Like Water For Chocolate and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

In Like Water for Chocolate and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a tyrannical dictator is present who attempts to control and oppress the people who are inferior to them. In Like Water for Chocolate, Mama Elena tries to control her three

In Like Water for Chocolate, there are two characters who openly rebel against Mama Elena. The first is Gertrudis, who is Tita’s older sister. When Gertrudis runs away from their home and joins the revolution, she is described to be scorching with heat. “Her body was giving off so much heat that the wooden walls began to split and burst into flame.” (Esquivel, 54). Right before she leaves, while she is in the shower, the shower being ignited and burning represents Gertrudis’ social confinement, and when she escapes the shower shows her breaking the social boundaries which she has been confined in for so long. The heat she feels represents her true love for Juan, her rebellion and her unconventionality. While Gertrudis is leaving, Tita is very cold which shows her conventionality. “She worried that Gertrudis was cold, as cold as she was...” (Esquivel, 59). She could not bring herself to rebel against her family traditions, but she finally rebels when she finds out that Roberto, who is Pedro and Rosaura’s son, has died. This is when she finally defies Mama Elena and tells her that she is sick of obeying her orders. “ ‘Here’s what I do with your orders! I’m sick of them! I’m sick of obeying you!’ Mama Elena went to her, picked up a wooden spoon, and smashed her across the face with it. ‘You did it, you killed Roberto!’ screamed Tita...” (Esquivel, 99). She breaks away from her mother and rebels by leaving the ranch and leaving behind her highly structured life for a more carefree, informal one. She lives at the doctor’s house, who agrees with Tita and believes that the traditions are old-fashioned and hold Tita back from being herself and expressing her true feelings.

In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Miss Brodie forces her students to believe what she does and to conform to her ideas of what kind of people they should turn out to be. Miss Brodie denies them the right to make their own decisions, which is shown when her Set is asked whether they would like to attend the Modern senior school, which teaches modern languages like French and German, or the Classical senior school, which teaches classical languages like Latin and Greek. “ ‘Why do you want so much to go on the Classical side, Mary? You aren’t cut out for it. Don’t your parents realise that?’ ‘Miss Brodie prefers it.’ “ (Spark, 67) Miss Brodie tries to control them by convincing them that the Classical school is the only acceptable one, and the modern subjects like German and science aren’t important. She also projects her fascist opinions on the girls and leads them to believe in fascism and agree with its principles. “It occurred to Sandy, there at the end of the Middle

bear it.” (Spark, 31).

there was an inconsistency, a fault. Perhaps the Guides

fascisti, not to the naked eye, marching along, but all

In both Like Water for Chocolate and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, there is a tyrannical character who tries to control other’s lives and force them to conform to the standards that have been set out for them. Gertrudis, Tita, and Sandy all felt the need to rebel against the person who tried to control them, enabling them to become their own person and escape the restrictions they were trapped in. All of them succeeded in rebelling against the oppression they were facing which allowed them to discover their true self.

daughters, Rosaura, Gertrudis, and Tita. Mama Elena is a very overbearing character, and she attempts to keep Tita captive by trying to keep their family tradition alive. Mama Elena thinks that the youngest daughter should take care of their mother until the day she dies, a tradition which has been in their family for m

Some topics in this essay:
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