The first time artificial flowers were mentioned in the book was the first time Bayardo San Roman laid eyes on Angela Vicario, when she was giving details of her and her mother crossing the square with “two baskets of artificial flowers” (28). Bayardo’s first thought when he initially viewed Angela was that she was pure and innocent, equitable as the artificial flowers Angela and Pura Vicario were. Women in the Colombian culture seldom had jobs outside of their household duties. The brothers in the Vicario family are “brought up to be men” whereas women are expected to “screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers” and perform other feminine chores (31). Marquez’s allusion to artificial flowers corresponds to the standards of how women and men are perceived in the culture and how women are subjected to a discrete specific role in their community. As with artificial flowers, women are allegedly to never change into a living, sonorous, delicate flower. Closely linked to an artificial flower is a cloth tulip because they both resemble a fake type of flower you can buy anywhere. Subsequently, after Angela discovered that her mother was trapped in the cycle of Latin American marianismo and she was attached to Bayardo, Angela was “doing machine embroidery” and “had made cloth tulips and paper birds” (93). The cloth tulips personifies the fakeness that she is portraying in the gender roles because as a woman they are cherished for being a wife, care-taker, and an admirable mother. From the beginning to the end of the novel Marquez displays Angela’s making of artificial flowers and cloth tulips to emphasize that there will always be double standards of male and female jobs if there is no supportive change in the society as a
The first time artificial flowers were mentioned in the book was the first time Bayardo San Roman laid eyes on Angela Vicario, when she was giving details of her and her mother crossing the square with “two baskets of artificial flowers” (28). Bayardo’s first thought when he initially viewed Angela was that she was pure and innocent, equitable as the artificial flowers Angela and Pura Vicario were. Women in the Colombian culture seldom had jobs outside of their household duties. The brothers in the Vicario family are “brought up to be men” whereas women are expected to “screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers” and perform other feminine chores (31). Marquez’s allusion to artificial flowers corresponds to the standards of how women and men are perceived in the culture and how women are subjected to a discrete specific role in their community. As with artificial flowers, women are allegedly to never change into a living, sonorous, delicate flower. Closely linked to an artificial flower is a cloth tulip because they both resemble a fake type of flower you can buy anywhere. Subsequently, after Angela discovered that her mother was trapped in the cycle of Latin American marianismo and she was attached to Bayardo, Angela was “doing machine embroidery” and “had made cloth tulips and paper birds” (93). The cloth tulips personifies the fakeness that she is portraying in the gender roles because as a woman they are cherished for being a wife, care-taker, and an admirable mother. From the beginning to the end of the novel Marquez displays Angela’s making of artificial flowers and cloth tulips to emphasize that there will always be double standards of male and female jobs if there is no supportive change in the society as a