After reading half of the novel we are able to see that it’s not hard to find that the narrative is about the world of women. Except for Pedro and the doctor who loves Tita, John, and those revolutionary army in the historical background of the Mexican Revolution. This novel with a narrative theme of cooking naturally surrounds women characters. This also reflects on our daily life normally when we relate cooking with women. In Japan, the mother’s first requirement for a daughter is to do housework, especially cooking. Because letting men do housework harms men’s “masculinity.”Food,now beyond the need for fruit, grows from the rigid demand for survival to the soft obedience of women. But now with the development of the socio-economic and feminist movements women are free from the kitchen.(actually in China someplace man is always in the kitchen) Cooking to women and freedom is like the theme of this novel. Author Laura Esquivel use Tita’s life as a case study to reveal the tradition that influenced Mexican people at that time. Freedom from tradition is a significant theme that Esquivel discussed extensively in the novel. Her examination of this topic is intriguing since it raises several questions in the minds of readers. For example, the audience wonders why the traditions depicted in the novel were mostly applicable to the female gender. moreover, the readers may want to know the captives of tradition beliefs in the story desire freedom from traditions as a thought provoking subject because it compares Tita’s quest for freedom from her mother to Esperanza, her niece’s ,liberty to a happy marital union.
    The author uses Esperanza’s marriage as a case study to discuss the theme of freedom from tradition. Esperanza is Rosaura’s last born child. As a result ,the Mexican tradition forbids her from getting married until the mother dies. However, Esquivel’s presentation of Esperanza’s predicament as the last born child in her family is different from her portrayal of Tita’s situation.For example, while Tita struggles to obtain freedom from the family’s tradition, Esperanza gains liberty without a fight. In this case Esperanza’s mother dies of natural cause and free her from the traditional bondage. Unlike Tita, Esperanza’s life is devoid of humiliation, anger, and ill-treatment from her mother. Therefore, the author reveals contrasting personal experiences of these characters. Moreover, Esperanza’s freedom from the traditional bondage enables her to enjoy a marital life on earth. However , Esquivel depicts Esperanza as a character who achieves freedom effortlessly and lives a happy life.
    While both Tita and Esperanza are born last in their families, the author depict their struggles to gain freedom in distinct ways. Tita fights to obtain freedom to enjoy a marital union but fail when the partner dies abruptly. In contrast, Esperanza attains liberation from the family bondage effortlessly and enjoys her marriage form a longer time. Moreover the author fails to portray Esperanza as a prisoner of the Mexican tradition in the same way she describes the predicament of Tita in the novel.

Starting from chapter May, Tita finally showed all her anger towards Mama Elena, due to Roberto’s death. Tita humiliated Mama Elena in front of everyone by blaming Roberto’s death on her. Mama Elena obviously didn’t take it well and put all her anger on Tita by breaking her nose. In this scene Mama Elena let out all her anger, so angry that she disowns Tita. This was probably the first time anyone dared to blame and humiliate  Mama Elena for anything. She was always a figure that everyone looked up to and never dared to disobey. 

Roberto’s death completely changed the whole story of “Like Water for Chocolate”. I think Esquirel put this part in, in a way Tita escapes her mother. The story can’t always be Tita being scared and always in her mother’s control. Tita has to grow up and change her life. 

Going back to the traumatic incident, Tita is now living free. Even though Tita is now free, she still feels trapped. She is deeply depressed by the incident. I feel like Tita doesn’t have high self esteem. Every time she encounters something “bad” or “sad” she loses hope for everything. For example when Pedro got married and when Roberto moved away, she made it sound like the whole world is falling and loses interest in life. Even when she is free from Mama Elena, she feels so sad and depressed that she almost took her own life. I think when Mama Elena called her crazy, it is half true.

Mama Elena on the other hand  is really crazy. After reading from chapter May to July, Mama Elena is really a bad mother. We heard  a lot about Mama Elena’s story of when she was young. She once also had someone she really loved, but were separated. Their relationship went on a secret for a long time, even when he died. This experience affected her badly, and I think this is the reason she treated Gertrudis and Tita this way. Gertrudis incident is very familiar with Mama Elena. They both tried to run away, but Gertrudis succeeded and Mama Elena didn’t. This is the reason why mama Elena disowned her daughter and even said she was “dead”. This part was really confusing to me because, a mother should always be support their own child, and give them everything they once didn’t have. After hearing that Gertrudis ran away, Mama Elena shut Gertrudis away forever, like she never existed. She did the same with Tita, when she rebelled. 

In chapter July, food once played a significant part in the story. It was the ox-tailed soup that brought Tita back to life again. While taking a sip of the soup she remembered about Nacha again. Even though Nacha died really early in the story, she made multiple appearances in Tita life. These were all Tita’a imagination, but she made it sound like Nacha was never gone. In this book I feel Nacha is the one that truly understands Tita, and that’s why the author keeps bringing her back into the story.

As I read further into Tita’s life and her developing personality as the months go on, I can’t help but wonder if Tita is actually happy with her life. 

Having read up until October, we see Tita develop into a young adult who is more than confused about love, relationships, life, and just making her own decisions rather than having Mama Elena speak for her. Tita’s unhappiness was always a part of the novel, perhaps even the minute she was born as she “… washed into this world on a great tide of tears…” (January pg 6). Tita’s dramatic entrance into the world definitely foreshadows how many more tears she is destined to shed throughout her life. Her unhappiness is announced once again when Pedro marries her sister, which causes her great grief, so much so that she cries magical tears into his wedding cake. However, the climax of her life develops once she stands up to Mama Elena and blames her mother for the death of Pedro’s son. We see Tita having a nervous breakdown as she starts to act crazy and interact with dead people as well as having suicidal thoughts. Regardless, John takes her out of this phase in her life as he confesses his love to her and sparks a new hope for her to live for. 

Furthermore, the death of Mama Elena doesn’t traumatize Tita as much and she doesn’t let it affect her fixing her marriage to John. At this point, Pedro makes a re-entry into Tita’s life and she is swept up once again with her feelings for him. With no Mama Elena around to suspect and stop Tita from her lustful desires, Pedro takes away her virginity. From this point, Tita seems to have changed and the little hope or happiness she was gravitating towards ends too. Tita “… mourns for the Three Kings’ days of her childhood, when she didn’t have such serious problems” (September 167). Tita starts interacting with the dead once again, this time her deceased mother, as she curses her and Pedro’s unborn baby. Tita’s nervous breakdowns begin every time she disrespects her mother or goes against her wishes. This makes me wonder if Tita needed her mother to stay sane even though she was driving her insane when she was alive. Tita’s relationship with herself seems to be at stake now as she has no one left to turn to to guide her and help her find peace and happiness. 

word count: 414

Although we have not finished the entire book Like water for Chocolate, it is seen that Tita grew up and spent her life in a very traditional family. This book was written in the twentieth century and we can assume that majority of the households in many different countries were very traditional in different ways. 

Tita’s biological mother Mama Elena focused on not allowing her last born daughter to marry or fall in love with anyone because she has to take care of Mama Elena until she dies. Tita was also forced to do all the work in the kitchen and do as she was told. Tita never had the chance to go against her mother or disagree with her because she would be physically and emotionally abused by Mama Elena. Mama Elena focused on her older daughters and their well being instead of Tita’s. Mama Elena knew that Pedro and Tita loved each other but she forced Pedro and Rosaura to marry and forced Pedro and Tita to separate from each other. I think what Mama Elena does in the book was common in the twentieth century because people didn’t have much freedom and there were strict rules in  each household. People usually focused on their first borns and gave attention to them so they can succeed and lead the household. 21st century has been a change to society and now we can do more things that we want to and focus on each others well being instead of just one person. Traditional lives still exist today but it’s not as severe as it was before like in Tita’s household. Tita was physically and psychologically abused throughout the chapters but we can see that Tita had harder time coping with psychological abuse by Mama Elena. Mama Elena interfered between her and Pedro and made Tita suffer with her relationships and she also had to see her sister marry someone she loved. The fact that Tita could not express her feelings about Pedro and the fact that she could not go against her mother’s decisions show how she grew up in a family where she is forced to follow whatever decisions her parents make. Tita not being able to marry at all also suggests that her family follows a very traditional way educating their children and the rules as to how to they should live their lives. If Tita was not born into a traditional family she would have had a chance to marry someone she loved and do whatever she wanted to pursue in her life. She would not have been treated like a slave by Mama Elena.

At the beginning I saw “JANE THE VIRGIN” IS NOT A GUILTY PLEASURE “I was confused and surprised when I read the title, so I started reading the article, but I found that the article did not make me understand too much about the emotional fluctuations of the characters Later, I started to find the first episode of “JANE THE VIRGIN”. After watching it, I knew it more and liked it, because this story is good at leaving a trough in the play so that viewers can always watch it and cannot feel without it. And this sudden accident let me want to know how the heroine responded, and its plot went from surprise to desolation to perfection at the end.

    In the story, the heroine was educated by her grandmother to refuse premarital sex, but her mother is also a single mother, an unmarried girl, and a very open person who supports premarital sex. So here are two different thoughts of modern family characters, one is religious beliefs like ancient traditions, and the other is the open mind of modern society. I feel that the heroine should not be influenced by her mother and grandmother to grow up, but have the right to believe in her own judgment in determining her choice of love and future.

    Later, something bad happened. The heroine accidentally used the boss’s sperm to artificially inseminate her. As a result, she became pregnant and complicated her life and marriage. She also faced questions about her career prospects and choosing between the baby’s father or detective boyfriend. Doubtful prospects. Then after meeting with Raphael and hearing from him, she agreed to assume custody of the entire baby and hand over custody to him and his wife Petra, but only if she was sure that her child would be safe and be loved by them. And she later decided to re-establish her relationship with her boyfriend. The story tells me that these sudden blows definitely make the heroine feel pressure, but the heroine showed us how to deal with unexpected events in life, let us understand that we have to face unexpected surprises or surprises. And no matter how much accident and pressure the society brings to you, you must accept and resolve it bravely. No one knows what will happen next, maybe it will be better next.

     In today’s life, everyone has their own plans and future, and unexpected accidents may make us panic or break the status , but this article lets me know that in the event of an accident or surprise, we must be brave to solve and face it, although The unexpected changed our original plan but it was a surprise!

“Like water for chocolate” is a Spanish word that means anger or passion that is on the verge of breaking out. “Like water for chocolate” is a novel by Laura Esquivel’s about food and love. In the story, teta’s main mother, Mama Elena, is a serious, insulting, bossy and marginalized psychoped.it seems to me that her youngest daughter, tita, is more like a slave.

      When a mother treats her daughter, especially Tita, she always asks in a harsh, even scolding way. At the beginning of the story, we see the mother’s request to Tita: as the younger daughter, you can’t get married, and you have to take care of my old age. “The rules have been there for generations,” she said. “no one can question the tradition.” The authority of the mother as a traditional parent deeply frightens the daughters. So when confronted with pedro to propose to Tita, the mother not only doesn’t agree to the proposal, repeating that she wants to keep the little girl as a tool to take care of herself, but also asks to marry another daughter rosaura to pedro on her own initiative, which pedro reluctantly accepts because of the deep love in her heart. His mother created the tragedy of his love. For the rest of her life, her mother not only keeps an eye on pedro, but never allows pedro to have contact with Tita. 

      The mother seems to be the spokesperson of a kind of tradition, controlling the whole family all the time, controlling the daughter’s life and thought, she does not allow anyone to post to her, to her is the so-called post to tradition, against the family. So she has attached her traditions, her stubborn ideas to the whole family and the people around her. She confined Tita to the kitchen, and her life was all about providing for others. She rejects Tita’s personality and tries to force her to suppress her sense of self. Deprived of her right to live freely, Tina has to be a good cook for her mean mother. Her torture of tita was a bit like psychological revenge, a sign of a broken personality. A child who has a grudge against his parents since he was a child may well abuse his life out of revenge on his father (mother), deliberately make his life unhappy, and use his own pain to make his parents painful, to prove them wrong. At this point, tita is the victim of this family. She sacrifices her right of choice, right of love, and circle of life for this family. She lives like an eagle without wings. Her life is like a computer inventory, endless repetition, washing the dishes, cooking, clearning, three point one line of life, no fun, no goal, no ideal life, but because the tita question the family tradition, and maintains its her feeling for pedre, finally he will make a choice between the two, is to continue to be a mother’s victims, or the pursuit of happiness.

The book Like Water for Chocolate uses the emotions fear and love to show the relationship between Tita and the other characters in the book. Fear and love are harnessed under the same hormone in our body, making us think that we use them in the same way; yet these two emotions are complete opposites. Love is an emotion that we want to have and we try and find ways to have it in our lives because it can be comforting. For example, Tita finds comfort and satisfaction by loving Pedro, even though she is unable to physically experience that love because of what is expected of her. Fear is something that we try and run away from because it can cause discomfort. For example, Tita fears Mama Elana and the rules she enforces on her, which cause her to continue living without love. These emotions of love and fear are what cause Tita to act the way she does with those around her. 

Scientifically, since fear and love are controlled by the same hormone, at any point love can turn into fear and fear can turn into love based on our circumstances. If the wrong amounts are added to a given situation, the emotion can change. The same can be applied to cooking. In a recipe, a chef needs exact measurements for their dish to come out right and if something is slightly wrong the entire dish will come out differently. 

Tita is a very skilled chef and runs the kitchen after the tragic death of Nacha. Since she is so good at what she does, Tita is able to be more flexible with her recipes and play around with measurements and ingredients. However, she has to be careful not to add her emotions into the mix for the fear of changing the balance of ingredients and the recipe altogether. The recipes in the book are metaphors for what is going on with the characters during specific chapters. In the chapter of March Tita is given a bouquet of roses from her love, Pedro, but out of fear of her mother she disposes of the roses into her dish and creates a masterpiece. This new recipe she makes changes the dynamic of the household. The rose petals do not only symbolize the heat between her and Pedro, but also the conflict between what she wants (her love for Pedro) and what is expected of her (her fear for Mama Elana). 

I think that it is impossible for Tita to please everyone given her situation and throughout the book this conflict of fear and love will continue to come up. She will have to make a choice between these two emotions and decide what is most vital to her. Is it more important for Tita to focus on the family history and what her mother wants; or is it finally time for the tradition to be broken and time for her to start her own path? 
Word count: 503

Jane the Virgin series started with Jane, the main character of the series who works at a hotel to finance her studies and saving herself for marriage. She was so passionate about becoming a teacher that she was doing everything steps by step so that nothing ruined her career but her life was turned upside down when she was accidentally artificially inseminated by a distraught doctor. 

The first episode was so good that it made me want to watch the next episode before writing the response but besides watching it as just some enjoyable series there were so many good lessons there.

One of the most iconic scenes from this series would be where Jane’s grandmother taught her how important virginity is for women even as an example she used a white flower to make her understand that once the flower is ruined there is no coming back. I think this scene reminds us a lot about our culture of any nationality and how society thinks about this matter. It is always a big deal in every culture of a woman’s virginity. Even in some cultures, women have a lot to prove that they are virgins to their newlywed husband which is so disrespectful as there’s never any question about a man’s virginity.

This series gives us an important lesson about teen pregnancy also. It is beautiful to have a child but the timeline should be correct because a lot of teen pregnancy puts the teen into losing their career and education. They have to sacrifice their whole career for the baby because in most cases the father does not involve even in some cases the teen mom got kicked out of the house so it becomes hard for them to take care of the baby alone.

Jane and her mother’s relationship is very sweet. They support each other and give each other value but her mother had to give up her career to give Jane her best life. So when Jane got pregnant she had to think over and over again because she did not want to turn like her mother by that she meant she did not want to ruin her career by having a baby! And on the other hand, Petra manipulates Rafael and Jane by having this baby. 

A person should never be addressed as “unwanted” or “a mistake”. Jane is a perfect example of that because her whole life she knew that it was not wanted still she did not give up. She fought for a better life for herself. She had her beliefs. This series teaches us so many valuable life lessons. Not many shows tackle faith the way Jane the Virgin does. Jane the Virgin by no means lacks sauciness, though, but it also shows that sex isn’t the only important thing in a relationship. It exemplifies that preserving your virginity because of your religion is perfectly acceptable and does not define one’s entire identity because if people meant to stay in your life they will stay with you forever no matter what because sex is NOT the most important thing in a relationship, nor will it matter to your partner if you choose to not participate in such activity if they really love you. 

Everyone has their own belief, and they should not let go of that for someone else’s happiness. In this series, Jane showed us how to handle unexpected things in life because life is all about surprise and as humans we have to find a way to live with unexpected things.  So I don’t think it is a great pleasure because it gives us so many life lessons in a way where you would be surprised that you are enjoying it as a random series like any other but these things are actually happening in our society every day.

Discussion Post

In Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel, the themes of food, love, and family are explored through the lens of culture. For Mexican culture, in particular, it is customary for the mom to pass down her culinary skills along with recipes to her daughter.  However in Like Water for Chocolate, Tita’s mother is physically present but emotionally absent and so Nacha, the house cook, must step up and play her role as mother, kindling Tita’s love for the kitchen.  Being born on a kitchen table established Tita’s relationship with the kitchen and cemented her belief of it as a sacred place. Unlike her sisters who disregard the divine atmosphere of the kitchen, Tita holds it very close to her heart. And as a result, every meal Tita cooks or helps to cook alongside Nacha has been not only tasty but significant and memorable.

Upon realizing the power her food has on others and how she is able to display her emotions through cooking, she attempts to use it as a means of communication. We are first introduced to a meal with emotions in “February,” as all those who eat the wedding cake seem to have been brought down by the emotion of sorrow – Tita’s sorrow ( Esquivel 39-41) .  However, she gets in trouble by Mama Elena as she accuses her of mixing an emetic, or adding another ingredient, to her sister’s wedding cake. After wondering what else could have caused this reaction, Tita can only assume that it was her tears, the only other ingredient in the wedding cake, that made everyone else feel the emotions of heartbreak and sorrow. As the book goes on, we reach the month of March and find Tita being obliged to cook for Pedro and the rest of her family as Rosaura, her sister, comparatively isn’t the best cook. Although Rosaura tries to cook, everyone subtly diminishes her cooking skills by saying “ for her first time it’s not too bad.”  This mediocre meal consequently had them sick that same afternoon and had them wishing for some of Tita’s cooking.  

Pedro, the man whose love for Tita had been denied for the sake of tradition, tastes Tita’s dish and we see that she is capable of transferring a broader amount of emotion. Although experienced differently by everyone there, the genereal emotion was erotic in nature. On page 52 it says “He[Pedro] let Tita penetrate to the farthest corners of his being, and all the while they couldn’t take their eyes off each other.” From this alone we can assume that Tita will continue to take advantage of her power by adding all her emotions for Pedro into her meals.  That way, she could share herself and he can feel them without having to directly interact or worry about hiding their love. The narrator describes the situation saying “With that meal they had discovered a new system of communication in which Tita was the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis the medium, the conducting body through which the singular sexual message was passed.” (52) And in doing so the author demonstrates that love will always find a way.

Word Count: 524

Watching the first episode did remind me of a telenovela, which is what the producers were aiming for. It was an interesting pilot because so much happened in such little time; although, it did give us the background information on the characters instead of making us wait for it to come out later (such as knowing that cancer was why Rafael had his sperm frozen). I really liked the dynamic between Jane and Xiomara because it shown how Xiomara is more of a go-with-the-flow kind of person and Jane is more responsible and acts as more of an adult. The viewer can still see that they love each other, even though they are different. Petra was surprisingly the best character for me because she was deceiving and smart about what she did. She knew what she had to do to get Rafael to stick with her, she was able to listen to Rafael and his sister talking about her without them realizing, she knew how to play the innocent, loyal wife perfectly and she was able to make manipulate Rafael with how she worded what she said and how she said them. Having someone narrate thought out the episode and having notes write about each character as if they were screenwriting give it an interesting touch because its narrators making comments about the future add suspense to everything and make them viewer more interested and hoping for more. I think that this pilot was good, and it honestly makes me want to continue watching and finishing the season just to see how everything comes together.  The beginning where Jane’s grandmother talks about virginity and how once she loses it, she can’t get it back was hilarious because of the use of a white flower, white being used because white is usually a symbol of purity which virginity supposedly means. When Jane and Michael are on her bed making out, she looks up at the flower, which is supposed to represent her virginity, and sees a petal fall off it is meant to show that she is becoming “unpure” it was interesting to see how they were able to incorporate the flower during her make out scene and make her aware of what was happening. According to the dictionary, a guilty pleasure is something such as a tv show that one enjoys but believes isn’t “held in high regard”. Many people say that Jane the Virgin is their guilty pleasure because of how dramatized it is, with scenes such as when Xiomara starts praying to Jane even though she isn’t shown the be particularly religious or when Jane sees Rafael and jump into the water, and the bright colors that are used, which may be seen as girly, but I don’t think Jane the Virgin should be considered a guilty pleasure because not only is it something which may people enjoy but because its dramatization brings humor to situations that may be hard to process for someone.

Word Count: 501