Thoughts about LWFC

Like Water for Chocolate was a book that I looked forward to reading every night. I loved the way the Esquivel used cooking as tool in telling the story. We in away could taste the feelings of the characters through the reading the recipes. It was also, at times, great metaphors for the event at that moment. Esquivel was really a master of metaphors. The one that I loved the best was the matches. It is such a wonderful take on love that another human being can lights someone's matchbox or their heart. It was interesting that she used the metaphor to tie up the whole story in the end.

Most of the characters were very interesting and all different. Tita was a wonderful character becauase she grew so much through out the novel. She was a character that held at least one characteristic that each of the readers held which made it more interesting to read. I really loved the character of John Brown. He was really the most perfect man in Tita's life. She had been hurt so many times by Pedro, that you would have thought she would have moved on to John, a man who truely loved her. Gurtidis was also a wonderful character because she was just a strong woman who was a great example for Tita unlike, Rosaura. Rosaura and Mama Elena were the most unlikable character in that they mentally harmed Tita. Although they both had had bad luck in the love department, they used that as a reason to hurt others.

Lastly, I really did not enjoy the ending of the story. Like we said in class it was way too abrupt and as a read I did not feel that sense of satisfactory. What really bothered me was the fact that Tita and Pedro ended up together. It just make it seem that it is alright for a man to speak to a woman in the manner Pedro spoke to Tita and to treat a woman like Pedro did alright. For me their "love" was really just an attraction, you never really heard their longing to speak to one another. There was that feeling of an actual deep relationship with John and Tita, but she was not willing to do the work which it took to build that firey love between them.

Essay Possibilities for college essay and LWFC

When looking at the issues in Like Water for Chocolate, I really seem to be having a hard time deciding what I want to dig deeper into. When looking into to themes today I like the theme my group had of magic. The fact that it was not typical fairy magic but a real life type of magic in that something happened at the right time for a reason really interests me. But I also am interested in the topic of love and forbidden love. Lastly healing really caught my attention but I am a bit worried that I will not have enough to talk about. I was thinking that I could maybe look into the different types of heal that exists within the novel or I could connect the healing and magic in someway. Maybe I could use kikapu and the match metaphor, which I loved.

For my college essay, I was thinking that I could write about a recent event in my life that was a real challenge. This year my kumu asked me if I would like to go to Merrie Monarch and I said yes of course. For months I went to practice for two to three days a week, three to four hours a practice. We were presented with many problems, such as the Kahiko number we had been practicing another group was doing so we were forced to switch, leaving even less time. It was the week before we were about to leave and at Sophomore Banquet I started to have really bad stomach pains. The next day I went to the hospital and was told I had appendicitis and was not going to be able to dance. I was devastated because it was my dream that had just been shattered. Although I was extremely heart broken, I really learned to appreciate hula, my hula brothers and sisters, my kumu, and my dream even more.

Parents and Gender Development

I believe that a person is born knowing who they are inside but it may not show on the outside. Each person is like a piece of clay that is already colored and textured but needs to be formed so we can see what they are on the outside. Much of this is influenced by the outside world especially by our parents.

The influence of the parents is a very important part of a person’s development in gender. Some families are very open to all types of people. Many times these families welcome who their child really is and pushes them to embrace it. These types of parents would be fully supportive if the child was attracted to the same sex or even both sexes. No matter what the issue is the parents helps the child to grow into who they really are and grow from there. On the other end, there are parents that have their minds set on who their child is. These parents force their children into things that may not be who they are. This only causes problems because the child is made fun of by his/her peers and then feels inferior because of their gender. This type of treatment forms a wall between the parents and their children and a hatred for each other.

Parents really have an amazing control over our confidence and comfortableness with our own selves. Acceptance is what we really need. This allows us to recognize which gender we are and take a hold of it and run with it. This acceptance lets us know that they are proud of who we are and a feeling of content is formed within us. It is this content or feeling of no content that lead us on our paths to embrassing our genders. Unfortunately, sometimes children are forced to hide themselves behind a façade of the other gender but really inside. Parents must really be careful, they hold more power over a human than they know.

What I thought of Persepolis

I really thought that this book was a wonderful read because it really had a lot of issues that it addresses. Not only is this book about women but also about the troubles in our world today and hard issues with families.

When reading this book what really interested me was the treatment of women due to religion. In my life my religion does not suppress the way i express my self in any manner but for Marji and the women in her life, everything they did was controlled by their religion/government. These women had a cover themselves so much keeping them from showing who they were, forced to look like everyone else, and changing themselves because the men could not contain themselves. While I was reading I got so irritated every time the women were forced to change for the men. It is also amazing the way the rules really lowered the women to a level far from men. It is just unbelievable that a man is the final decision in a divorce; it is as if he owns her. Another sickening part which i was absolutely amazed by was the arrested of Niloufar and they way she was treated. She was violated in every way and humiliated in everyway only to be killed. Lastly, i believe that women should speak for themselves. When Marji’s college

Another issue that was addressed which I enjoyed was how strong these women were portrayed. Although they were being suppressed, they never stopped fighting. For Marji it took great strength for her to survive those four year in Australia, alone. If any person would try to demean her, she would hit them back with a defense. Her mother made many sacrifices, even her health. Many times these women would sacrifice their lives just to live the way in which they wanted.

Femininity and Masculinity in Persepolis and Satrapi's Experiances

In Persepolis and Satrapi's experiences, femininity and masculinity really shows up as a major role in the rules made by religion. The women at this time are forced to wear long everything and veils in order to cover their woman qualities This act of covering them is partially removing some of the femininity and ways to express them selves. A women's hair is something that really is precious to making them feel feminine and when forced to cover themselves, they are not able to have this quality. Along with hair is makeup, for most women makeup makes them feel more presentable and beautiful which gives a confidence. Another issue that involved the religion and government was the stereotype that women are week and cannot speak for themselves. Some wives are spoken for by their husbands to others. This brings up the point of masculinity, that men like to be in control. A certain controlling power is given to the man when he his wive allows him too speak. At this time, the emperor was a man, like most rulers but this is another example of masculinity.

I also thought it was interesting when Marji was seriously dating a guy who was just admitting to himself that he was gay. Many times men think that we are looking for the masculine qualities such as power, control, strength but really what we want is someone we can talk with. In this situation Marji became close to this man for his personality which was more feminine.

Lastly, I thought it was interesting but in a way typical of the idea of the men going to war and the women staying at home, not rebelling, and following the ridiculous rules set for them. It was thought be many to be unfeminine to join in the riots and rebelling against the government, they were sometimes every punished for it. Along with that boys being sent to war because it was the masculine thing to do, yet they are not yet of an age to truly understand this. Many of the rules and ways for life in the middle east were built upon the stereotypes of what is feminine and masculine and expecting that exact reaction from all of them.

Boy, Girl, Man, Woman

When I think of a boy, a sweet innocent little rascal pops into my head. Boys have that trait of getting into trouble and getting dirty. They at this point are more involved in themselves than anything and still need someone to care for them. Most boys are all about fun, which is sometimes thought of as immature. If a old male is called a boy it can be seen as a negative comment because it is implying that he is still not ready for the real world, and is immature in his ways and thinking.

Girls, to me, are also very self involved and most the time talkative about everything. They still hold that quality of innocence, and need to be taken care of andshielded from the real world. Girls can also be very sassy in order to obtain what they want. When a older female is called a girl it is insulting because it implies that they are not able to care for th

emselves.

A man is someone that has now lost his boyhood and is ready to take care of his family. He is someone that would give his life for someone else without any tho

ught. A man can take care of his own business and fend for himself. A man is loyal, brave, and respects a woman.

A woman has also lost that innocence from her girlhood and is now confident in who she is and is able to care for herself. She is also able to care for others and defend others when the time is right. A woman know about what goes on in the real world and can hold her own in it.

Feminism

After looking for a piece on feminism i chose to look at the past movements and what we are still fighting for today. The whole movement was really started by racial rights and other groups at the time fighting for equality. I know this may sound bad but to me it seems more logical for the women of the racially superior group would be given more right than the lower racial groups but really black men had the right before any woman. It took women 70 years to achieve the right to vote, that is absolutely amazing. It really shows how strongly men believed that woman were of a lower status. It was quite interesting that when the men went off to war women really stepped in and took over their jobs, which helped them to prove that they were able to be apart of the work force. This also allowed the women to fight for a welface state system with trade unions, which still helps many today. I find it very saddening that through out the fight of women’s rights, their voices are not heard as clearly you would think. I guess that the idea of women being weak and unable to succeed as men do has been drilled into the head of so many men that it has taken so much longer than expected. Today we are still fighting for equality in the workforce and in just everyday life. We still in our lives today have not fully forgotten the stereotypical woman, which makes life difficult. Issues such as abortion and equal pay are are still things that women are fighting for. Although it seems to be a long and hard battle women are still standing strong and fighting for what is right.

http://feminism.eserver.org/theory/feminist/Womens-Movement.html