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?

 

Is it unconditional love?

Have you ever noticed how the women in some of the romances we have read always reconsider (at some point or other) if they really love the other person?Of course we all know that there is nothing to reconsider; they love this person eternally. I was concentrating again on connections between all the romances, and found this to be recurring.

In ‘Tristan and Iseult’ , there is a little misunderstanding between the two lovers.On p.172, Iseult believes that Tristan has betrayed her and that his feelings have passed on to another Iseult because of false information communicated unintentionally. She decides to never again see Tristan and shuns him any time he tries to get near, like when he comes disguised as a leper to the church door, or when he comes as a Madman to court. Afterwards, of course, Iseult finds that she cannot live without Tristan and then is forced to admit that she’ll love him eternally.

This happens also in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, though over a span of a few minutes. Starting on line 79, Juliet will insult Romeo, driven by her grief for the death of Tybalt. She talks about how he has deceived her, using many powerful metaphors. However, just a few lines after on line 99, when she has heard these insults coming from the nurse, her opinion changes drastically, and again she admits to herself that she cannot live without Romeo.

This connection also holds true for the most recent romance. In ‘ Like Water for Chocolate ‘, Tita is in love with Pedro since the day she set eyes on him, but when he agrees to marry Rosaura, she reconsiders her love for him. She tries to put him off her mind and move on , but when she learns of his true intentions, that spark that had dimmed, fired back up. A similar thing occurs when Pedro leaves for San Antonio. She establishes a relationship with John and then is not sure who she loves. When he comes back though, we know too well that Tita can only truly love Pedro.

So as you can see this happens in many of the romances. This might be a way the author has to reinforce the strength of the love between the couples. If their love can be broken easily, then there was no real love in the first place. On the other hand, if both lovers cannot forget each other no matter how much time passes or what circumstances change, then that love was always there. Could there be other reasons? Also, did you find this in any of the other stories?

 

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!

 

Fate the Puppeteer

We’ve done a lot of work and looked into numerous materials this year. With Mrs. White’s careful planning, all of the loose ends of the french braid are starting to come together. We are beginning to see how the four texts and two movies (“Like Water for Chocolate” doesn’t count as a movie because I regard it as one of the texts) relate to one another. A motif that occurs frequently in some of the materials we looked at throughout this course is Fate the Puppeteer. Its constant influence brings the star-crossed lovers to their impending doom.

In Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Iseult, and Like Water For Chocolate, the main characters, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Iseult and Tita and Pedro are forbidden to be together. Yet, somehow, Fate made them fall in love. The fight for their love and the feeling of helplessness is long-term. In the end, the ill-fated couples die, making their struggle and pain a form of entertainment for Fate the Puppeteer. They are nothing but puppets. Fate’s playthings.

This motif is something that is used a lot by writers. The reason? I guess writers feel that their audience can relate to this as well as enjoying the story. From the media, everyday experience and those around you, it’s clear that people tend to fall in love with the wrong person. Relationships rarely work out and it’s so hard to find Ms. or Mr. Right. On some level, these tragedies are also a great form of entertainment. The love that lasts through storms and disasters is something beautiful and something that people long for in their own lives.

So dear people, what do you think? What are your thoughts on why the writers use this motif?

 

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

—

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…

 

‘Help’ scream the lovers.

Surprise, surprise! I have noticed another connection between the romances we have read during this semester.Here it is:

It is the fact that the lovers almost always have somebody who helps them and who they can trust. They are not always alone, fending for themselves, but instead have figures that they look up to. In Tristan and Iseult, for example, Tristan has Rohalt, the faithful Marshal of Lyonesse. Rohalt serves Tristan , supporting him all throughout his perilous plans.Similarly, Iseult has Brangien, her faithful maid who we all remember gave up a great deal for her Lady. Looking at Romeo and Juliet, we see that Romeo also has someone to lean on: Friar Lawrence, the man who tries to help but ultimately fails in every single attempt.It’s strange that in the case of Romeo, having so many friends, he relies on none of them; indicator that his love life and his social status are two totally different things. Juliet in turn, has the nurse who is her most loving friend and who tries to make Juliet and Romeo’s reunion possible. This friendly hand is also true in the movie Big Fish. Edward Bloom has a lot of friends, as we see throughout , and even at the end when they all show up to the funeral. Once they hear his enthralling story, they are all very willing to help him earn Sandra’s love. Lastly, in ‘Like Water for Chocolate’, Tita has Nacha, the only unfaltering support that she can count on. Even after Nacha dies, her memory and spirit live on in Tita’s kitchen, coming back to her especially when she tastes the family recipes.
As you can see, the lovers aren’t really alone, though they may believe themselves to be. Sometimes there are more than one character that is considered to be on the lovers’ side. These are the characters that, out of sympathy, friendship,obligation or out of parental instinct, offer the lovers refuge and help when they need it. What the lovers need most is not necessarily somebody who will try to protect them from danger,telling them what they can and what they can’t do.They need somebody who will agree with their thoughtful plan, no matter how daring, and help them carry it out. We can see that these are the true friends that the lovers’ value, and that there is at least one in each story.

 

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. =)