does it isolate a person from the rest of the world. In both texts we witnessed that there are people who reinforce conventional views of gender roles and those who challenge them. The life is a feminist is challenging but much more rewarding at the same time.
To begin this paper, I want to explain a little bit about Feminist Criticism. This category of criticism scrutinizes the means in which texts have been molded in accordance with matters of gender. It concentrates on social and financial disparities in a “male-controlled” culture that continues to impede women from grasping their true potentials. There are several perceptions and theories universally shared by feminist critics. One such belief is that our society is undeniably regulated by men. Another belief is that the concept of “gender” is mostly, if not wholly, a social standard that has curtailed from the never ending masculine biases that engulf our world. This male dominated philosophy is excessively abundant in most of the writings that are deemed exceptional literature. In addition, many feminist consider females, in literature, to be represented as destructive or docile objects, while most males are portrayed as being brave and resilient leaders.
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had been so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives.
Throughout the 19th century, feminism played a huge role in society and women’s everyday lifestyle. Women had been living in a very restrictive society, and soon became tired of being told how they could and couldn’t live their lives. Soon, they all realized that they didn’t have to take it anymore, and as a whole they had enough power to make a change. That is when feminism started to change women’s roles in society. Before, women had little to no rights, while men, on the other hand, had all the rights. The feminist movement helped earn women the right to vote, but even then it wasn’t enough to get accepted into the workforce. They were given the strength to fight by the journey for equality and social justice. There has been known to be