Writers hate parents

Ever noticed that in so many books, the protagonist is an orphan? It’s either that or the character had parents, but the writer got rid of them either by killing them or by whisking the characters to a far away place, away from their parents. These two ways are more obvious. Sometimes, another way is used to replace these two. This is less obvious and I call it the “Orphan substitute.” Basically, this refers to a bad relationship between the child and the parents.
It’s funny because I’ve been coming up with the names of famous books and most of them use this theme

-Harry Potter
-Series of Unfortunate Events
-Lord of the Rings (No mentions of Frodo’s parents, in fact not a lot is mentioned about any of the characters in the fellowship)
-The Outsiders
-Eragon

Many classics use this theme as well

-Oliver Twist
-Great Expectations
-Anne of Green Gables
-Jane Eyre
-Wüthering Heights
-Secret Garden
-David Copperfield

Finally, let’s look at the texts we’ve studied. In Tristan and Iseult, Tristan was an orphan. Iseult was not an orphan, but she was given to King Mark as a bride and moved far away from her parents. In Romeo and Juliet, there was a case of Orphan Substitute. The parents were absent even though none of them were dead. It just didn’t seem like the parents had a very close or loving relationship with their children. An obvious example of this would be Juliet’s parents. In the case of Like Water For Chocolate, it was a combination of the Orphan and the Orphan Substitute. Tita lost her father before she could remember and did not maintain a good relationship with her overbearing mother. Finally, for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it is another case of Orphan Substitute. Gawain was not close (distance-wise) to his parents. Whether he was an orphan or not, I couldn’t remember. Anyone else know

Well, look through some of the books you’ve read. This theme is very popular among writers and it’s just kind of interesting. I feel that this is another part of a writer’s scheme plan to sell more books. A distant relationship or no relationship with parents gives the characters more opportunities to experience and do different things. It gives them more freedom to be themselves and allow more development throughout the novel.

Again dear classmates, I ask you for your input. What do you think?

 

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.

 

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.