THE ROLE PLAYED BY CULTURE AND TRADITION IN LAURA ESQUIVELS LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE AND GABRIEL GARCIA

MARQUEZS ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE.

As the world shrinks and the globe becomes more and more of a global village, the only thing that differentiates countries is their cultures and traditions. A societys culture develops over time and is a reflection of the countrys history. These are apparent in the food, lifestyle, clothing, architecture and their traditional dresses of different countries. Cultures, traditions, myths and customs develop over centuries and mirror the history of their lands. Both authors have used their native lands and their unique culture and traditions as a backdrop for their story. Laura Esquivels tender love story is the account of Tita, the daughter of a cruel and selfish woman, who in her own interest stops her daughter from getting married, citing a family tradition and puts the onus on her to care for the mother till her death. Mama Elena insists on family traditions being maintained, knowing full well that this will lead to the destruction of her daughters dreams and happiness. The other book, a political satire, written by Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is One Hundred Years of Solitude, the story of Macondo and the Buendia family. The book was hailed by the Times Educational supplement as Garcia Marquezs hypnotic history of his Buendia family, founders of Macondo, a remote South American settlement, is a charged chronicle of fantasy and realism ..... Farce and laughter vein his world... Marquez is a poet nearly, a seer, an alchemist... a tour de force, enchanting, convoluted and barbarous.1 The novel has also been referred to as the Bible of Macondo. Tita, Mama Elenas daughter, is born in the kitchen as Mama Elena is cutting onions. Growing up in the kitchen and ignored by her mother, Tita is looked after by the family cook, Nacha, and grows up in the traditions of great chefs. Food is a particular societys oldest traditions and is heavily influenced by the availability of local vegetables, fruits and spices, which are used to flavour the food. Weather and the local climate is also a major influence on both the food and traditions. Spending all her life in the kitchen, Tita is intimately connected to the food she cooks, instilling in it the essence of her own emotions and feelings. The weeping was just the first symptom of a strange intoxicationand acute attack of pain and frustrationthat seized the guests and scattered them across the patio and the grounds and in the bathrooms, all of them wailing over lost love.2 On being forced to bake a cake for her sisters and her own beloveds wedding, Tita is unable to stop her tears, which fall into the batter. Eating the cake, everyone present is seized by Titas powerful emotions and over-wrought with grief. The guests, all end up being sick and
1

http://www.elitebooks.com.au/book.php?pagekey=27&category=17

Esquivel, Laura, Like Water for Chocolate, New York, Doubleday, 1992, (pg 39)

melancholy. The tradition, which directs the story, is an old family tradition, followed by the family. The youngest daughter is supposed to stay a spinster and care for mother till her death. Mama Elena is a cruel woman, oblivious of her daughters happiness. One day Tita asks her mother if a young man called Pedro may call on her. Mama Elena retorts, if he is coming for permission to court you, tell him not to bother. Tita should know the De la Garza family tradition that it is her responsibility to care for her mother and not marry. Though Tita knows it is pointless to protest and it is not expected of her, she still raises a little protest to be brusquely told, You dont have an opinion, and thats all I want to hear about it. For generations, not a single person in my family has questioned this tradition, and no daughter of mine is going to be the one to start.3 Mama Elenas insistence on this tradition and her refusal to budge, show us her tyrannical nature and also the importance of this tradition to her. But this raises the question in peoples minds, as to the validity of this tradition. The foremost question that springs to mind and perhaps, that is what Esquivel was attempting to do is, what if a mother has no daughters? On the other hand, Marquez shows us the traditional Latin family in One Hundred Years of Solitude, where families stay together, sometimes for generations. This novel is the history of such a family, the Buendias. As long as Ursula had full use of her faculties some of the old customs survived and the life of the family kept some quality of her impulsiveness no one but she determined the destiny of the family. 4 It is the custom in Latin American families for generations to live together, sharing a house, a business and deferring to the elders in the family. Such traditions are a part of Latin life and Ursula as the matriarch of the Buendia clan wielded her power in order to keep the family together. It is therefore not only surprising but also shocking that Mama Elena treats her daughter so badly and especially since she expects to be taken care of by Tita. Food as the title itself suggests is an extremely important element in the story of Like Water for Chocolate, just as it is an integral part of the culture of any land and its people. Food and culture are closely interlinked as food is an integral part of life and evolves with the people and the land they live in. Tita was the last link in a chain of cooks who had been passing culinary secrets from generation to generation since ancient times, and she was considered the finest exponent of the marvelous art of cooking.5 Food is such an intimate part of ones culture that it assumes a significant position in ones life and this is so evident in the novel. Tita is so closely intertwined with the food she cooks that she imparts her emotions and feelings to the food and passes on those feelings to her audience who partake of the dishes. Just as society lives by its cultures and traditions, in the same manner, it survives on its food. Just as food is so important in Esquivels book, Marquez shows another tradition that has a scientific base but came about, due to experience. They were afraid that ................would

Esquivel Laura, Like Water for Chocolate, Doubleday, 1992, (pg 11)

Marquez Gabriel Garcia, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Penguin, India, 1996, (pg 217) Esquivel Laura, Like Water for Chocolate, Doubleday, 1992, (pg 46)

suffer the shame of breeding iguanas.6 Today it is a scientific fact that incestuous relationships result in unnatural and deformed children. It is due to this fact that Ursula refuses to consummate her marriage to Jose Arcadio Buendia. This had been drilled into her by her mother, who always tells Ursula that children from such marriages are born with pigs tails. This refusal, also leads to Jose killing a neighbor, and then leaving their native village and setting out to found and settle the town of Macondo. This enables Macondo to develop its own culture and tradition. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.7 This is also symbolic of when the Spaniards and Portuguese set out to colonize and settle South America, breaking free from the rigid conventions of European society. In this new world, they were free to live and develop their own culture and tradition, a mix of the European and the Native American, resulting in something new. The paradox in One Hundred Years of Solitude is that Ursula and Jose left their native village due to incest but in the closed environment of Macondo a tradition of incest and solitude developed. Another Latin American tradition is one of dictators and revolution and both Esquivel and Marquez depict the reality of the society they live in through their novels. Much of the 20th century has seen Latin America suffer revolution and dictators seize power and terrorize the people, so symbolic of the first white conquistadors when they first came to Latin America and destroyed the native Incan culture but over time stayed and developed their own culture. Both authors portray the culture and traditions of their native lands, the good and the bad and in doing so, get the reader to begin questioning them and in doing so, prepare the way for change.

Marquez Gabriel Garcia, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Penguin, India, 1996, (pg 20) Marquez Gabriel Garcia, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Penguin, India, 1996, (pg 1)