To bring two people together in Holy Matrimony is also to grant them lifelong companionship and happiness. Though marriage is available for anyone to obtain, some are forbidden from receiving it, as in the case of the characters Ferula from the book The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and Tita from the book Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. In practicing their family tradition, Tita the youngest daughter of the De La Garza family gave up her engagement to live with her mother until death while Ferula Trueba rejected marriage when she insincerely volunteered to take care of her ill mother. This paper will explain the negative effects of these experiences on the characters.
Early in the book, the authors show the reader how being deprived of marriage can affect one’s health. In Like Water for Chocolate, Tita becomes physically ill and weak through the use of magic realism. Because of the engagement of her true love, Pedro, to her sister, Rosaura, Tita experiences a sudden “icy feeling of grief” from the heartache of her mother’s cruelty and her love’s betrayal. Tita was not even able to find refuge in the Christmas rolls - a favorite dish that had often cured all her illnesses in the past. But Tita’s cold was only the beginning. During the preparation of the wedding Tita falls blind and sees “a blinding whiteness”. This blindness is a metaphor of her purity as a virgin and the white dress she will never wear to the wedding she will never have. Her misery had also caused her to become weak. She experiences fatigue, shaking, and nervous collapses from dry labor, preparing a banquet for her sister. This can be seen in the quote “A fit of trembling shook Tita’s body and she broke out in goose bumps.” On the other hand, Ferula becomes mentally ill. Ferula “moved thickly and awkwardly and had the same sour character as her brother”. Ferula became obsessed with the things she had done daily. Bathing, feeding and nursing her mother was her routine, until the day Dona Ester had finally passed on. “She was content to clean her mother’s ulcerated legs, washing her and sinking deeply into her stench and wretchedness.” Even before her mother developed arthritis, she had “bathed [Esteban, her brother], took him out for strolls” with the same affection she had her mother. But her weak mentality had tied her down from moving on and doing other things in life after Dona Ester’s death. Lost, she instead took care of, her sister-in-law, Clara and “bathed her in jasmine and basil water, rubbed her with cologne, and brushed her hair until it was soft and shiny.” We can also conclude that the authors are driving us to feel a certain way about these characters. After the first few examples, the readers are influenced to feel sympathy for Tita because of all the suffering she experiences after a lifetime of abuse from her mother. On the other hand, the readers feel pity for Ferula. Though the readers empathize for Ferula, they do not feel the same sympathy for her as they did Tita because of her attitude and her insincerity. We can also derive that both authors teach us that without love and marriage, there is no one to truly care for another in sickness or in health. But aside from altering one’s wellbeing, solitude may also lead to desperation. Desperation from living alone without a husband is also trait evident in both characters. They seek deep attention and fall easily for those who express care for them. From birth Tita was abused and lived unnoticed by Mama Elena. The lack of love she does not receive from her mother and the love from Pedro she is forbidden to return, Tita’s hope for love begins to fade as the book progresses, until the birth of her nephew, Roberto. “She realized that she was feeling a new love: for life, for this child”. Laura Esquivel uses magic realism to show the love she had for Roberto. She loved him so much “a thin stream of milk sprayed out of her breast even if “she knew it was completely dry”. The id in her subconscious mind made her take Roberto as her own. It was human nature to need to feel love from another human. She fed him, took care of him and “did a mother’s work without the official title”. Other than that she had even hastily accepted John’s proposal even though she secretly still saw Pedro in the dark room. This shows that though she was still in love with Pedro, she feared that no one would ever love her again. Desperation and fear had her accept marriage to John, despite the old feelings for Pedro that still lived inside her. Through these examples, we can perceive that though Tita is affected negatively by loneliness, she develops a better character because she learns to care for others but it also proves that she doubts her decisions, since she still saw Pedro despite her engagement. We can see that loneliness in staying single can cause one to become incapable of making decisions but it makes one more mature and changes one for the better. The author teaches us that good outcomes can come from bad situations. Ferula’s desperation had also turned to fall into Sapphic love, despite her religious beliefs. Ferula was a “tormented soul” since she had “turned down two suitors on the pretext of her mother’s illness”. Left by drunken father and brother, Ferula lived in shame and “humiliation and in menial tasks” never knowing love besides the love her dying mother had vaguely displayed. She falls for the only person who has presented love and cared for her, her sister in law, Clara. Ferula “can’t sleep at night. [She] feels as if she is choking… [She wants] to climb into bed with her and feel the warmth of her skin and her gentle breathing”. Being that the love is unrequited Ferula becomes insecure and afraid to lose this fragile love. She curses those who try to take Clara away, as in the case of Esteban Trueba, Clara’s husband, and the jealousy he felt. She told him that “you will always be alone! Your body and soul will shrivel up and you’ll die like a dog.” In the end, Esteban begins to shrivel, shrink in size and mentality, and dies parallel to the death of the Clara’s family dog, Barrabas. Through magic realism and foreshadowing Allende shows us how hate can be created from forbidding one to love another, despite their relationship as friends or even siblings in Ferula’s case. Contrasting Tita, Ferula’s condition has worsened causing readers to continuously pity her. The feeling of hate for her also develops because she is disturbing peace in a happy marriage. Her curse also affects the major character, Esteban Trueba, and foretells his death. This causes a change in character in Esteban because he becomes angry, abusive and more obsessed with Clara, later destroying the relationship with her and his family, in the end. The last comparison between the two characters is that while Tita had become empowered by living in solitude, Ferula had become corrupt. Clearly, Tita’s empowerment is shown when she was not willing to let others suffer the fate of tradition; to live with their mothers until death do them part. “Tita prayed that the idea of perpetuating this cruel tradition would not cross Rosaura’s mind”. Magic realism shows the anger Tita feels when “the steam rising from the pan mingled with the heat given off by Tita’s body”, when Rosaura had mentioned the tradition again. But on the contrary, Ferula had become fraudulent and deceitful; corrupt. Her jealousy for the freedom she cannot have causes her to envy and manipulate. Her attitude also becomes insincere and egotistical. When Esteban wanted to buy coffee for himself, she would not allow it and instead of supporting him, she told him “That’s what you get for spending Mama’s medicine money on you private little whims. God punished you” when Esteban spilt his “Viennese coffee” on “his only suit”. Esteban himself noticed “how she managed to make him feel guilty”. Her deceit is also apparent when “she had accepted the role of her mother’s nurse” but at the same time felt hatred towards herself for succumbing into the situation and her mother for “being their instrument”. Ferula used her mother’s illness as a ticket into entering Heaven, since she sacrificed everything else to be “ready at any moment to run in and administered her potions, hold her bedpan, and straighten her [mother’s] pillows”.
Physical and mental illness, desperation, empowerment and corruption of these two characters have both altered the novels and had conveyed similar messages. Ferula’s desperation had led to a development of the plot and started a motif of the dying of a main character’s body and soul starting from Ferula to Esteban Garcia and later Esteban Trueba . It also, at the same time, emphasized the innocence sister-in-law, developing the character, and allowing the readers to understand more about the clairvoyant. Tita’s solitude and depression had been a motif in the book from beginning to end. It is also the reason for the main conflict and plot. It also had shown desperation resulting from unrequited love, when Pedro decides to marry Rosaura to stay close to Tita. The authors show that without love from a marriage, one suffers physically, mentally and their personalities change. But amidst all the pessimistic views of life as a spinster, I believe both authors are trying to repeat a message that has been repeated so many times in history; love can truly change a person’s attitude, outlook, views but the lack thereof can also drastically change one, break one to feel miserable, dejected and unhappy and can cause one to do evil things.
How silence is used as a form of refuge in the novels “The House of The Spirits” and “Like water for Chocolate”
Alexander Andrew Halim English A1 SL
Introduction Silence can be used to express sadness, disappointment, or as an act of anger, although silence can also be used as a means of refuge. The mind is a complex structure, it will always prioritize its own safety and comfort before anything else, so in principle, the mind will always protect itself from anything and will try to convince itself that it is fine. In times where the mind cannot present itself with a plausible reason of why it is in a good state of function and/or reason, such as in the case of extreme stress, the mind will find a way to protect itself from collapsing from a traumatic experience and/or conflicting emotions and thoughts caused by external influence by shutting down and excommunicating itself from society, preferring to remain in the safety of its own thoughts and emotions, resulting in silence. These periods of silence vary depending on the condition of the person inflicted, they may last for days, month, years, even their whole lifetime. In this essay I will show how Isabelle Allende author of “The House of The Spirits” and Laura Esquivell author of “Like Water for Chocolate portray Clara and Tita during their periods of silence and shows how they uses silence as a form of refuge as well as the conditions leading to their silence and to their recovery. In The House of The spirits, Clara is subject to her fits of silence, especially after suffering from a traumatic experience. The first known case of her silence is shown in the first Chapter, Rosa the Beautiful, as Clara witnesses the autopsy and dissection of her beloved and ethereal sister Rosa who has been recently poisoned. As a ten year old child who is pure at heart Clara is vulnerable to such grotesque images of death. As a result, Clara is traumatized, and within her she felt silence and emptiness, which is explained through the line, “Silence filled her utterly”. Clara who is incapable of accepting the death of her sister, and is unable to communicate with her family of the issue for fear of recalling the images, is left with no choice but to remain safe in the confines of her mind. Her silence, contrary to what Dr. Cuevas has suggested is not the product of insanity or any other mental illness, Clara is silent simply because she wishes to be. This statement is explained by the Rumanian performer, Rostipov in the sentence, “the child was silent because she did not feel like speaking, not because she was unable to.” Furthermore, Isabelle Allende shows that Clara’s silence symbolizes an act of desperation for a plea of help to escape the material world to rise to a level that would allow her to leave behind discomfort and heaviness of reality, through the line from Esteban Trueba, ”I had come to understand that silence is my wife’s last refuge.” In Like Water for Chocolate, the conditions of Tita falling into the state of silence is similar to Clara’s, as they had both lost someone precious to them, in Tita’s case, her nephew Roberto who had passed away due to malnutrition from refusal to eat any food which is not made by Tita. They had both been unable to accept the deaths of their beloved, as Tita screamed to Mama Elena, “You did it, you killed Roberto!”, and they were both within the presence of someone they feared, Dr. Cuevas for Clara, and Mama Elena for Tita. Tita’s silence came from the Traumatic death of her nephew and her constantly conflicting emotions against Mama Elena. In order to seek refuge in her mind, Tita has substituted a pigeon for Roberto and constantly fed it, when the pigeon died from overeating and indigestion, Tita’s mind sank into silence. As it is with Clara’s condition, Tita’s silence is also because she does not want to speak, not because of insanity, as declared by Mama Elena in the line ,”Fine, if she is actin g crazy, then I’m going to put her in an asylum. There’s no place in this house for maniacs!”.Tita explains her reason to be silent in this line,”because I don’t want to”. Laura Esquivell shows that silence is Tita’s last refuge, mainly because Tita has nowhere else to go, as she had been chased and disowned off her family, and even in Dr. Brown’s kind and loving presence, Tita is still unsure whether she can divulge her feelings towards him. Unable to express her feelings and emotions, Tita kept her thoughts and feelings to herself. Clara’s silence lasted for nine years before she decided to make her voice heard again. Clara decided on her nineteenth birthday, that she would announce to her family that she was to be married, to Esteban Trueba. Clara’s decision to speak again was simply because she wanted to, as simple as when she wanted to stay quiet, there is no real for Clara to stay quiet, she announced her betrothal and marriage to Esteban Trueba because she felt and wanted to inform her family. Tita’s silence is cured when Chencha decided to visit her without the knowledge of Mama Elena. Along with herself, Chencha brought Tita some Ox- Tail Soup, whose aroma and flavor immediately reinvigorated Tita’s physical and mental self. The taste of the ox-tail soup brought memories after precious memories gushing into tita’s consciousness, as the spirit of Nacha settled alongside Tita as they recited step by step on how to create an Ox-tail soup. The soup has rekindled and dried her soggy and moist soul and gave energy to Tita as she shouted, “John! Please don’t leave!” Tita’s soul has been healed and she no longer needs to seek refuge within her mind. As a conclusion, both Isabelle Allende and Laura Esquivell have shown us how silence was used as a form of refuge and safety for their characters. For Clara, silence is a way to transcend the pain and fatigues of the material world. Clara would simply return to her silence whenever she feels like, and no one, not even Esteban Trueba can disturb her in her own mind. For Clara her silence is way to cope with her disbelief of Roberto’s death, Roberto’s death has dampened her soul, and Dr. Brown’s love for her as well as Nacha and her Ox-tail soup has restored her soul.
Word count: 1,053
Bibliography Allende, Isabelle. The House of The Spirits. September 2005. United States of America: Random House, Inc, 2005. (Allende 39, 73, 113) Esquivell, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. November 1995. United States of America: Random House,inc, 1992. (Esquivelle 99, 101, 117, 125)
Topic Question: “What is the significance of ‘Forbidden Love’ in ‘House Of The Spirits’ and ‘Like Water For Chocolate’.
By: Adam.Arena
Forbidden Love is a topic that has been used extensively throughout history to create dramatic plots and cause conflict for the characters within them. Usually such a situation causes many hardships as well as joys for the characters involved, and helps to define them. I have chosen the two novels “House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende, and “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, to demonstrate my thesis. These stories are drastically affected as a result of these prohibited desires and the authors use a variety of language and events to convey the sense of this topic to the reader. ‘Forbidden Love’ has appeared in novels from every style of writing. From stories of action and adventure, to, of course, romance and passion, this theme can be a powerful tool, whether it be used to drive the plot, expose a character’s true nature, or be the basis for the entire story. classic example of this theme is the tale of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, which is the classic display of the tragedy of forbidden love. The authors of my two novels of choice, use this theme to create complicated and compelling plots. It is also worthy of noting that both these stories are ‘Latin-American’ novels, and this passionate culture makes for the perfect environment to create engaging tales of love and tragedy. The novel, House of the Spirits, is an epic story of a Peruvian family caught in the difficult times surrounding the revolution. It is filled with rich and complex characters, that are challenged and tested every step of their lives and it is through these conflicts that we are able to gain a deeper understanding of them. The conflict I have chosen to focus on is that of forbidden love, and perhaps the most prevalent example of this theme is seen in the characters of Blanca and Pedro. Blanca is the daughter of Esteban Trueba, a rich and powerful tyrant who owns the Hacienda where Pedro works. The times in which this story is set, were very class orientated, this already creates a gap between the two; Pedro is a poor farmer, Blanca is part of a rich and respected family, so their love is forbidden by the very society in which they live. The second barrier to this young couple arises when Esteban banishes Pedro from the hacienda and forbids Blanca to see him. These barriers however are not enough to stop them from “coming to love each other with the ecstatic passion that torments them for the rest of their lives”( ). This creates a constant conflict between the characters of Blanca and Esteban Trueba and serves as the central purpose for Blanca’s character. The issues created by this conflict are present throughout the novel and serve to drive the plot and develop the characters involved. We are able to see how this conflict alters the characters of Blanca and Pedro, who eventually become so used to their love being secret and forbidden, that they can’t bear to run away together, for fear that their love would not survive normality. Instead she “fed their love with fantasies, idealized it, savagely defended it, stripped it of prosaic truth, and turned it into the kind of love found in novels”( ). The story of these two lovers adds to the complexity and romance of the story as a whole.- {-How, drives the plot HOW) It does Another example found in this text is worlds apart from the innocent love between Blanca and Pedro. It is the infatuation which the character Ferula Trueba develops for Clara Dell Valle’s character. Clara is the wife of the previously mentioned Esteban Trueba, and Ferula is his sister, merely stating the roles of these characters creates a string of reasons why their love should be prohibited. However this love is not mutual, it is only felt by Ferula, who at first cared for and loved Clara as a sister, then later develops feelings somewhat more unusual. The character of Ferula develops a “jealous passion for Clara that resembled that of a demanding husband more than it did that of a sister-in-law”( ). The author uses this conflict to further separate Ferula from her brother and expose her true nature, we can see evidence of this in the following extract taken from the book. Ferula “was overwhelmed by a peculiar hatred she couldn’t explain, which filled her soul with regret.”( )
Her character becomes increasingly resentful and jealous of her brother, and after seeing him and Clara making love one night, she goes to confession to relieve her guilt, “You don’t know the thoughts that can run through the mind of a single woman, a virgin” ( ). It is through using this situation that the author reveals to us the real character of Ferula, who was, before then, portrayed as a selfless, holy being. Esteban’s character becomes aware of this infatuation, and in a fit of rage, throws his sister out forbidding her to ever see Clara again. This initiates a key moment in the authors story, where Ferula’s character curses her brother to *”shrivel up and die like a dog”( ), a curse which later takes effect, though not exactly as she had prognosticated. The second novel I have studied which shows evidence of this theme is titled Like Water For Chocolate. This tale is set within the same time frame as House of the Spirits, during the Mexican revolutions of 18--. It is set around the lives of Tita De LaGarza and her large, heavily traditional family. The author instills the theme of forbidden love from the very beginning of her story, with Tita’s character encountering a young dashing man by the name of Pedro Muscuzo*. From their very first encounter, passions are ignited for one another and burn strongly throughout the entire story , however this love is not without its obstacles. From the first time Tita mentions her lover’s name, her tyrannical grandmother, Mama Elena’, dashes her hopes of happiness, by forbidding their love. After this, she convinces Pedro to marry Tita’s sister Rosaura, as his only chance to see Tita again.
While in House of the Spirits the author uses forbidden love as a tool to develop her story, the author of Like Water For Chocolate centers her entire story around this theme, using it in full effect to create a dramatic, passionate tale. Tita’s character is defined by the hardships she faces in her undying love for Pedro. The author uses these hardships to grow and develop the protagonists character, causing her to rebel against the strict traditions that bind her, to break free from the controlling Mama Elena. This theme of forbidden love throughout the book creates an exciting and dangerous atmosphere, and the author also uses a number of other literary devices to support this theme. Devices such as food related metaphors and the different uses of language throughout. It is also through this theme that the author creates and shapes her characters. Gertrudis, another De LaGarza sister, is given life by this theme, this forbidden passion shared by Tita and Pedro, when their desire is infused into a meal she eats. This then drives her character to escape also, continuing the plot and giving the character of Gertrudis her own unique challenges to overcome.
Another way the author uses this theme in relation to her characters, is the contrast she creates between Pedro and Tita’s personalities. She does this by revealing the different ways in which these two characters deal with the hardships of forbidden love, in Tita she creates strength through this love.
During the characters life, Tita has been oppressed by the unrelenting rule of Mama Elena, unable to find the will to rise up against her tormentor. The author gives her character this secret passion to fuel her spirit, and give her the purpose she needed to overcome her fear, and break free from her family. In Pedro however, we see a different trait revealed as a result of these hardships, weakness. When his love for Tita is cast out by Mama Elena, his character offers no defiance. Worse yet, he gives in to Mama Elena’s will and becomes the husband of Rosaura. It is through these early choices that the Author begins to reveal the true character of Pedro. Then, as the story progresses Pedro sees Tita’s growing suffering, but never does he stand up for his love, he meekly continues to abide by his marriage to Rosaura, thus we have fully realized the nature of Pedro’s character. As you can see through the examples I have provided, forbidden love is a powerful storytelling tool, whether it be to simply add depth to a plot, as seen in House of the Spirits. Or be the entire foundation of one, as in Like Water For Chocolate. In conclusion, love is always present in our lives, and among the strongest emotions one can feel. It can cause us great pain or great happiness, and the authors of House of the Spirits and Like Water For Chocolate have harnessed the power of these emotions in their novels to engage and touch their readers.
Nabila Yasmin SofyanHow are the characters in the novels affected by Esteban Trueba and Perdro Muzquizs male arrogane ?
“Arrogance is an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptous claims or assumptions”^1. It is the effect of anger in which one has from jelousy or envy. Pride is the state of pleasure or having high self esteem. Destroyed pride can also be the cause of ones arrogance. The feeling of being in control can be easily destroyed when one is feeling angry or frustrated. We can see that in both novels House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, male protagonists Esteban Garcia and Pedro Muzquiz can be portrayed by the readers as being arrogant and proud. Their arrogance and pride acts as a barrier between their family and the people around them. Esteban Trueba from House of the Spirits is the leading male figure in the novel. He is perceived as an obsessive, violent man who devotes his life working in order to become rich and powerful. He achieves this however with the help of peasant workers working in Tres Marias in which he thinks he helps them by providing them food and the necessities for living, but in reality these peasants do not agree with the way he is leading Tres Marias. From this example Isabel Allende has shown us that Esteban Trueba is a man of pride, he does not liste to what the workers in Tres Marias think and say, but instead he rules Tres Marias under his own rules and dictatorship. This can be seen from the quote “He forbode anyone to talk back to him and could tolerate no opposition he viewed the slightest disagreement as a provocation”^2 . This quote shows Estebans dictatorship over Tres Marias. It also shows how powerful Esteban Trueba is, and that he knows he possesses these powers. His dictatorship has lead the citizens of Tres Marias to go against him. From this we can assume that he possesses these powers and takes full advantage of it. Though his sucess was helped by the peasants of Tres Marias, he did not give them the respect they deserved. Instead he treated them unfairly by giving them unfair wage, and treating women injusticely. Esteban Trueba supports the republican party, and threatens his workes in Tres Marias to vote for the Republicans as well. This shows how much the peasant workers in Tres Marias must follow he rules under Esteban Truebas dictatorship. This can be seen from the quote “If the patron finds out we’re voting Socialists, we’re done for, they said”^3. This shows that the peasant workers in Tres Marias are forced to do what Esteban Trueba insists, from this we can see how much Esteban Trueba is feared. Esteban Trueba is a man of power who does as he pleases. He is known in Tres Marias for raping young innocent women. Esteban Garcia, grandson of one of the women he has raped, is one of the characters in the novel that has suffered from Esteban Truebas pride. Although Esteban Garcia is his legitimate grandson, he however treats him unfairly and does not accept it. Esteban Trueba does not consider Garcia as a part of his family. I thought that this was the best example shown by Isabel Allende to show the readers that Esteban Trueba is an arrogant, vilolent man because through this we can see that Esteban Trueba does not care for others and will do what ever he can to get rid of any distrubance that gets in his way. Similar to Esteban Trueba, Pedro Muzquiz of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Equivel can be portrayed as a man of much pride and arrogance. Like Esteban Trueba, Pedro Muzquiz’s pride effects the people he loves and his surroundings. Especially Tita, the women he truely loves. Though he admits that Tita is his one and only true love, he however hurts her by marrying her sister. Pedro Muzquiz believes that by marrying Titas sister Rossaura, he will be able to become closer with Tita, since Tita is forbided to marry by her family traditions. Pedro Muzquizs arrogance can be seen when he believed that by marrying Rossaura, Tita will not get hurt by this. This however hurts Tita deeply leaving her depressed. This can be seen from the quote “For months she’d been tormented by the thought that Pedro had lied to her on her wedding day, that he’d told her he loved her just so she wouln’t suffer..”^4 This quote shows how Pedro Muzquiz did not think of how Tita would have felt when he married her own sister. I thought that from this example, Pedro Muzquiz can be portrayed as being proud, that he could have anything he wanted, Pedro did not think of Tita’s feelings but only that of his own. Another example of Pedro Muzquizs arrogance that can be seen in the novel was shown when Tita had decided she would marry Docter Brown instead of him. Pedro was furious and mad becuase he had thought for sure that Tita would choose him instead. This can be seen from the quote “ Tita, I want to say, I think your idea of marrying John is a terrible mistake. Theres still time, dont make this mistake, please, dont agree to this marriege!” ^5 This quote shows us how angry Pedro Muzquiz was, I thought that he believed since he had waited for Titas mother to die, Tita would be his. From these two characters, Esteban Trueba and Pedro Muzquiz can be portrayed as arrogant, I think that both authors was able to show how both characters personalities of believing that they have power over everyone else. Both characters Esteban Treuba and Pedro Muzquiz are both similar in that other characters from both novels were effected by their actions. I think the way Esteban Trueba dictates Tres Marias is a good way to help the town flourish, however, Esteban Trueba should listen to the problem the peasant workers in Tres Marias faces and help them improve their lives from their needs instead of his own. I also think that Esteban Trueba should listen to his families opinions more. He’s dictatorship over Tres Marias is similar to that of the way he rules his family. Though i belive Esteban Trueba has the right to set household rules, he should also consider the needs of his family as well. Similar to Esteban Trueba, Pedro Muzquiz should also consider Titas feelings before marrying her sister. Pedro Muzquiz did not ask of Titas opinion before he married Rossaura, but assumed that Tita would understand why had done this. Through out both stories, I thought that the authors Isabel Allende and Laura Equivel was succeful in showing the readers how much ones arrogance can effect those arround them. It can either hurt or help others, and this can be seen from the characters in both novels who were effected by Esteban Trueba and Pedor Muzquizs arrogance and pride.
Bibliography 1 - Web.30 Apr 2009. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrogance 2 - Allende, Isabel. The House Of The Spirits. Canada: The Dial Press A division of Random House, Inc. New York, New York, September 2005. Print. (Allende 63) 3 - Allende, Isabel. The House Of The Spirits. Canada: The Dial Press A division of Random House, Inc. New York, New York, September 2005. Print. (Allende 191) 4 - Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. Great Britain: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1992, 1993. Print. (Esquivel 65) 5 - Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. Great Britain: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1992, 1993. Print. (Esquivel 137)
"Compare and contrast the way that the authors of the novels “Like Water for Chocolate” and “The House of The Spirits” used the literary device “Deus Ex Machina”
Deus Ex Machina literarily means “God from the machine”. It is a plot device where a person or an object appears out of the blue and solves seemingly insolvable problems. The novels Like “Water for Chocolate” written by Laura Esquivel, and “The House of Spirits”, written by Isabel Allende both contain this specific device. Aside from that similarity that they share, there is another similarity, the fact that the Deus Ex Machina both come in the form of ghosts of a deceased ancestor of a character in the novels.
The novel “Like Water for Chocolate” tells a story about a girl named Tita who longs for the love of Pedro, although it is impossible since her mother’s domineering traditional belief that the youngest daughter of the family cannot marry and has to take care of her mother until the day that she dies. Tita expresses her emotions through her cooking, since the novel is a magical realism novel, the people who taste her cooking gets to experience what she is feeling. The plot device “Deus Ex Machina” happens when Tita meets a silent woman whom she visits daily when she was in the care of Dr. Brown. Tita always felt comfortable whenever the woman was around. The old woman was obvoisly a kind woman since she smiled, and also offered Tita a sip of tea that she made when they met for the first time. In this part of the story, Tita was already starting to feel comfort. It seems that the both of them share the same thing; the both of them were able to cook really well. This is shown when Tita knew that the stench that was coming from the small room at the end of the patio was made by a person who really knew how to cook. The fact that Tita really knows how to cook, her being able to recognize another person who is able to cook as well as her is definitely true. Another part that shows that the both of them share the same skills was when Tita sipped the tea made by the old woman; she thought that the tea was welcoming and that the aromas of the herbs were familiar and mysterious. The woman turned out to be the doctor, John Brown’s grandmother, a Native American named “Morning Light”. Morning Light helped Tita by making her feel comfortable after all that she has been through; Tita finally feels comfort. Although Tita and Morning Light do not speak to each other, it is said that “it wasn’t necessary. From the first, they had established a communication that went far beyond words.” It seems that somehow, the spirit of Morning Light and Tita shared the same thing, the feeling of being unaccepted.
The novel “The House of The Spirits” tells a story about the Trueba family, spanning four generations. Through these generations, there are traces of post-colonial social and political turbulence in the Latin American region. The Deus Ex Machina in the novel happens when Alba, the fourth generation of the Trueba family, meets the spirit of Clara, her deceased grandmother. Alba was physically, sexually, and emotionally tortured by the guards and Esteban Garcia when she was captured. She was then sent to the “doghouse” which was a small, enclosed cell, similar to a dark, frozen, airless tomb because of Esteban Garcia’s desire to torture her. Alba was trying to kill herself when Clara appears and tells Alba that she has to survive. Clara mentioned” The point was not to die, since death came anyway, but to survive, which would be a miracle”. Clara suggests that Alba should write her testimony in her mind that is to keep herself sane, and to testify on her experiences. Clara told Alba “you have a lot to do, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, drink some water, and start writing.” Because of focusing too much on writing her testimony, Alba doesn’t eat, or even drink. She was then removed from the solitary confinement because they were afraid that she was going to die. She was then returned to Esteban Garcia whom she no longer recognizes. The manifestation of the spirit of Clara is a great example of Deus Ex machina since she appeared when all hope of solving Alba’s problems seem to be down. With Clara’s appearance, Alba did not encounter death, forgets Esteban Garcia, and is able to mentally write down her experiences.
Both novels portray great examples of deux ex machina. The similarity between the dues ex machina is the fact that both of the spirits appear in the form of old women, both spirits appeared to them when they were alone, both spirits are either their own relative or a relative of someone they know, and most importantly, both spirits appeared to the characters when they were on the verge of breakdowns. The spirits of Clara and Morning Light apparated when they were alone, this, in my opinion really helped convince the characters that it’s not all over, especially in the case of Alba. .The spirit of Morning Light in “Like Water for Chocolate”, and the spirit of Clara in “The House of Spirits” both come to appear in front of the characters when they are going through breakdowns, physically, and mentally. The manifestation of the spirits brings a new hope that didn’t seem to exist at first, which is the whole point of the literary device, Deus ex machina. The author used Clara as the instrument of Deus ex machina because Alba and Clara were close; therefore there is a sense of trust between them. For the other apparition though, Tita and Morning Light come from different places, therefore it seems that they did not know each other then. That though, does not stop Tita from being able to understand Morning Light. It seems that she had a purpose to appear to Tita, which is to calm her down and make her feel comfortable.
The difference is that Clara appeared in front of Alba when she was on the verge of death, and Morning Light appeared to Tita when she was already safe, since she was already in John Brown’s residence. Therefore, this means that Clara’s appearance was more significant. Although that is the fact, Tita still needed the comfort that she got from Morning Light.
In conclusion, both authors used the literary devices properly .There are differences but the way that the authors used them were pretty much similar. Laura Esquivell used the literary device “Deus Ex Machina” to help Tita, the main character who was having a mental breakdown feel comfortable again after all that she has been through, and Isabel Allende used the literary device to help Alba abandon her desire to die and survive.
Love is defined as a mutual attraction between two people. It is an emotion where we feel “intensely tender, passionate affection for another person”. Love is uncontrollable; one can sometimes fall for the most unexpected person in their lives. Relationship between man and woman ending in holy matrimony is conventional, however love is not only limited to this kind as there are universal applications to this concept. It can diversify into different types rather than the conventional love. The type of love that will be focused on in this paper is Sapphic love between two female characters.
Isabelle Allende and Banana Yoshimoto have depicted different approaches and perceptions of Sapphic love. The word “Sapphic” is derived from the name of Sappho, a roman poet who is the father to the concept lesbian love. In House of the Spirits she showed it through Ferula, a single woman who encounters love for her sister-in-law. In Kitchen, Mikage, a teenage Japanese girl encounters love for a transsexual woman. Both authors have presented fascinating experiences in these two novels. Thus, I will analyze how both authors depict the Sapphic characters and how they eventually lead to good outcomes.
In House of The Spirits, the trigger that creates this love was when Ferula “found her self alone and no useful purpose to her life” and Clara accepted her into her family with kindness. Her reaction was that she “leaned across and kissed her on the cheek with such condor that she lost control and cried”. This suggests to the readers that from the beginning Ferula had felt an attachment to Clara. Their relationship was mutual like sisters, the plot continues and we begin to see that their relationship can be more than sisters.
Firstly, we are able to see love in Ferula’s obsessive behavior as shown in how she pampers and bathes Clara. The act of spoiling Clara is parallel to how she takes care of her mother and Esteban. The way she bathed Esteban as a child foreshadows how she will be with Clara. This passionate fondness for Clara is similar to that of her family. Her affection later grew into jealousy which caused conflicts between family members. Nana and Ferula despised each other because of their fighting over who earned the right to take care Clara’s essential needs. Ferula told lies and manipulations to everyone just to be able to spend more time with Clara. Even though, she knew that this is a sin she cannot help but to be in love with Clara.
The diction of the novel has given the readers knowledge about her desires for Clara. After being taken into the family, Ferula “Felt happy. She was closer to Clara than she had been to anyone, even her own mother”. The expression of Ferula’s feelings shows an even greater affection for Clara than for her own mother. In the novel, the only relationship she had had in her life besides her brother was her mother. This proves that the affection which grew for Clara is possible to be love. The tone creates a feeling of a strong bond towards Clara. She showed it explicitly after her feelings have developed into a stage where she was daring enough to come out of the closet; she was not able to control her feelings anymore and needed “to seek comfort and warmth she went to climbed into bed with her, whispered prayers and eventually sleeping together”. The act of sleeping is an ordinary act that when someone is lonely they seek a friend for comfort however the diction used by Esteban describing the two women sleeping was as if his sister had seduced Clara into sleeping together. He became violent to her, both physical and verbal. He cursed her of being a “dyke to a whore that perverted his wife with her caresses”. The words create a tone that Ferula indeed made love to Clara.
Although Ferula’s obsessions and feelings towards Clara was not returned, there was textual evidence showing Clara’s response to Ferula’s affection but her ethereal character made her unable to show it. When she found out about Ferula’s death, she asked everyone to leave her alone with her for a moment and confessed that “I always think of you Ferula, because the truth is that since you left no one has ever loved me as you did”. She continued to rant about the times when Ferula took care of her and the impacts she had in her life, and as a final act of good bye to Ferula she did the same things that Ferula did which are first kissing her forehead, undressing her and bathing her as she had done in the past to Clara. The act of bathing is a flashback of how Ferula had always done this to her showing that the affection is mutual.
Even though Ferula died, her character matured and developed through experiencing Sapphic love. Before she was with Clara, her purpose in life was to take care of her mother; she had no opinion of her own and her life was sacrificed for another person’s suffering. However, through Sapphic love, she became more opinionated and found a goal in her life, which was to love Clara.
In Kitchen we see the character Mikage Sakurai, a teenage Japanese girl who encounters Sapphic love with her friend’s transsexual father.
In the beginning, she suffers the death of her only remaining family. Her acquaintance Yuichi asked her to move into his apartment until she got on her own feet. Mikage accepted the request and decided to stay in his apartment. This is when, Mikage encountered his transsexual mother named Ericko. The readers were given an impression that she is fascinated by Ericko because Mikage has never encountered anyone like her. Mikage is “Dumfounded I couldn’t take my eyes off her”. This later on leads to her realization of her beauty. This is shown in the text how “I haven’t seen a woman that beautiful”
Even through Banana Yoshimoto’s simple style of writing the diction chosen to describe Ericko had an impact that Mikage is developing love towards her. It creates a tone that Mikage has bonded with Ericko. She is astounded by her unnatural beauty. The eccentricities as a parent and person, also, mesmerized Mikage.
Mikage and Ericko’s relationship is based on daily conversations. “Her power was the brilliance of her charm and it had brought her to where she was now”. The tone suggests Mikage’s feelings towards Ericko are based on her appeal or that it indicates Sapphic love. Even through their short conversations and while she spends most of her days with Yuichi, she felt that Ericko’s presence made her situation “cheerfully normal” amidst their bizarre lifestyle. Ericko has changed the way Mikage perceives the transgender culture through her beauty. She sees Ericko, not with disgust and contempt, but with beauty and respect. Before meeting her, Mikage was not able to move on with her life, suffering from depression over her grandmother’s death. However after her encounter with Ericko, Mikage described her feelings to be content. This is shown when she plainly said that “I’m so happy”. Her encounter with Ericko has changed her in such ways that now Mikage is able to move on with her life.
Even though no romantic relationship ever took place directly, Mikage has gained beneficial values from Ericko, she was able to gain back to her feet and be able to come across Yuichi.
Through both works that both authors have shown their Sapphic characters differently. The love that we are able see through the diction creates different atmospheric tones for each novel. In House of the Spirits, Ferula showed her encounter with Sapphic love through great measures, that she had to go against the beliefs of her own religion and ruin any possible relationship she has had with the Trueba family. She has shown through vulgar words describing her yearnings for Clara, with vivid descriptions of her jealousy of her brother and continuously creating lies so that she is able to spend more time with her. In Kitchen, Sapphic love was shown through Mikage’s character. Her relationship with Ericko focuses on their brief conversations, whether intimate or daily conversations. Through this work, I think that readers can understand the author did not show Sapphic love as love which is vulgar but rather intimate and focused more on the emotional connection between the two female characters.
Overall, the authors have successfully shown Sapphic characters through their works. In House of the Spirits, Ferula has shown her passionate love to Clara, the love that was shown through indecent thoughts and vulgar actions. From Kitchen, the love that Mikage portrayed was through the emotional connections and intimate conversations the she had with Ericko, though their relationship never occurred but their relationship could have had happen through the points that I have stated. Thus, the concept of love can be seen through many applications, one has been shown through Sapphic love.
Forbidden Love is a topic that has been used extensively throughout history to create dramatic plots and cause conflict for the characters within them. Usually such a situation causes many hardships as well as joys for the characters involved, and helps to define them.
I have chosen the two novels “House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende, and “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, to demonstrate my thesis. These stories are drastically affected as a result of these forbidden desires and the authors use a variety of literary devices and settings to convey the sense of this topic to the reader. ‘Forbidden Love’ has appeared in novels from every style of writing. From stories of action and adventure, to, of course, romance and passion, this theme can be a powerful tool, whether it be used to drive the plot of a story, or expose a character’s true nature.
A time-honoured example of this theme is the tale of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, which is the classic display of the tragedy of forbidden love. The authors of my two novels of choice use this theme to create complicated and compelling plots. It is also worthy of noting that both these stories are ‘Latin-American’ novels, and this passionate culture makes for the perfect environment to create engaging tales of love and tragedy.
The novel, House of the Spirits, is an epic story of a Peruvian family, set in the turbulent era of the late 1800’s, where war and insurgents were commonplace. It is filled with rich and complex characters, that are challenged and tested every step of their lives and it is through these conflicts that we are able to gain a deeper understanding of them. The conflict I have chosen to focus on is that of forbidden love, and perhaps the most prevalent example of this theme is seen in the characters of Blanca and Pedro.
Blanca is the daughter of a rich and intransigent tyrant who owns the Tres Marias, a large hacienda, and Pedro is a simple farmer who maintains its grounds. The times in which the story is set, were very class orientated. Hence this already creates a gap between the two; their love is forbidden by the very society in which they live. The second barrier to this young couple arises when Esteban banishes Pedro from the hacienda and forbids Blanca to see him. These barriers proved only to strengthen their passion “coming to love each other with the ecstatic passion that torments them for the rest of their lives”( 99).
The issues created by this conflict are present throughout the novel and serve to drive the plot and develop the characters involved. We are able to see how this conflict extensively alters the storyline of Blanca’s character, It is through her forbidden love that she becomes pregnant, as consequence of this pregnancy she must marry Jean De Satigny. Pedro on the other hand, is forced into greatness by the consequences of this love. When Blanca’s father banishes Pedro from the hacienda, he doesn’t defeat him, he forces him out into the world, where Pedro’s revolutionary ideas begin spreading like bushfire. It is through this revolutionist that the most prodigious changes occur in the book, and all that may not have been possible had it not been for his forbidden love. However the boundaries on their love had a price, eventually Blanca they become so used to their love being secret and forbidden, that she couldn’t bear to run away together with him for fear that their love would not survive normality. Instead she “fed their love with fantasies, idealized it, savagely defended it, stripped it of prosaic truth, and turned it into the kind of love found in novels”( ).
This leads to their temporary separation when faced with this normality, but eventually their love returns, as strong as ever. Through this the author demonstrates the power this forbidden love can have, the passion a secret desire can hold.
The second novel I have studied which shows evidence of this theme is titled Like Water For Chocolate. It is set around the lives Tita De LaGarza and her family, where they live a sheltered life, barely touched by the conflicts surrounding them, in a country torn apart by war. The author instills the theme of forbidden love from the very beginning of this story, with Tita’s character encountering a young dashing man by the name of Pedro Muscuzo*. From their very first encounter, passions are ignited for one another and burn strongly throughout the entire story , however this love is not without its obstacles. From the first time Tita mentions her lover’s name, her tyrannical grandmother, Mama Elena’, dashes her hopes of happiness, by forbidding their love. After this, she convinces Pedro to marry Tita’s sister Rosaura, as his only chance to see Tita again. As a result, the two sisters begin to hate each other, and Tita’s emotions are expressed through the food she prepares at the wedding. It causes everyone there to become ill, even killing a woman that had been very close to Tita.
While in House of the Spirits the author uses forbidden love as a tool to develop her story, the author of Like Water For Chocolate centers her entire story around this theme, using it in full effect to create a dramatic, passionate tale. Tita’s character is defined by the hardships she faces in her undying love for Pedro. The author uses these hardships to grow and develop the protagonists character, causing her to rebel against the strict traditions that bind her, to break free from the controlling Mama Elena. This theme of forbidden love throughout the book creates an exciting and dangerous atmosphere, and the author also uses a number of other literary devices to support this theme. Devices such as food related metaphors and the different uses of language throughout. It is also through this theme that the author creates and shapes her characters. Gertrudis, another De LaGarza sister, is given life by this theme, this forbidden passion shared by Tita and Pedro, when their desire is infused into a meal she eats. This then drives her character to escape also, continuing the plot and giving the character of Gertrudis her own unique challenges to overcome.
Another way the author uses this theme in relation to her characters, is the contrast she creates between Pedro and Tita’s personalities. She does this by revealing the different ways in which these two characters deal with the hardships of forbidden love, in Tita she creates strength through this love.
During the characters life, Tita has been oppressed by the unrelenting rule of Mama Elena, unable to find the will to rise up against her tormentor. The author gives her character this secret passion to fuel her spirit, and give her the purpose she needed to overcome her fear, and break free from her family. In Pedro however, we see a different trait revealed as a result of these hardships, weakness. When his love for Tita is cast out by Mama Elena, his character offers no defiance. Worse yet, he gives in to Mama Elena’s will and becomes the husband of Rosaura. It is through these early choices that the Author begins to reveal the true character of Pedro. Then, as the story progresses Pedro sees Tita’s growing suffering, but never does he stand up for his love, he meekly continues to abide by his marriage to Rosaura, thus we have fully realized the nature of Pedro’s character. It is now evident through the examples I have provided that forbidden love is a powerful storytelling tool, whether it be to simply add depth to a plot, as seen in House of the Spirits, Or be the entire foundation of one, as in Like Water For Chocolate. In conclusion, love is always present in our lives, and among the strongest emotions one can feel. It can cause us great pain or great happiness. The authors of House of the Spirits and Like Water For Chocolate have harnessed the power of this emotion, tied in with the thrill of forbidden desire, and the result is a novel which both engages and touches its readers.
The copy above has been revised..but is still only a rough draft..why cant a find a topic that grabs me. I'd have written this so much easier if i could.
8 comments:
To bring two people together in Holy Matrimony is also to grant them lifelong companionship and happiness. Though marriage is available for anyone to obtain, some are forbidden from receiving it, as in the case of the characters Ferula from the book The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and Tita from the book Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. In practicing their family tradition, Tita the youngest daughter of the De La Garza family gave up her engagement to live with her mother until death while Ferula Trueba rejected marriage when she insincerely volunteered to take care of her ill mother. This paper will explain the negative effects of these experiences on the characters.
Early in the book, the authors show the reader how being deprived of marriage can affect one’s health. In Like Water for Chocolate, Tita becomes physically ill and weak through the use of magic realism. Because of the engagement of her true love, Pedro, to her sister, Rosaura, Tita experiences a sudden “icy feeling of grief” from the heartache of her mother’s cruelty and her love’s betrayal. Tita was not even able to find refuge in the Christmas rolls - a favorite dish that had often cured all her illnesses in the past. But Tita’s cold was only the beginning. During the preparation of the wedding Tita falls blind and sees “a blinding whiteness”. This blindness is a metaphor of her purity as a virgin and the white dress she will never wear to the wedding she will never have. Her misery had also caused her to become weak. She experiences fatigue, shaking, and nervous collapses from dry labor, preparing a banquet for her sister. This can be seen in the quote “A fit of trembling shook Tita’s body and she broke out in goose bumps.”
On the other hand, Ferula becomes mentally ill. Ferula “moved thickly and awkwardly and had the same sour character as her brother”. Ferula became obsessed with the things she had done daily. Bathing, feeding and nursing her mother was her routine, until the day Dona Ester had finally passed on. “She was content to clean her mother’s ulcerated legs, washing her and sinking deeply into her stench and wretchedness.” Even before her mother developed arthritis, she had “bathed [Esteban, her brother], took him out for strolls” with the same affection she had her mother. But her weak mentality had tied her down from moving on and doing other things in life after Dona Ester’s death. Lost, she instead took care of, her sister-in-law, Clara and “bathed her in jasmine and basil water, rubbed her with cologne, and brushed her hair until it was soft and shiny.”
We can also conclude that the authors are driving us to feel a certain way about these characters. After the first few examples, the readers are influenced to feel sympathy for Tita because of all the suffering she experiences after a lifetime of abuse from her mother. On the other hand, the readers feel pity for Ferula. Though the readers empathize for Ferula, they do not feel the same sympathy for her as they did Tita because of her attitude and her insincerity. We can also derive that both authors teach us that without love and marriage, there is no one to truly care for another in sickness or in health. But aside from altering one’s wellbeing, solitude may also lead to desperation.
Desperation from living alone without a husband is also trait evident in both characters. They seek deep attention and fall easily for those who express care for them. From birth Tita was abused and lived unnoticed by Mama Elena. The lack of love she does not receive from her mother and the love from Pedro she is forbidden to return, Tita’s hope for love begins to fade as the book progresses, until the birth of her nephew, Roberto. “She realized that she was feeling a new love: for life, for this child”. Laura Esquivel uses magic realism to show the love she had for Roberto. She loved him so much “a thin stream of milk sprayed out of her breast even if “she knew it was completely dry”. The id in her subconscious mind made her take Roberto as her own. It was human nature to need to feel love from another human. She fed him, took care of him and “did a mother’s work without the official title”. Other than that she had even hastily accepted John’s proposal even though she secretly still saw Pedro in the dark room. This shows that though she was still in love with Pedro, she feared that no one would ever love her again. Desperation and fear had her accept marriage to John, despite the old feelings for Pedro that still lived inside her.
Through these examples, we can perceive that though Tita is affected negatively by loneliness, she develops a better character because she learns to care for others but it also proves that she doubts her decisions, since she still saw Pedro despite her engagement. We can see that loneliness in staying single can cause one to become incapable of making decisions but it makes one more mature and changes one for the better. The author teaches us that good outcomes can come from bad situations.
Ferula’s desperation had also turned to fall into Sapphic love, despite her religious beliefs. Ferula was a “tormented soul” since she had “turned down two suitors on the pretext of her mother’s illness”. Left by drunken father and brother, Ferula lived in shame and “humiliation and in menial tasks” never knowing love besides the love her dying mother had vaguely displayed. She falls for the only person who has presented love and cared for her, her sister in law, Clara. Ferula “can’t sleep at night. [She] feels as if she is choking… [She wants] to climb into bed with her and feel the warmth of her skin and her gentle breathing”. Being that the love is unrequited Ferula becomes insecure and afraid to lose this fragile love. She curses those who try to take Clara away, as in the case of Esteban Trueba, Clara’s husband, and the jealousy he felt. She told him that “you will always be alone! Your body and soul will shrivel up and you’ll die like a dog.” In the end, Esteban begins to shrivel, shrink in size and mentality, and dies parallel to the death of the Clara’s family dog, Barrabas. Through magic realism and foreshadowing Allende shows us how hate can be created from forbidding one to love another, despite their relationship as friends or even siblings in Ferula’s case.
Contrasting Tita, Ferula’s condition has worsened causing readers to continuously pity her. The feeling of hate for her also develops because she is disturbing peace in a happy marriage. Her curse also affects the major character, Esteban Trueba, and foretells his death. This causes a change in character in Esteban because he becomes angry, abusive and more obsessed with Clara, later destroying the relationship with her and his family, in the end.
The last comparison between the two characters is that while Tita had become empowered by living in solitude, Ferula had become corrupt. Clearly, Tita’s empowerment is shown when she was not willing to let others suffer the fate of tradition; to live with their mothers until death do them part. “Tita prayed that the idea of perpetuating this cruel tradition would not cross Rosaura’s mind”. Magic realism shows the anger Tita feels when “the steam rising from the pan mingled with the heat given off by Tita’s body”, when Rosaura had mentioned the tradition again. But on the contrary, Ferula had become fraudulent and deceitful; corrupt. Her jealousy for the freedom she cannot have causes her to envy and manipulate. Her attitude also becomes insincere and egotistical. When Esteban wanted to buy coffee for himself, she would not allow it and instead of supporting him, she told him “That’s what you get for spending Mama’s medicine money on you private little whims. God punished you” when Esteban spilt his “Viennese coffee” on “his only suit”. Esteban himself noticed “how she managed to make him feel guilty”. Her deceit is also apparent when “she had accepted the role of her mother’s nurse” but at the same time felt hatred towards herself for succumbing into the situation and her mother for “being their instrument”. Ferula used her mother’s illness as a ticket into entering Heaven, since she sacrificed everything else to be “ready at any moment to run in and administered her potions, hold her bedpan, and straighten her [mother’s] pillows”.
Physical and mental illness, desperation, empowerment and corruption of these two characters have both altered the novels and had conveyed similar messages. Ferula’s desperation had led to a development of the plot and started a motif of the dying of a main character’s body and soul starting from Ferula to Esteban Garcia and later Esteban Trueba . It also, at the same time, emphasized the innocence sister-in-law, developing the character, and allowing the readers to understand more about the clairvoyant. Tita’s solitude and depression had been a motif in the book from beginning to end. It is also the reason for the main conflict and plot. It also had shown desperation resulting from unrequited love, when Pedro decides to marry Rosaura to stay close to Tita. The authors show that without love from a marriage, one suffers physically, mentally and their personalities change. But amidst all the pessimistic views of life as a spinster, I believe both authors are trying to repeat a message that has been repeated so many times in history; love can truly change a person’s attitude, outlook, views but the lack thereof can also drastically change one, break one to feel miserable, dejected and unhappy and can cause one to do evil things.
How silence is used as a form of refuge in the novels
“The House of The Spirits” and “Like water for Chocolate”
Alexander Andrew Halim
English A1 SL
Introduction
Silence can be used to express sadness, disappointment, or as an act of anger, although silence can also be used as a means of refuge. The mind is a complex structure, it will always prioritize its own safety and comfort before anything else, so in principle, the mind will always protect itself from anything and will try to convince itself that it is fine. In times where the mind cannot present itself with a plausible reason of why it is in a good state of function and/or reason, such as in the case of extreme stress, the mind will find a way to protect itself from collapsing from a traumatic experience and/or conflicting emotions and thoughts caused by external influence by shutting down and excommunicating itself from society, preferring to remain in the safety of its own thoughts and emotions, resulting in silence. These periods of silence vary depending on the condition of the person inflicted, they may last for days, month, years, even their whole lifetime. In this essay I will show how Isabelle Allende author of “The House of The Spirits” and Laura Esquivell author of “Like Water for Chocolate portray Clara and Tita during their periods of silence and shows how they uses silence as a form of refuge as well as the conditions leading to their silence and to their recovery.
In The House of The spirits, Clara is subject to her fits of silence, especially after suffering from a traumatic experience. The first known case of her silence is shown in the first Chapter, Rosa the Beautiful, as Clara witnesses the autopsy and dissection of her beloved and ethereal sister Rosa who has been recently poisoned. As a ten year old child who is pure at heart Clara is vulnerable to such grotesque images of death. As a result, Clara is traumatized, and within her she felt silence and emptiness, which is explained through the line, “Silence filled her utterly”. Clara who is incapable of accepting the death of her sister, and is unable to communicate with her family of the issue for fear of recalling the images, is left with no choice but to remain safe in the confines of her mind. Her silence, contrary to what Dr. Cuevas has suggested is not the product of insanity or any other mental illness, Clara is silent simply because she wishes to be. This statement is explained by the Rumanian performer, Rostipov in the sentence, “the child was silent because she did not feel like speaking, not because she was unable to.” Furthermore, Isabelle Allende shows that Clara’s silence symbolizes an act of desperation for a plea of help to escape the material world to rise to a level that would allow her to leave behind discomfort and heaviness of reality, through the line from Esteban Trueba, ”I had come to understand that silence is my wife’s last refuge.”
In Like Water for Chocolate, the conditions of Tita falling into the state of silence is similar to Clara’s, as they had both lost someone precious to them, in Tita’s case, her nephew Roberto who had passed away due to malnutrition from refusal to eat any food which is not made by Tita. They had both been unable to accept the deaths of their beloved, as Tita screamed to Mama Elena, “You did it, you killed Roberto!”, and they were both within the presence of someone they feared, Dr. Cuevas for Clara, and Mama Elena for Tita. Tita’s silence came from the Traumatic death of her nephew and her constantly conflicting emotions against Mama Elena. In order to seek refuge in her mind, Tita has substituted a pigeon for Roberto and constantly fed it, when the pigeon died from overeating and indigestion, Tita’s mind sank into silence. As it is with Clara’s condition, Tita’s silence is also because she does not want to speak, not because of insanity, as declared by Mama Elena in the line ,”Fine, if she is actin g crazy, then I’m going to put her in an asylum. There’s no place in this house for maniacs!”.Tita explains her reason to be silent in this line,”because I don’t want to”. Laura Esquivell shows that silence is Tita’s last refuge, mainly because Tita has nowhere else to go, as she had been chased and disowned off her family, and even in Dr. Brown’s kind and loving presence, Tita is still unsure whether she can divulge her feelings towards him. Unable to express her feelings and emotions, Tita kept her thoughts and feelings to herself.
Clara’s silence lasted for nine years before she decided to make her voice heard again. Clara decided on her nineteenth birthday, that she would announce to her family that she was to be married, to Esteban Trueba. Clara’s decision to speak again was simply because she wanted to, as simple as when she wanted to stay quiet, there is no real for Clara to stay quiet, she announced her betrothal and marriage to Esteban Trueba because she felt and wanted to inform her family.
Tita’s silence is cured when Chencha decided to visit her without the knowledge of Mama Elena. Along with herself, Chencha brought Tita some Ox- Tail Soup, whose aroma and flavor immediately reinvigorated Tita’s physical and mental self. The taste of the ox-tail soup brought memories after precious memories gushing into tita’s consciousness, as the spirit of Nacha settled alongside Tita as they recited step by step on how to create an Ox-tail soup. The soup has rekindled and dried her soggy and moist soul and gave energy to Tita as she shouted, “John! Please don’t leave!” Tita’s soul has been healed and she no longer needs to seek refuge within her mind.
As a conclusion, both Isabelle Allende and Laura Esquivell have shown us how silence was used as a form of refuge and safety for their characters. For Clara, silence is a way to transcend the pain and fatigues of the material world. Clara would simply return to her silence whenever she feels like, and no one, not even Esteban Trueba can disturb her in her own mind. For Clara her silence is way to cope with her disbelief of Roberto’s death, Roberto’s death has dampened her soul, and Dr. Brown’s love for her as well as Nacha and her Ox-tail soup has restored her soul.
Word count: 1,053
Bibliography
Allende, Isabelle. The House of The Spirits. September 2005. United States of America: Random House, Inc, 2005. (Allende 39, 73, 113)
Esquivell, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. November 1995. United States of America: Random House,inc, 1992. (Esquivelle 99, 101, 117, 125)
Word Literature Assignment
Grade 11, English A1- Mr Clarence
Topic Question:
“What is the significance of ‘Forbidden Love’ in ‘House Of The Spirits’ and ‘Like Water For Chocolate’.
By: Adam.Arena
Forbidden Love is a topic that has been used extensively throughout history to create dramatic plots and cause conflict for the characters within them. Usually such a situation causes many hardships as well as joys for the characters involved, and helps to define them.
I have chosen the two novels “House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende, and “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, to demonstrate my thesis. These stories are drastically affected as a result of these prohibited desires and the authors use a variety of language and events to convey the sense of this topic to the reader.
‘Forbidden Love’ has appeared in novels from every style of writing. From stories of action and adventure, to, of course, romance and passion, this theme can be a powerful tool, whether it be used to drive the plot, expose a character’s true nature, or be the basis for the entire story.
classic example of this theme is the tale of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, which is the classic display of the tragedy of forbidden love. The authors of my two novels of choice, use this theme to create complicated and compelling plots. It is also worthy of noting that both these stories are ‘Latin-American’ novels, and this passionate culture makes for the perfect environment to create engaging tales of love and tragedy.
The novel, House of the Spirits, is an epic story of a Peruvian family caught in the difficult times surrounding the revolution. It is filled with rich and complex characters, that are challenged and tested every step of their lives and it is through these conflicts that we are able to gain a deeper understanding of them. The conflict I have chosen to focus on is that of forbidden love, and perhaps the most prevalent example of this theme is seen in the characters of Blanca and Pedro.
Blanca is the daughter of Esteban Trueba, a rich and powerful tyrant who owns the Hacienda where Pedro works. The times in which this story is set, were very class orientated, this already creates a gap between the two; Pedro is a poor farmer, Blanca is part of a rich and respected family, so their love is forbidden by the very society in which they live. The second barrier to this young couple arises when Esteban banishes Pedro from the hacienda and forbids Blanca to see him. These barriers however are not enough to stop them from “coming to love each other with the ecstatic passion that torments them for the rest of their lives”( ).
This creates a constant conflict between the characters of Blanca and Esteban Trueba and serves as the central purpose for Blanca’s character.
The issues created by this conflict are present throughout the novel and serve to drive the plot and develop the characters involved. We are able to see how this conflict alters the characters of Blanca and Pedro, who eventually become so used to their love being secret and forbidden, that they can’t bear to run away together, for fear that their love would not survive normality. Instead she “fed their love with fantasies, idealized it, savagely defended it, stripped it of prosaic truth, and turned it into the kind of love found in novels”( ). The story of these two lovers adds to the complexity and romance of the story as a whole.-
{-How, drives the plot HOW)
It does
Another example found in this text is worlds apart from the innocent love between Blanca and Pedro. It is the infatuation which the character Ferula Trueba develops for Clara Dell Valle’s character. Clara is the wife of the previously mentioned Esteban Trueba, and Ferula is his sister, merely stating the roles of these characters creates a string of reasons why their love should be prohibited. However this love is not mutual, it is only felt by Ferula, who at first cared for and loved Clara as a sister, then later develops feelings somewhat more unusual. The character of Ferula develops a “jealous passion for Clara that resembled that of a demanding husband more than it did that of a sister-in-law”( ).
The author uses this conflict to further separate Ferula from her brother and expose her true nature, we can see evidence of this in the following extract taken from the book. Ferula “was overwhelmed by a peculiar hatred she couldn’t explain, which filled her soul with regret.”( )
Her character becomes increasingly resentful and jealous of her brother, and after seeing him and Clara making love one night, she goes to confession to relieve her guilt, “You don’t know the thoughts that can run through the mind of a single woman, a virgin” ( ). It is through using this situation that the author reveals to us the real character of Ferula, who was, before then, portrayed as a selfless, holy being. Esteban’s character becomes aware of this infatuation, and in a fit of rage, throws his sister out forbidding her to ever see Clara again. This initiates a key moment in the authors story, where Ferula’s character curses her brother to *”shrivel up and die like a dog”( ), a curse which later takes effect, though not exactly as she had prognosticated.
The second novel I have studied which shows evidence of this theme is titled Like Water For Chocolate. This tale is set within the same time frame as House of the Spirits, during the Mexican revolutions of 18--. It is set around the lives of Tita De LaGarza and her large, heavily traditional family. The author instills the theme of forbidden love from the very beginning of her story, with Tita’s character encountering a young dashing man by the name of Pedro Muscuzo*. From their very first encounter, passions are ignited for one another and burn strongly throughout the entire story , however this love is not without its obstacles. From the first time Tita mentions her lover’s name, her tyrannical grandmother, Mama Elena’, dashes her hopes of happiness, by forbidding their love. After this, she convinces Pedro to marry Tita’s sister Rosaura, as his only chance to see Tita again.
While in House of the Spirits the author uses forbidden love as a tool to develop her story, the author of Like Water For Chocolate centers her entire story around this theme, using it in full effect to create a dramatic, passionate tale. Tita’s character is defined by the hardships she faces in her undying love for Pedro.
The author uses these hardships to grow and develop the protagonists character, causing her to rebel against the strict traditions that bind her, to break free from the controlling Mama Elena.
This theme of forbidden love throughout the book creates an exciting and dangerous atmosphere, and the author also uses a number of other literary devices to support this theme. Devices such as food related metaphors and the different uses of language throughout. It is also through this theme that the author creates and shapes her characters. Gertrudis, another De LaGarza sister, is given life by this theme, this forbidden passion shared by Tita and Pedro, when their desire is infused into a meal she eats. This then drives her character to escape also, continuing the plot and giving the character of Gertrudis her own unique challenges to overcome.
Another way the author uses this theme in relation to her characters, is the contrast she creates between Pedro and Tita’s personalities. She does this by revealing the different ways in which these two characters deal with the hardships of forbidden love, in Tita she creates strength through this love.
During the characters life, Tita has been oppressed by the unrelenting rule of Mama Elena, unable to find the will to rise up against her tormentor. The author gives her character this secret passion to fuel her spirit, and give her the purpose she needed to overcome her fear, and break free from her family.
In Pedro however, we see a different trait revealed as a result of these hardships, weakness. When his love for Tita is cast out by Mama Elena, his character offers no defiance. Worse yet, he gives in to Mama Elena’s will and becomes the husband of Rosaura. It is through these early choices that the Author begins to reveal the true character of Pedro. Then, as the story progresses Pedro sees Tita’s growing suffering, but never does he stand up for his love, he meekly continues to abide by his marriage to Rosaura, thus we have fully realized the nature of Pedro’s character.
As you can see through the examples I have provided, forbidden love is a powerful storytelling tool, whether it be to simply add depth to a plot, as seen in House of the Spirits. Or be the entire foundation of one, as in Like Water For Chocolate.
In conclusion, love is always present in our lives, and among the strongest emotions one can feel. It can cause us great pain or great happiness, and the authors of House of the Spirits and Like Water For Chocolate have harnessed the power of these emotions in their novels to engage and touch their readers.
Nabila Yasmin SofyanHow are the characters in the novels affected by Esteban Trueba and Perdro Muzquizs male arrogane ?
“Arrogance is an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptous claims or assumptions”^1. It is the effect of anger in which one has from jelousy or envy. Pride is the state of pleasure or having high self esteem. Destroyed pride can also be the cause of ones arrogance. The feeling of being in control can be easily destroyed when one is feeling angry or frustrated.
We can see that in both novels House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, male protagonists Esteban Garcia and Pedro Muzquiz can be portrayed by the readers as being arrogant and proud. Their arrogance and pride acts as a barrier between their family and the people around them.
Esteban Trueba from House of the Spirits is the leading male figure in the novel. He is perceived as an obsessive, violent man who devotes his life working in order to become rich and powerful. He achieves this however with the help of peasant workers working in Tres Marias in which he thinks he helps them by providing them food and the necessities for living, but in reality these peasants do not agree with the way he is leading Tres Marias. From this example Isabel Allende has shown us that Esteban Trueba is a man of pride, he does not liste to what the workers in Tres Marias think and say, but instead he rules Tres Marias under his own rules and dictatorship.
This can be seen from the quote “He forbode anyone to talk back to him and could tolerate no opposition he viewed the slightest disagreement as a provocation”^2 . This quote shows Estebans dictatorship over Tres Marias. It also shows how powerful Esteban Trueba is, and that he knows he possesses these powers. His dictatorship has lead the citizens of Tres Marias to go against him. From this we can assume that he possesses these powers and takes full advantage of it. Though his sucess was helped by the peasants of Tres Marias, he did not give them the respect they deserved. Instead he treated them unfairly by giving them unfair wage, and treating women injusticely.
Esteban Trueba supports the republican party, and threatens his workes in Tres Marias to vote for the Republicans as well. This shows how much the peasant workers in Tres Marias must follow he rules under Esteban Truebas dictatorship. This can be seen from the quote “If the patron finds out we’re voting Socialists, we’re done for, they said”^3. This shows that the peasant workers in Tres Marias are forced to do what Esteban Trueba insists, from this we can see how much Esteban Trueba is feared.
Esteban Trueba is a man of power who does as he pleases. He is known in Tres Marias for raping young innocent women. Esteban Garcia, grandson of one of the women he has raped, is one of the characters in the novel that has suffered from Esteban Truebas pride. Although Esteban Garcia is his legitimate grandson, he however treats him unfairly and does not accept it. Esteban Trueba does not consider Garcia as a part of his family. I thought that this was the best example shown by Isabel Allende to show the readers that Esteban Trueba is an arrogant, vilolent man because through this we can see that Esteban Trueba does not care for others and will do what ever he can to get rid of any distrubance that gets in his way.
Similar to Esteban Trueba, Pedro Muzquiz of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Equivel can be portrayed as a man of much pride and arrogance. Like Esteban Trueba, Pedro Muzquiz’s pride effects the people he loves and his surroundings. Especially Tita, the women he truely loves. Though he admits that Tita is his one and only true love, he however hurts her by marrying her sister. Pedro Muzquiz believes that by marrying Titas sister Rossaura, he will be able to become closer with Tita, since Tita is forbided to marry by her family traditions.
Pedro Muzquizs arrogance can be seen when he believed that by marrying Rossaura, Tita will not get hurt by this. This however hurts Tita deeply leaving her depressed. This can be seen from the quote “For months she’d been tormented by the thought that Pedro had lied to her on her wedding day, that he’d told her he loved her just so she wouln’t suffer..”^4 This quote shows how Pedro Muzquiz did not think of how Tita would have felt when he married her own sister. I thought that from this example, Pedro Muzquiz can be portrayed as being proud, that he could have anything he wanted, Pedro did not think of Tita’s feelings but only that of his own.
Another example of Pedro Muzquizs arrogance that can be seen in the novel was shown when Tita had decided she would marry Docter Brown instead of him. Pedro was furious and mad becuase he had thought for sure that Tita would choose him instead. This can be seen from the quote “ Tita, I want to say, I think your idea of marrying John is a terrible mistake. Theres still time, dont make this mistake, please, dont agree to this marriege!” ^5 This quote shows us how angry Pedro Muzquiz was, I thought that he believed since he had waited for Titas mother to die, Tita would be his.
From these two characters, Esteban Trueba and Pedro Muzquiz can be portrayed as arrogant, I think that both authors was able to show how both characters personalities of believing that they have power over everyone else. Both characters Esteban Treuba and Pedro Muzquiz are both similar in that other characters from both novels were effected by their actions. I think the way Esteban Trueba dictates Tres Marias is a good way to help the town flourish, however, Esteban Trueba should listen to the problem the peasant workers in Tres Marias faces and help them improve their lives from their needs instead of his own. I also think that Esteban Trueba should listen to his families opinions more. He’s dictatorship over Tres Marias is similar to that of the way he rules his family. Though i belive Esteban Trueba has the right to set household rules, he should also consider the needs of his family as well.
Similar to Esteban Trueba, Pedro Muzquiz should also consider Titas feelings before marrying her sister. Pedro Muzquiz did not ask of Titas opinion before he married Rossaura, but assumed that Tita would understand why had done this.
Through out both stories, I thought that the authors Isabel Allende and Laura Equivel was succeful in showing the readers how much ones arrogance can effect those arround them. It can either hurt or help others, and this can be seen from the characters in both novels who were effected by Esteban Trueba and Pedor Muzquizs arrogance and pride.
Bibliography
1 - Web.30 Apr 2009. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrogance
2 - Allende, Isabel. The House Of The Spirits. Canada: The Dial Press A division of Random House, Inc. New York, New York, September 2005. Print. (Allende 63)
3 - Allende, Isabel. The House Of The Spirits. Canada: The Dial Press A division of Random House, Inc. New York, New York, September 2005. Print. (Allende 191)
4 - Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. Great Britain: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1992, 1993. Print. (Esquivel 65)
5 - Esquivel, Laura. Like Water For Chocolate. Great Britain: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1992, 1993. Print. (Esquivel 137)
MARSELBAIT
"Compare and contrast the way that the authors of the novels “Like Water for Chocolate” and “The House of The Spirits” used the literary device “Deus Ex Machina”
Deus Ex Machina literarily means “God from the machine”. It is a plot device where a person or an object appears out of the blue and solves seemingly insolvable problems.
The novels Like “Water for Chocolate” written by Laura Esquivel, and “The House of Spirits”, written by Isabel Allende both contain this specific device. Aside from that similarity that they share, there is another similarity, the fact that the Deus Ex Machina both come in the form of ghosts of a deceased ancestor of a character in the novels.
The novel “Like Water for Chocolate” tells a story about a girl named Tita who longs for the love of Pedro, although it is impossible since her mother’s domineering traditional belief that the youngest daughter of the family cannot marry and has to take care of her mother until the day that she dies. Tita expresses her emotions through her cooking, since the novel is a magical realism novel, the people who taste her cooking gets to experience what she is feeling. The plot device “Deus Ex Machina” happens when Tita meets a silent woman whom she visits daily when she was in the care of Dr. Brown. Tita always felt comfortable whenever the woman was around. The old woman was obvoisly a kind woman since she smiled, and also offered Tita a sip of tea that she made when they met for the first time. In this part of the story, Tita was already starting to feel comfort. It seems that the both of them share the same thing; the both of them were able to cook really well. This is shown when Tita knew that the stench that was coming from the small room at the end of the patio was made by a person who really knew how to cook. The fact that Tita really knows how to cook, her being able to recognize another person who is able to cook as well as her is definitely true. Another part that shows that the both of them share the same skills was when Tita sipped the tea made by the old woman; she thought that the tea was welcoming and that the aromas of the herbs were familiar and mysterious. The woman turned out to be the doctor, John Brown’s grandmother, a Native American named “Morning Light”. Morning Light helped Tita by making her feel comfortable after all that she has been through; Tita finally feels comfort. Although Tita and Morning Light do not speak to each other, it is said that “it wasn’t necessary. From the first, they had established a communication that went far beyond words.” It seems that somehow, the spirit of Morning Light and Tita shared the same thing, the feeling of being unaccepted.
The novel “The House of The Spirits” tells a story about the Trueba family, spanning four generations. Through these generations, there are traces of post-colonial social and political turbulence in the Latin American region. The Deus Ex Machina in the novel happens when Alba, the fourth generation of the Trueba family, meets the spirit of Clara, her deceased grandmother. Alba was physically, sexually, and emotionally tortured by the guards and Esteban Garcia when she was captured. She was then sent to the “doghouse” which was a small, enclosed cell, similar to a dark, frozen, airless tomb because of Esteban Garcia’s desire to torture her. Alba was trying to kill herself when Clara appears and tells Alba that she has to survive. Clara mentioned” The point was not to die, since death came anyway, but to survive, which would be a miracle”. Clara suggests that Alba should write her testimony in her mind that is to keep herself sane, and to testify on her experiences. Clara told Alba “you have a lot to do, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, drink some water, and start writing.” Because of focusing too much on writing her testimony, Alba doesn’t eat, or even drink. She was then removed from the solitary confinement because they were afraid that she was going to die. She was then returned to Esteban Garcia whom she no longer recognizes. The manifestation of the spirit of Clara is a great example of Deus Ex machina since she appeared when all hope of solving Alba’s problems seem to be down. With Clara’s appearance, Alba did not encounter death, forgets Esteban Garcia, and is able to mentally write down her experiences.
Both novels portray great examples of deux ex machina. The similarity between the dues ex machina is the fact that both of the spirits appear in the form of old women, both spirits appeared to them when they were alone, both spirits are either their own relative or a relative of someone they know, and most importantly, both spirits appeared to the characters when they were on the verge of breakdowns.
The spirits of Clara and Morning Light apparated when they were alone, this, in my opinion really helped convince the characters that it’s not all over, especially in the case of Alba. .The spirit of Morning Light in “Like Water for Chocolate”, and the spirit of Clara in “The House of Spirits” both come to appear in front of the characters when they are going through breakdowns, physically, and mentally. The manifestation of the spirits brings a new hope that didn’t seem to exist at first, which is the whole point of the literary device, Deus ex machina. The author used Clara as the instrument of Deus ex machina because Alba and Clara were close; therefore there is a sense of trust between them. For the other apparition though, Tita and Morning Light come from different places, therefore it seems that they did not know each other then. That though, does not stop Tita from being able to understand Morning Light. It seems that she had a purpose to appear to Tita, which is to calm her down and make her feel comfortable.
The difference is that Clara appeared in front of Alba when she was on the verge of death, and Morning Light appeared to Tita when she was already safe, since she was already in John Brown’s residence. Therefore, this means that Clara’s appearance was more significant. Although that is the fact, Tita still needed the comfort that she got from Morning Light.
In conclusion, both authors used the literary devices properly .There are differences but the way that the authors used them were pretty much similar. Laura Esquivell used the literary device “Deus Ex Machina” to help Tita, the main character who was having a mental breakdown feel comfortable again after all that she has been through, and Isabel Allende used the literary device to help Alba abandon her desire to die and survive.
Love is defined as a mutual attraction between two people. It is an emotion where we feel “intensely tender, passionate affection for another person”. Love is uncontrollable; one can sometimes fall for the most unexpected person in their lives. Relationship between man and woman ending in holy matrimony is conventional, however love is not only limited to this kind as there are universal applications to this concept. It can diversify into different types rather than the conventional love. The type of love that will be focused on in this paper is Sapphic love between two female characters.
Isabelle Allende and Banana Yoshimoto have depicted different approaches and perceptions of Sapphic love. The word “Sapphic” is derived from the name of Sappho, a roman poet who is the father to the concept lesbian love. In House of the Spirits she showed it through Ferula, a single woman who encounters love for her sister-in-law. In Kitchen, Mikage, a teenage Japanese girl encounters love for a transsexual woman. Both authors have presented fascinating experiences in these two novels. Thus, I will analyze how both authors depict the Sapphic characters and how they eventually lead to good outcomes.
In House of The Spirits, the trigger that creates this love was when Ferula “found her self alone and no useful purpose to her life” and Clara accepted her into her family with kindness. Her reaction was that she “leaned across and kissed her on the cheek with such condor that she lost control and cried”. This suggests to the readers that from the beginning Ferula had felt an attachment to Clara. Their relationship was mutual like sisters, the plot continues and we begin to see that their relationship can be more than sisters.
Firstly, we are able to see love in Ferula’s obsessive behavior as shown in how she pampers and bathes Clara. The act of spoiling Clara is parallel to how she takes care of her mother and Esteban. The way she bathed Esteban as a child foreshadows how she will be with Clara. This passionate fondness for Clara is similar to that of her family. Her affection later grew into jealousy which caused conflicts between family members. Nana and Ferula despised each other because of their fighting over who earned the right to take care Clara’s essential needs. Ferula told lies and manipulations to everyone just to be able to spend more time with Clara. Even though, she knew that this is a sin she cannot help but to be in love with Clara.
The diction of the novel has given the readers knowledge about her desires for Clara. After being taken into the family, Ferula “Felt happy. She was closer to Clara than she had been to anyone, even her own mother”. The expression of Ferula’s feelings shows an even greater affection for Clara than for her own mother. In the novel, the only relationship she had had in her life besides her brother was her mother. This proves that the affection which grew for Clara is possible to be love. The tone creates a feeling of a strong bond towards Clara. She showed it explicitly after her feelings have developed into a stage where she was daring enough to come out of the closet; she was not able to control her feelings anymore and needed “to seek comfort and warmth she went to climbed into bed with her, whispered prayers and eventually sleeping together”. The act of sleeping is an ordinary act that when someone is lonely they seek a friend for comfort however the diction used by Esteban describing the two women sleeping was as if his sister had seduced Clara into sleeping together. He became violent to her, both physical and verbal. He cursed her of being a “dyke to a whore that perverted his wife with her caresses”. The words create a tone that Ferula indeed made love to Clara.
Although Ferula’s obsessions and feelings towards Clara was not returned, there was textual evidence showing Clara’s response to Ferula’s affection but her ethereal character made her unable to show it. When she found out about Ferula’s death, she asked everyone to leave her alone with her for a moment and confessed that “I always think of you Ferula, because the truth is that since you left no one has ever loved me as you did”. She continued to rant about the times when Ferula took care of her and the impacts she had in her life, and as a final act of good bye to Ferula she did the same things that Ferula did which are first kissing her forehead, undressing her and bathing her as she had done in the past to Clara. The act of bathing is a flashback of how Ferula had always done this to her showing that the affection is mutual.
Even though Ferula died, her character matured and developed through experiencing Sapphic love. Before she was with Clara, her purpose in life was to take care of her mother; she had no opinion of her own and her life was sacrificed for another person’s suffering. However, through Sapphic love, she became more opinionated and found a goal in her life, which was to love Clara.
In Kitchen we see the character Mikage Sakurai, a teenage Japanese girl who encounters Sapphic love with her friend’s transsexual father.
In the beginning, she suffers the death of her only remaining family. Her acquaintance Yuichi asked her to move into his apartment until she got on her own feet. Mikage accepted the request and decided to stay in his apartment. This is when, Mikage encountered his transsexual mother named Ericko. The readers were given an impression that she is fascinated by Ericko because Mikage has never encountered anyone like her. Mikage is “Dumfounded I couldn’t take my eyes off her”. This later on leads to her realization of her beauty. This is shown in the text how “I haven’t seen a woman that beautiful”
Even through Banana Yoshimoto’s simple style of writing the diction chosen to describe Ericko had an impact that Mikage is developing love towards her. It creates a tone that Mikage has bonded with Ericko. She is astounded by her unnatural beauty. The eccentricities as a parent and person, also, mesmerized Mikage.
Mikage and Ericko’s relationship is based on daily conversations. “Her power was the brilliance of her charm and it had brought her to where she was now”. The tone suggests Mikage’s feelings towards Ericko are based on her appeal or that it indicates Sapphic love. Even through their short conversations and while she spends most of her days with Yuichi, she felt that Ericko’s presence made her situation “cheerfully normal” amidst their bizarre lifestyle. Ericko has changed the way Mikage perceives the transgender culture through her beauty. She sees Ericko, not with disgust and contempt, but with beauty and respect. Before meeting her, Mikage was not able to move on with her life, suffering from depression over her grandmother’s death. However after her encounter with Ericko, Mikage described her feelings to be content. This is shown when she plainly said that “I’m so happy”. Her encounter with Ericko has changed her in such ways that now Mikage is able to move on with her life.
Even though no romantic relationship ever took place directly, Mikage has gained beneficial values from Ericko, she was able to gain back to her feet and be able to come across Yuichi.
Through both works that both authors have shown their Sapphic characters differently. The love that we are able see through the diction creates different atmospheric tones for each novel. In House of the Spirits, Ferula showed her encounter with Sapphic love through great measures, that she had to go against the beliefs of her own religion and ruin any possible relationship she has had with the Trueba family. She has shown through vulgar words describing her yearnings for Clara, with vivid descriptions of her jealousy of her brother and continuously creating lies so that she is able to spend more time with her. In Kitchen, Sapphic love was shown through Mikage’s character. Her relationship with Ericko focuses on their brief conversations, whether intimate or daily conversations. Through this work, I think that readers can understand the author did not show Sapphic love as love which is vulgar but rather intimate and focused more on the emotional connection between the two female characters.
Overall, the authors have successfully shown Sapphic characters through their works. In House of the Spirits, Ferula has shown her passionate love to Clara, the love that was shown through indecent thoughts and vulgar actions. From Kitchen, the love that Mikage portrayed was through the emotional connections and intimate conversations the she had with Ericko, though their relationship never occurred but their relationship could have had happen through the points that I have stated. Thus, the concept of love can be seen through many applications, one has been shown through Sapphic love.
Forbidden Love is a topic that has been used extensively throughout history to create dramatic plots and cause conflict for the characters within them. Usually such a situation causes many hardships as well as joys for the characters involved, and helps to define them.
I have chosen the two novels “House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende, and “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, to demonstrate my thesis. These stories are drastically affected as a result of these forbidden desires and the authors use a variety of literary devices and settings to convey the sense of this topic to the reader.
‘Forbidden Love’ has appeared in novels from every style of writing. From stories of action and adventure, to, of course, romance and passion, this theme can be a powerful tool, whether it be used to drive the plot of a story, or expose a character’s true nature.
A time-honoured example of this theme is the tale of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, which is the classic display of the tragedy of forbidden love. The authors of my two novels of choice use this theme to create complicated and compelling plots. It is also worthy of noting that both these stories are ‘Latin-American’ novels, and this passionate culture makes for the perfect environment to create engaging tales of love and tragedy.
The novel, House of the Spirits, is an epic story of a Peruvian family, set in the turbulent era of the late 1800’s, where war and insurgents were commonplace. It is filled with rich and complex characters, that are challenged and tested every step of their lives and it is through these conflicts that we are able to gain a deeper understanding of them. The conflict I have chosen to focus on is that of forbidden love, and perhaps the most prevalent example of this theme is seen in the characters of Blanca and Pedro.
Blanca is the daughter of a rich and intransigent tyrant who owns the Tres Marias, a large hacienda, and Pedro is a simple farmer who maintains its grounds. The times in which the story is set, were very class orientated. Hence this already creates a gap between the two; their love is forbidden by the very society in which they live. The second barrier to this young couple arises when Esteban banishes Pedro from the hacienda and forbids Blanca to see him. These barriers proved only to strengthen their passion “coming to love each other with the ecstatic passion that torments them for the rest of their lives”( 99).
The issues created by this conflict are present throughout the novel and serve to drive the plot and develop the characters involved. We are able to see how this conflict extensively alters the storyline of Blanca’s character, It is through her forbidden love that she becomes pregnant, as consequence of this pregnancy she must marry Jean De Satigny. Pedro on the other hand, is forced into greatness by the consequences of this love. When Blanca’s father banishes Pedro from the hacienda, he doesn’t defeat him, he forces him out into the world, where Pedro’s revolutionary ideas begin spreading like bushfire. It is through this revolutionist that the most prodigious changes occur in the book, and all that may not have been possible had it not been for his forbidden love.
However the boundaries on their love had a price, eventually Blanca they become so used to their love being secret and forbidden, that she couldn’t bear to run away together with him for fear that their love would not survive normality. Instead she “fed their love with fantasies, idealized it, savagely defended it, stripped it of prosaic truth, and turned it into the kind of love found in novels”( ).
This leads to their temporary separation when faced with this normality, but eventually their love returns, as strong as ever. Through this the author demonstrates the power this forbidden love can have, the passion a secret desire can hold.
The second novel I have studied which shows evidence of this theme is titled Like Water For Chocolate. It is set around the lives Tita De LaGarza and her family, where they live a sheltered life, barely touched by the conflicts surrounding them, in a country torn apart by war. The author instills the theme of forbidden love from the very beginning of this story, with Tita’s character encountering a young dashing man by the name of Pedro Muscuzo*. From their very first encounter, passions are ignited for one another and burn strongly throughout the entire story , however this love is not without its obstacles. From the first time Tita mentions her lover’s name, her tyrannical grandmother, Mama Elena’, dashes her hopes of happiness, by forbidding their love. After this, she convinces Pedro to marry Tita’s sister Rosaura, as his only chance to see Tita again. As a result, the two sisters begin to hate each other, and Tita’s emotions are expressed through the food she prepares at the wedding. It causes everyone there to become ill, even killing a woman that had been very close to Tita.
While in House of the Spirits the author uses forbidden love as a tool to develop her story, the author of Like Water For Chocolate centers her entire story around this theme, using it in full effect to create a dramatic, passionate tale. Tita’s character is defined by the hardships she faces in her undying love for Pedro.
The author uses these hardships to grow and develop the protagonists character, causing her to rebel against the strict traditions that bind her, to break free from the controlling Mama Elena.
This theme of forbidden love throughout the book creates an exciting and dangerous atmosphere, and the author also uses a number of other literary devices to support this theme. Devices such as food related metaphors and the different uses of language throughout. It is also through this theme that the author creates and shapes her characters. Gertrudis, another De LaGarza sister, is given life by this theme, this forbidden passion shared by Tita and Pedro, when their desire is infused into a meal she eats. This then drives her character to escape also, continuing the plot and giving the character of Gertrudis her own unique challenges to overcome.
Another way the author uses this theme in relation to her characters, is the contrast she creates between Pedro and Tita’s personalities. She does this by revealing the different ways in which these two characters deal with the hardships of forbidden love, in Tita she creates strength through this love.
During the characters life, Tita has been oppressed by the unrelenting rule of Mama Elena, unable to find the will to rise up against her tormentor. The author gives her character this secret passion to fuel her spirit, and give her the purpose she needed to overcome her fear, and break free from her family.
In Pedro however, we see a different trait revealed as a result of these hardships, weakness. When his love for Tita is cast out by Mama Elena, his character offers no defiance. Worse yet, he gives in to Mama Elena’s will and becomes the husband of Rosaura. It is through these early choices that the Author begins to reveal the true character of Pedro. Then, as the story progresses Pedro sees Tita’s growing suffering, but never does he stand up for his love, he meekly continues to abide by his marriage to Rosaura, thus we have fully realized the nature of Pedro’s character.
It is now evident through the examples I have provided that forbidden love is a powerful storytelling tool, whether it be to simply add depth to a plot, as seen in House of the Spirits, Or be the entire foundation of one, as in Like Water For Chocolate.
In conclusion, love is always present in our lives, and among the strongest emotions one can feel. It can cause us great pain or great happiness. The authors of House of the Spirits and Like Water For Chocolate have harnessed the power of this emotion, tied in with the thrill of forbidden desire, and the result is a novel which both engages and touches its readers.
The copy above has been revised..but is still only a rough draft..why cant a find a topic that grabs me. I'd have written this so much easier if i could.
Post a Comment