Gender Roles In Like Water For Chocolate

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Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is a fictional novel focusing on the women of the De La Garza particularly the conflict between Tita and Mama Elena her mother. Right away the conflict between traditions of what a woman should be, Mama Elena telling Tita she could not marry until she died, and Tita desiring to be with the man she loved. There are many other relationships important in the story for example Tita and Rosaura pointing out the difference between desirable and undesirable woman. The novel also goes into male roles and the difference between the roles they possess and how they are different and at times similar. The main male roles are that of Pedro, Dr. John Brown, and the soldiers in the revolutionary army. Characters …show more content…
Tita does show both of these in the way she allows Pedro to marry her sister, but throughout the story lives her life with sexual and romantic tension until she finally gives in. In the way Tita represented this indecisiveness Mama Elena represented the oppression-keeping women in their confined roles keeping them from realizing their true selves. “You don’t have an opinion, and that’s all I want to hear about it. For generations, not a single person in my family has ever questioned this tradition, and no daughter of mine is going to be the one to start.” In this reference Latin America would be represented by Tita and Mama Elena would be represented by traditions and gender norms to oppress these women. The hate Tita secretly has for her mother is obvious many times especially when the ranch is attacked and Mama Elena was not killed to the disappointment of Tita. After the death of her mother Tita still being haunted by the ghost of her mother until Tita dispels her and the role that was forced upon her for so many years. “I know who I am! A person who has a perfect right to live her life as she pleases. Once and for all, leave me alone, I won’t put up with you! I hate you, I’ve always hated you.” This line by Tita is almost the author yelling at the roles that women …show more content…
Frida’s painting she does portray issues of gender roles but she pokes at them in a different way almost making fun of the traditional way women are made submissive to males in art. “Perhaps one of the reasons for the intensity of interest in Kahlo’s story is that she negotiated, in many way defied, this rather limited perspective of femininity in a very public and dramatic way.” Based on this article, self-portraits, and paintings alongside Diego Rivera, Frida was one of the first women to break new ground on what a woman should and could be. Frida’s education level and other aspects of her life she altered like religion or family to fit the story she wanted to tell. She eventually moved away from being recognized only as the wife of Diego Rivera but a woman who could stand on her own without the need of a man. “Additionally the ‘cult of Mexican femininity’ that intensified during the revolutionary and post-revolutionary eras contributed toward this stagnation and marginalization of women.” The voice of women up to the point of the revolution had been nonexistent, is something this quote could argue but also how it changed after the revolution. Unlike the very well-known Frida Kahlo, Dona Tules or Maria Getrudis Barcelo the savvy business woman and legend of the American

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