Love portrayed as “Pure”

Overall, in this course we have studied several fundamental and very interesting books and works of literature, from Medieval times and Shakespearian plays to modern works by Margrett Atwood. What we have touched upon in this course has certainly changed my perspective/view of the way love/ family duty is in either in reality or fantasy or in Magic realism. 

At first, the way that love is looked upon in these texts seemed to be irrational. In reality, there are always situations where love occurs among first sight. However, the irrantionality takes a role when love at first sight immediately leads to the decisions of marriage, as some would consider being superficial. This overall idea can be seen in many, or rather most of the texts that we have covered. For example, in Romeo and Juliet, we see that Romeo enters the Capulet’s party and at first sight, he falls in love with Juliet, a shining light in the complete darkness. In comparison, in Like Water for Chocolate, there is still a love at first sight kind of themes when Pedro meets Tita at a party, and immediately falls in love with her to the extent that would bring marriage. Similarly, all the other love stories have covered this pattern.

As covered before, true love is a type of love that is pure and long endured, not something that happens at first sight. By the way the book is setting it,  it seems like they’ll marry the first person of the opposite sex they see. This point is what that exactly kept me thinking about the meaning of the authors intend to consider true love.      

   Eventually, I came to understand the topic more clearly when I thought of the situation of the times that the books were written and the present times. It was obvious that although these books were of a fanticised world that brought up unreal situations to the modern times, they had a somewhat sense in them. In esscence, it is a time period and irrelative factor that lead to this conclusion, more than anything else.     

Also, in my opinion, there are still similar family expectations/ duties in some parts of the world to the ones of Like water for chocolate. Things such morality, propriety, and social appearence are still intact to many families even today.

What do you guys think about this?   

 

Why why why… again

Throughout the story Like Water For Chocolate, Laura Esquival uses imagery such as cold to represent sadness and heat to represent love and passion. Then, once again, I had to ask why.

Let me pull you back to my previous post, How does this Relate to us? (http://10tops.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/how-does-this-relate-to-us/), by noting that this imagery is not exclusive to this book. If you look at any of the works we studied, and many more that we didn’t, you’ll find this type of imagery. So the question arises, why is this imagery so common? Obviously, there must be a universal understanding of these images.

Let me pull you out of my previous post so that we may explore these images in more depth. What is it that makes the relation between cold and sadness so logical? I suppose that being cold is bad and so is being sad: a distant relation at best. However, there are people who have never expeirienced cold, yet they still understand this metaphor. It seems that this is another thing that people are born understanding… but why?

It is my own personal belief that everything has a purpose; when you look at nature, you see developments that all have purposes: long necks to reach high branches, patterned skin to blend in with surrounding plants, the list goes on. But what I don’t understand is, what possible purpose could such an understaning of heat and passion have? Could nature have made a mistake? It’s not likely. So what is the root of this understanding?

I believe the answer to this question lies in the lymbic brain: the part that deals with instinct. Scientists believe that the lymbic brain used to be much more developed than it is today, however, as humans developed speech and higher concious thought, the lymbic brain was lost and much of our instinct with it. All that remains is that funny feeling that someone is watching you, or that gut feeling you get when you first meet someone. But that leaves us with yet another question; how did people communicate before speech: back when the lymbic brain was more developed?

If we look at our friends the animals, we can tell that they are communicating, yet we can detect no form of communication through speech. This is where my theory lies. I believe that, back before humans had speech, communication was much more rudimentary. In this system, thoughts and ideas were conveyed through emotions and feelings. How these emotions wer transported remains a mystery, however it probably has something to do with the inuition that still remains with us today. This system of communication became obsolete with the development of speech and slowly disappeared, however our innate sense of whichc ideas are related to certain emotions stuck with us.

This may seem a little far fetched, but it certainly explains a lot. I thought about this for a while, and this is the answer that makes the most sense to me, but if you disagree, then please, tell us all what you have to say on the matter: I am intrigued as to what people have to say on this matter. So, as usual, have at it!

 

How does this relate to us?

Many times, you may look at a book and think: what does this have to do with my life? From a glance, the answer would be nothing. On a superficial level, the people in these books lived a long time ago, and have no relevance to our lives today. Then you take a closer look, and you have one of those ‘oh…’ moments.

When you really think about it, what are these books about? The answer is love. As I have stated in previous posts (http://10tops.wordpress.com/2007/01/16/how-this-all-fits-in/#comments), these books all revolve around the same central theme, and it’s a theme that relates directly to us in some way or another. While each story has a different way of representing this theme, they all put accross the same ideas.

The idea of love, and not being able to be with the one you love, is a universal idea that is understood accross all cultures. Even if you want to be difficult and say that you’ve never been in love, it’s still something that relates to you: wanting something and not being able to have it. Nobody can say that they have never wanted something that they couldn’t have.

So we’ve established that all the books we’ve read revolve around the theme of wanting thing’s you can’t have… now what? Well, I started thinking, is this the doing of Ms. White, or is there something more here? Pick a story at random, any story. I bet you can find the same theme in that story. One last time, let me reference those old Warner Bros. cartoons: the one where Bugs Bunny, and another rabbit are fighting over a girl. Sound familiar? Now, this is a cartoon that is aimed at children who are 6,7, maybe 8 years old; it’s very unlikely that they’ve been in love, or understand it, however they understand the story because of that central theme.

So, how far back do you think we can go with this? Well, all the way back to when we were infants. Have you ever seen a baby, beside them is one of their toys that they are not playing with. Try taking it; see what happens. The baby wants the toy because now he can’t have it. Apparently, we’re born understanding this theme.

Basically, this is a roundabout way of answering what Ms. White asked; I think that looking at these texts in depth has definately changed the way that I think about literature in general. But what I want to know is, why do writers use this theme so much? Is it because they know that if they use it, people will be able to relate to the story? I’m not entirely sure, but I’d like to hear what you have to say on the topic.

Have at it.

 

The Story with Many Subplots

My favourite stories are filled with many intricate subplots. I’m one of those people that like drawing up all the clues and connecting the dots to figure out the mysteries and who exactly the characters become over the span of the story. 

 

That’s one of the main reasons why I prefer Like Water for Chocolate to writing like Gawain and the Green Knight (in which, there is only one main storyline.. Gawain going on his journey to prove his honour to King Arthur).  In GGK, the storyline is fairly “slow” and the readers can practically predict what is about to happen, as many lines of the text were similar.  (maybe, it is written in a different format that seemed less appealing to me?)

 

In Like Water for Chocolate, the story is told in different segments (chunks of Tita’s long and complicated life).  Even though it is presented in some-what of a sequential order, it allows to readers to contemplate how much time has passed and what new bonds/feelings the characters create between the time that is not mentioned in the novel.  I had time in between the months to think about the fast-paced events in the chapters before.  Also, a handful of secondary characters are added to make the story more complicated, adding in the extra subplots.

 

Similarly, in Big Fish, the many stories told by Edward Bloom gives me an insight to his past life, even though magic realism is present within many of his stories.  However, true facts are embedded deep within his relationships with his friends.  Throughout watching the movie, I pondered about his interaction with the characters and how much of it was indeed fact (not fiction).

 All in all, I enjoy reading stories that have many subplots that ties a perfect knot at the end of the story, finishing any loose ends.  (Even though this is going off topic, I think that many of you might like a compact and intense novel than a slow-paced drama that never ends well (like many Korean dramas that never quite end, even though it’s the end))  Out of all the texts we’ve read over the past five months in English, which text (fast/slow-paced) did you prefer?

 

Women and Gender Roles

As we all know, if we take a walk down history lane, women have almost always been thought as inferior to men. In this post, I will discuss two points:

1) The role of women relative to other texts studied in this course
2) The role of women in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution

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1) In “Like Water for Chocolate” it is evident that female characters dominate the story. If asked to write down the names of all the significant characters in the novel, the number of females would outnumber the number of males by far.

Females: Tita, Rosaura, Mama Elena, Gertrudis, Chencha, Nacha, John’s grandmother, Esperanza, Narrator
Males: Pedro, John, Alex, Roberto

However, if we look at any other text/movie we studied this semester, we would find that the scale would usually tip to the men’s side.

T & I
Females: Iseult, Brangien, Iseult of the White Hands, Queen of Ireland
Males: Tristan, Mark, Gorvenal, Morholt, Felons x4, Frocin, Ogrin, and more

R & J
Females: Juliet, Nurse, Rosaline, Lady Capulet, Lady Montague
Males: Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio, Lord Montague, Lord Capulet, Paris, Tybalt, the Prince, Friar Lawrence, Balthazar, and more

G & GK
Females: Lady Hautedesert, Guinevere
Males: Gawain, Arthur, Lord Hautedesert

Big Fish
Females: Sandra Bloom, Josephine (the fiancee), Mildred (the little girl who fell in love with Ed bloom)
Males: Ed Bloom, Will Bloom, Don Price , Karl the Giant

Days of Heaven
Females: Abby, Linda
Males: Bill, Farmer, Foremen

If most of these stories are focused on men, the dominance of female characters is a change in literature… which brings us to my next topic.

2) In “Like Water for Chocolate”, there was significant emphasis on propriety as Mama Elena always forced Tita to be a certain way. Tita was to act like the impeccable and filial daughter that will care for the mother until the day she died. Gertrudis, as I assume, was probably expected to behave similarly, minus the caring-for-mother-until-the-day-she-dies part. This was the traditional way to live. However, the society at the time was in revolutionary turmoil. The Mexican Revolution was a time of change.

As political views (and leaders) changed, so did the roles of people in society, especially women. Back then, the public opinion of women’s abilities was much less than those of men, but it was changing. Through the story, this was demonstrated when Gertrudis was given the rank of an army general. The Mexican Revolution was one of the first cases where women were given a chance to fight in a battle. Perhaps it was because Emiliano Zapata tried to encourage change during the Revolution that women were recruited into the Zapatista guerillas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_revolution#Zapatista_women), but it was enough to stimulate a whirlwind of change.

Edit: What do you think are the reasons that this particular text had a reversed ratio of female characters to male characters relative to the ratio of other texts/films we studied in the course?

What was unique and significant about the role each female played the book?

Do you think I should take over for Bev Oda? Hehe, just kidding…

 

The Speed of Love

In all of the texts that we have read, all the main couples fell in love pretty much as soon as they met each other. In LWfC, Tita and Pedro fell in love when their gaze met in the Christmas party (p. 16). In R&J, Romeo and Juliet fell in love when they saw each other in yet another party. In Big Fish, Edward saw Sandra for a moment in the circus, and he fell in love with her, but it’s not clear whether she fell for him in that moment or not. In T&I, Tristan and Iseult fell in love the moment they drank the potion.

What is it about love at first sight (or a sight) that makes so many authors write about it? Why can’t the couples interactive with each other and fall in love little by little as people tend to do in real life? Opinions appreciated!

Edit: Also, I found some picture of the actors and actress in the movie of Like Water for Chocolate. If anyone’s interested, it’s here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103994/

The actress for Tita deosn’t look anything like how I imagined her to be. Strange.

 

How this all fits in…

Well, for several weeks, people have been comenting on various aspects of how certain things are similar between the texts that we have read, but I think it’s time to take a broader look at things. Let us look at the plot of every single piece that we’ve looked at so far in this course – at the same time. The plot of each of the stories is, more or less, as follows:

1. Man and woman fall in love.
2. Man and woman can’t be together.
3. Man and woman go through a series of plans to be together.
4. One or both of them die.

You can see this in all of the texts (not so much in Gawain and the Green Knight, but there’s overtones of it). We have Tristan and Iseult in Tristan and Iseult, Tita and Pedro in Like Water for Chocolate, Romeo and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Edward Bloom (the father) and Sandra(girl at the circus) in Big Fish. Very crafty Ms. White, but there’s still an unanswered question: why?

If you really think about it, a lot of literature involves this kind of framework; sometimes they don’t always die, but the basis is there. I’m going to pull you back to a Warner Bros. cartoon again, the one with the skunk and the cat that has paint on it. The skunk falls in love with the cat, but they can’t be together because they’re different species. This is usually followed by the skunk going through a series of dangerous (not to mention funny) actions to obtain his love, the cat. Before I go off on a tangent, I want to point out that this is a cartoon aimed at young children.

For a moment, I was puzzeled, but then I came up with a theory. I realized that this is a theme that is universal. The idea of wanting something, in this case a person, but not being able to have it is something everyone understands from a very young age. Have you ever noticed an item that you didn’t want, then somebody picks it up and you want it? The reason we want the object is because we can’t have it. This led me to a very interesting discovery.

Are people driven by want, or are people driven by what they don’t have? What keeps us going is our desire to live; we go to school because we want to get a good job later in life, we want a good job so we can afford nice things, and so on and so on. But it make you think, do we really want that $7800 computer, or are we lured to it because we can’t have one? This may seem obscure, but it can be applied to all of the texts. For example, in Like Water for Chocolate, Tita want’s to marry Pedro, however Mama Elena doesn’t allow her to. So, does Tita really long to marry Pedro, or does she just want him because she can’t have him? After Mama Elena dies, she has second thoughts about marrying Pedro. We can never know for sure, but it’s a possibility.

Unfortunatey I did go off on a tangent there, but all this is just a round about way of saying how do you think all the texts come together? Do you agree with my model? If so, elaborate, add something, maybe relate to another text. If not, then why not? What do you think the connection is? Or, if you don’t like any of those questions, just write whatever pops into your mind

 

Oo Connections – they’re out to get us

Yay! I can finally post on here!

Alright, so this course, the whole thing’s on connections, so I thought I’d pick this category to post in. I think the magic realism in Like Water for Chocolate definitely connects it to Big Fish - that’s an obvious one. It’s also that the story of a person’s life is being told through a special medium, one that doesn’t always distinguish fact from fiction. In Big Fish, Edward Bloom’s life is being presented to us through his stories. Whether they are true or not, we don’t really know. It is the same with Tita’s story – except hers is told through her recipes. Her cooking speaks to everybody in a different way, so it is impossible to pick out just which details and emotions actually took place. It seems that just when you think the story is becoming plausible and believable something supernatural happens and you start doubting. And you never know exactly when the natural ends and the supernatural begins. I think that’s what this magic realism’s all about. I actually started writing this a few days ago but couldn’t get around to finishing it, so right now I don’t know how much of this stuff makes sense. I’ll end this here and ask your opinion. =)

 

Title

In the movie ,Big Fish, the title is significant as it portrays the main character, Edward Bloom. In the book ,Like Water for Chocolate, the title also relates to the main character, Tita. “Tita was literally “like water for chocolate”—she was on the verge of boiling over” (p.151). In chapter nine of the book, Tita describes the process of making hot chocolate. Once the water is boiled, you take it off the stove and add the chocolate. After it has been beaten, you place it back on the stove. When it boils over, you remove it again. Once again, you put it on the stove and boil it for the final time (p.178). I think that the boiling water shows the times in which Tita has suffered the most in her life. The boiling water can represent intensity and anger. Tita has suffered a lot in her life: her mother’s lack of sympathy, Nacha’s death, Rosaura’s marriage to Pedro, Roberto’s death, her affair with Pedro while engaged to John, and many more. Tita is like water for chocolate. The boiling water represents Tita’s emotions. The stages in preparing the hot chocolate directly relates to Tita’s life. When the water is boiling, Tita is at a difficult and frustrating stage in her life. When the mixture is taken off the stove, Tita is at a calmer, more relaxed stage. Tita is described in the best way —through her recipes. Chapter eight described Tita like water for chocolate. Chapter nine described the hot chocolate recipe. I don’t think it was a coincidence that these two chapters followed each other in terms of order.

Both the titles ,Big Fish and Like Water for Chocolate, describe the characters in a special way. Big Fish links to Edward Bloom’s stories while Like Water for Chocolate links to Tita’s life and her cooking.

Why do you think the title is called Like Water for Chocolate?