It is natural to think that a birth mother would have her child’s best interest in mind. On the contrary, however, Mama Elena treated tradition as a far more important issue than her daughter’s welfare. There was no love present in Tita and Mama Elena’s relationship. In one of Tita’s outbursts, she screamed at Mama Elena, ‘I know who I am! 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 hate you, I’ve always hated you!’ and with these words Tita disintegrated Mama Elena’s ghost. These also successfully expressed Tita’s anger and hatred toward this authoritarian character that she has despised for her entire life. It is evident that Esquivel intended to emphasis Tita’s resentment through the deployment of the repeated ‘I hate you’ and the punctuation: ‘!’.
Likewise in The Handmaid’s Tale, the hypocritical Gileadian government officials inhibited individuality and enforced conformity upon the handmaids. ‘Gilead provided its women with freedom from the unpleasant nature of Western society but at the same time it has taken away all their rights’. This society was based on the fundamentals of the Bible where religious and sexual violations were punished heavily. Women in the novel were classified according to their specific functions – Wives, Handmaids, Marthas, Econowives, Aunts. Women became mere breeding objects ‘identical, replaceable, silent objects’ to help Gilead’s quest in achieving higher birth rates.
Offred’s flashbacks played an important role in expressing the theme of loss, in which all her recollections were buries, including her freedom to love. In the beginning of the novel, Offred was portrayed as a blank figure with no identity. Throughout the plot, she continued to reconstruct her past. She found herself a new place, her own space. ‘There was to be some space, finally that I [Offred] claim as mine, even in this time…’ Offred eventually ‘escaped’ her past because of Nick, and felt that life in Gilead may be tolerable. ‘Being here with him [Nick] is safety… and how have I come to trust him [Nick] like this… I tell him [Nick] things I shouldn’t.’
Atwood skillfully manipulated the structure and time sequence that demonstrated the sharp contrast between the once creative and lively world yet not perfect to the now alienated and suffering framework of Gilead. The novel revealed dystopia through a series of glimpses, similar to that of a detective story until the climax was disclosed, unveiling the extreme extent of the Republic’s cruelty and corruption. The readers experienced the events in Gilead as vividly as Offred did. The narrator, Offred possessed a satire humour that made the horrible affairs in Gilead bearable. Through her revelations of the confinements of her fellow women, Offred revealed yet another flaw in Gilead; patriarchy, a form of sexism.
Gilead controlled women, controlled sexuality ‘not about romance, passion or desire; only a matter of duty’. But the pinnacle power that Gilead had over its people was the control of thought. ‘The Republic of Gilead knows no bounds. Gilead in within you.’ The ideologies of ‘all flesh in weak’, ‘men are sex machines’ were drilled into all those who went through the women-subjugating Red center. Offred resisted Gilead inwardly; once an attempt to escape from the regime failed she resigned to fate.
Though the two novels were very different in terms of time and setting, both Like Water for Chocolate and The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrated giving voice to oppressed individuals or groups through the apt vehicle of structure and time sequence. Esquivel verified that tradition still played an important role in the general Mexican society and the impact it has on those affected- Tita. The Canadian author, Atwood, used this novel as predictions of the future if its warning were ignored.
Word count: 885
A interview with Laura Esquivel, SALON MAGAZINE
Like Water for Chocolate, LAURA ESQUIVEL. (pg 39)
Like Water for Chocolate, LAURA ESQUIVEL. (pg 180)
Unknown secondary source titled Freedom and Resistance
Unknown secondary source titled Patriarchy
The Handmaid’s Tale, MAGARET ATWOOD. (pg 59)
The Handmaid’s Tale, MAGARET ATWOOD. (pg 281)
The Handmaid’s Tale, MAGARET ATWOOD. (pg 122)
The Handmaid’s Tale, MAGARET ATWOOD. (pg 31)
The Handmaid’s Tale, MAGARET ATWOOD. (pg 60)
The Handmaid’s Tale, MAGARET ATWOOD. (pg 186)