There is absolutely no doubt that the collapse of Tita’s domestic life is marked by the moment that her face crumpled under the force of Mama Elena’s wooden spoon. Everthing she cared for was taken away (Baby, Lover, Pigeons), and she was clearly on the verge of losing her sanity. Many people have gone to great lengthes to explain how such Mama Elena’s cruelty is reprimandable, But is it possible that perhaps Mama Elena’s actions were some miracle of “God”?
Let me elaborate, Tita and Mama Elena went through remarkably similar dilemmas as both were denied their “True Love” by their parent(s). But then why did Mama Elena turn out so differently? The answer is, of course, that her lover went belly up. So she, for one reason or another, adopted the “last girl” tradition which consequently enslaved Tita. Although the reader is probably fed to the teeth with sympathizing with Mama Elena, imagine for a moment that the one person you “loved” most in this world died( A parent maybe? Humour me). Doesn’t it feel cold? Don’t you feel your chest implode? And doesn’t this sound a whole lot like what Tita was feeling for roughly half the book(perhaps to a lesser extent than Mama Elena). What would have happened, pray tell, if Mama Elena had reacted differently, not to the point of crushing Tita’s face? Would she still be on the ranch? What kind of person would she have ended up as? Can a person really bear that much emotional tension without going absolutely nuts?
I ask you: is it possible that Mama Elena’s actions may actually have saved Tita by sending her into Doctor Brown’s caring arms?
- Kelvin
Disagreements and critical rebuttals are welcome
January 24, 2007 at 2:09 am
Quite honestly, if Mama Elena wasn’t so cruel and vicious, Tita wouldn’t have went nearly as close to insanity as she did get. It’s all Elena’s little actions–the strictness, the no showing love, the lack of compliments for the most well-done deed–and her bigger actions that drove Tita to such an emotional stressed point in her life. When the person who caused another such emotional tension is the one who ultimately pushes said person over the edge, that’s not God’s miracle at all. Sure, sending Tita to John was a good decision, but I don’t think that had anything to do with Mama Elena or what she did to Tita; John is simply the one doctor in town. And who’s to say that John just happens to be such a gentle, caring man? He could have been a cruel, uncaring person like Mama Elena, and by sending Tita to him, Mama Elena would have doomed Tita to a life in the asylum.
January 24, 2007 at 2:12 am
I think you’ve brought up an interesting point. It is quite possible that even if Mama Elena had let Tita marry Pedro in the beginning, she would not have been happy. They say you can’t know happiness unless you’ve experienced sorrow. The many years Tita and Pedro had to endure apart from each other played a major part in their intense happiness at the end of the book.
Not only would Tita have been unhappy, but I think Mama Elena might have had a breakdown. She needed someone to take her coldness out on, and Tita was the perfect target. Rosaura, would not do, no, because it is never satisfying to order someone around if they’re only going to do as you say. Gertrudis would have run away.
I’m not saying it’s fair or acceptable for Mama Elena to do something like this, but if she didn’t they would both suffer.
January 24, 2007 at 2:26 am
“imagine for a moment that the one person you “loved” most in this world died( A parent maybe? Humour me). Doesn’t it feel cold? Don’t you feel your chest implode?”
I don’t really concur with your logic here. Please expand if my interpretation is in accurate. This is what I was imagining when I read that passage.
“I am Mama Elena. When I die, I don’t want my darlin’ daughters to feel cold, implode and die. Hence, I beat them in the face with a spoon.”
—
If Mama Elena didn’t act the way she did, the person Tita would have loved most would have been Pedro. Tita would have been running into Pedro’s arms, and she would have been all better in no time. Who’s more suited to hanky panky her booboos than her lovey dovey?
Anyways, the audience do not know Mama Elena’s true intentions when she starts beating her children. The absolute truth could be that she hit them solely for disciplinary purposes; that is, if the absolute truth existed. In this story, there is no absolute truth. There is only relative truth. Truth that happened in the perspective of Esperanza’s granddaughter (the narrator). We only have her word on what happened to the De La Garza family.
So, I don’t think it is very wise to guess at certain things. For all we know, the narrator’s platform is very biased, and in absolute truth, Tita could be the antagonist who bewitches Rosaura’s lover with her wicked -seduction? It sounds far-fetched, but I think it’s where the discussion might end up if we keep pursuing all the “what if”s.
January 24, 2007 at 2:34 am
“I am Mama Elena. When I die, I don’t want my darlin’ daughters to feel cold, implode and die. Hence, I beat them in the face with a spoon.” (K.Wu)
I some what see your point, but I more or less expected that the reader would assume that I am not working on such a simple level, and that what I am trying to say losing someone that is seriously important to you affects your psych.
(“Anyways, the audience do not know Mama Elena’s true intentions when she starts beating her children. The absolute truth could be that she hit them solely for disciplinary purposes; that is, if the absolute truth existed. In this story, there is no absolute truth. There is only relative truth. Truth that happened in the perspective of Esperanza’s granddaughter (the narrator). We only have her word on what happened to the De La Garza family.”
– K.Wu
I’m sorry, but I cannot take
January 24, 2007 at 2:35 am
these words at face value, since if I seconded guessed everything in the book I would have to run through all the possibly ways the story could have been biased. Which is somewhat ridiculous..
January 24, 2007 at 2:38 am
I’m sorry my posts are so cut up, my computer seems to be malfunctioning.
“So, I don’t think it is very wise to guess at certain things. For all we know, the narrator’s platform is very biased, and in absolute truth, Tita could be the antagonist who bewitches Rosaura’s lover with her wicked -seduction? It sounds far-fetched, but I think it’s where the discussion might end up if we keep pursuing all the “what if”s.” – K.Wu
I agree that this is a huge “what if”, but I am running on a possibility which I thought was logical.
January 24, 2007 at 2:48 am
K.Wu, I just have to say that your post had me almost in stitches.
But seriously, I have to say that if Mama Elena never restricted Tita in her choices of men (even if she was restricted in every other aspect), Tita would be far better off, like K.Wu also said. Also, I don’t think Mama Elena’s punishments (especially the physical ones) are not effective when she is dealing with someone like Tita. The punishments that Tita receives just makes her harbour more resentment for Elena.
I also agree with the fact that we shouldn’t think too deeply on the “what if?”s since this is, after all, a story told in a certain point of view and that is the only view we are ever going to get.
January 24, 2007 at 2:48 am
I agree with Kelly’s last point. The story is very much biased as Esperanza’s daughter is telling it, and Tita wrote it.
We all know the saying that “one person’s garbage may be another’s treasure” which shows the big difference in two people’s perspectives. Tita’s story could have been modified in many ways by Tita – i.e. Pedro could have been Rosaura’s former suitor, but was attracted to Tita later. This would also explain Elena suggesting he marry Rosaura. That’s just an example, a could have been.
Now that I think about it, Mama Elena could have tried to separate Tita from Pedro because she couldn’t bear to see two people going all lovey dovey with each other to constantly remind her of what she couldn’t have. Having a scar reopened everyday doesn’t allow it to heal, and were you in Elena’s place, you’d want to forget about the “true love” asap and start living your own life too.
January 24, 2007 at 2:53 am
I agree with Carri G. on the separation between Tita and Pedro that made their love more intense. I also think that Tita and Pedro would not be very happy together. Pedro is a spoiled brat who has no self-discipline (e.g. raping Tita). Just because Tita was with John, Pedro got all macho and started trying to claim Tita as though he owned her in some way.
Onto the point of Mama Elena sending Tita to John. I don’t think it was the wrong thing to do, since Tita would have really become insane had she stayed any longer in that corrupted household. However, this caused Tita to miss Pedro even more, I hate this. I detest Pedro! Now I will begin to contradict what I just said. Had Tita stayed longer on the ranch, perhaps she would have gotten over Mama’s Elena’s cruelty, after all the saying goes “you can only beat a rabid dog so much before it bites you back”… is that how it goes?? Anyways, Tita may have gotten stronger and left on her own one day. It is very possible that she would have seen that Pedro was not all he was up to be. Also, going to John and living in a safe haven, she probably forgot some of the horrors of Mama Elena’s home and then going back to that place wasn’t such a difficult decision. There are too many factors to calculate.
I really am not to sure of what would have been the better course of action. However, since Tita was happy in the end after living such a miserable life, the decision that Mama Elena made may have been the right one.
January 24, 2007 at 3:12 am
yeah I think in order to play the “if only this happened/never happened” game properly we’d need one of those machines from Pendragon that factored in everything. Yay I agree with Carrie’s conclusion.
January 24, 2007 at 3:41 am
I do not fully understand what you said, the wording was confusing to me, but I will provide my answer based on what I interpreted from reading responses and your original post.
Tita was a subject to a great load of emotional tension…but what I will say, you probably cannot take for face value anyways since they are not written into the story.
Once Tita took enough pressure, she DID go insane and go up to the dovecote. Had she not had been smashed with the wooden spoon, perhaps the pressure wouldn’t have built up so strongly. Then again, she had directly disobeyed Mama Elena. If Mama Elena ignored her, I think that it would be likely that Tita would leave the nest and try to survive elsewhere. She was on the breaking point. The strike of authority brought her back to reality, it stopped her revolution dead in its tracks until Dr. Brown and Chencha were able to revive her.
I cannot really speculate how Tita would’ve turned out. With the way things were outside and her outright refusal to be with Mama Elena, she may have been raped and killed outside. She could’ve flourished by taking residence with another family, in which she would play a similar role to Nacha. She would not be able to meet Pedro again though, so I think that possibility is ruled out. My stumbling has lead to me thinking that she would try her best to pursue Pedro, but that would fail. In other words, I think that she would die. This would mean that, YES, Mama Elena saved Tita by crushing her face.
As for feeling a void/cold in the heart when Mama Elena died…Tita did not feel sorrow for Mama Elena when she had died. If I even remotely cared about a person and they passed away, I would feel a wave of crushing sadness and be affected just by seeing a death before my eyes. However, I have not had the delightful emotional hardening experience of seeing a real death, so I can only speculate. If I do not feel sorrow upon seeing a death, then I probably already have a reason to hate the person, or feel detached. It takes a lot for me to not care. I think that Tita, being the passionate person that she is, would have to carry much more hatred and frustration than I would, to feel no sorrow for a dead family member. She did hate her mother.
January 24, 2007 at 3:46 am
I think that most of the significant events are more directly or indirectly result of fate. First, the unexpected death of Jose Trevino, Mama Elena drastically altered her personality, or at least, made her to become what she was like. Then, Tita was brought into the world in a kitchen. From that day onwards, she developed great interest in food and fine culinary abilities to complement her emotions.
When Tita was exiled (I think) from the ranch and taken under care by John Brown, I agree that it may have been a blessing for Tita. Her body and spirit were healed and she felt happiness and warmth again, rather facing than the chill of Mama Elena’s stabbing words. She also may have developed feelings for John Brown.
This is where Tita is faced with choices. John proposed to her; she could’ve married him. However, I think that she wouldn’t have made a completely biased choice, since she had been in the care of John for a while. Then there was Pedro, the lover of her life, who made a vow to love her for all eternity.
At this point, fate played a crucial role in the incident of the bandits who attacked Mama Elena and paralyzed her. This required Tita to return to the ranch, (even though she swore never to return), so as to take care of her mother and fulfill her obligation. If Tita had married John before that, she might not have not realized her true feelings for Pedro and everything might have turned out differently. At the end of the story, we see that she had made a clear choice. Despite what others may believe, she thought she truly loved Pedro more than she loved John. In that sense, it may have been a blessing for the lovers and for Tita.
Yes, the “if” factor is a great one. Therefore, we cannot determine whether one course of action may return a blessing or curse in disguise.
- Great titles you have Kelvin.