Like Water for Chocolate

What if someone told us all that we could not love who we wanted? I know for a fact my world would be turned upside down. I can't imagine the feeling that Tita had when she found out she could not be with Pedro. How could a mother not want her daughter to experience love? I realize that Mama Elena was not able to be with the man she loved, due to his death, but it boggles my mind as to why she would not want the best for her daughter.

I thought that there were many strong relationships throughout the book, but they all discluded Mama Elena. I believe everyone in the house made eachother stronger and built relationships because they were all eachother really had. Not only was Tita in love with Pedro, but she shares relationships with Chencha, Roberto, Esperanza, Gertrudis, and Dr. Brown. Tita seems to be the person in the center of everyone that bonds them all together.

I really enjoyed the relationship of Tita and Pedro. It illustrated a picture of love that was realistic and everlasting. Sometimes in life, we can't always get what we desire the most. Life and love are hard, but I think they are meant to be in order to make us stronger people. Like Water for Chocolate was a much easier and more enjoyable read compared to Love. I think it is a great book of hope...

Reaction to "Love" by Tony Morrison

I found Love to be a book that I necessarily did not "Love" in the beginning. Throughout the entire book I was very confused and it was hard for me to follow the characters and how they were all connected. I guess that was the point of the book though; to not know how they were all connected but in the back of my head, I knew they had to be. I guess I was just taken back on how the word "Love" was expressed in this book. Instead of the typical way we think of love, it seemed to be the opposite.

At first, Bill Cosey seems to be this warm hearted, understanding, and in a way the women's "savior", but then I realized how controlling and pig headish he was! It blew my mind that an older man would want an 11 year old girl to be his wife. Especially when the girl was his granddaughter's best friend. I truly believe the women in the book were longing and searching for this "love" in their life that they were not receiving from their families. I don't think the women really knew what love was and they truly believed that Mr. Cosey was the man that would give them this unfulfilled feeling.

Mr. Cosey not only destroyed the love of a friendship, but he destroyed these women's lives and view on life. He made them think that they deserved the treatment that he was giving them. It made me sick to my stomach at some points as to how he took advantage of all women. May, helping out with the hotel, L and her cookings abilities, Christine for being a good granddaughter that he wanted to send away, and Heed for his sexual pleasure. I was so glad to see a character such as Junior to kind of bring the love back into the lives of the women. To make them realize that this man was not what they deserved and that they should try to find their love for one another.

Overall, this book was not my favorite to read. The only thing I did respect about it, was the fact that this is pretty realistic in some womens cases. In the real world, every man is not perfect and relationships go bad. Some how women stay in these relationships because they can't get out and in some cases they think they can't do any better. I would not recommend the book to anyone else, but it definitely was a bit of an eye opener and a different take on love.

Unit 1: Assignment 2

“The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm”

In this article, Koedt used a key term very frequently. The term is “frigidity”. The article says that men have usually defined “frigidity” as a failure for women to have vaginal orgasms. Experts say that it is a psychological a problem and that if a women said she could not have a vaginal orgasm, she was considered a problem. The experts said that if a woman failed to have the vaginal orgasm, they were not successfully fulfilling their role as a woman. The author focuses on how it is a myth that the orgasm occurs in the vagina. Koedt says that the actual orgasm occurs in the clitoris and many men and women have thought otherwise. Koedt talks about how Freud thought that women were inferior to men and that is how this false theory was established. Freud did not base the theory on a woman’s anatomy, but rather on his position that women are inferior to men. I think Koedt is trying to take a stance on women not being inferior to men and that this myth of the vaginal orgasm is based upon the inferiority that is placed on women. I could tell in her writing that she feels strongly about women and their independence from men. Koedt explains how some women are even convinced that the orgasm happens in the vagina rather than the clitoris. She says that this confusion is from a lack of knowledge about their anatomy. More women are prone to “fake” the orgasm just to satisfy the man they are with and conform to what they think is normal is when having sexual intercourse. I believe Koedt feels strongly about this myth and how men think woman are inferior and that sex is not an equal enjoyment for both participants. I believe that this myth still stands true. I think that men are more concerned about the pleasure they get from sex rather than trying to make their partner satisfied as well.


“Lusting for Freedom”

I mostly enjoyed this article due to the honesty of Walker. She talked about her own sexual experiences to try and help others understand sex, love, and desire and how they should be viewed. Walker talks about how society has put an “image”’ of what sex and love should be. She said that she was using her body as a way to learn more about herself and fulfill her desires, but she ultimately hurting herself. I believe that she did not receive the proper attention from her working mother and this caused her to explore her sex, love, and desire in other ways. She thought that by having sex, she was wanted and loved. By having sex, she was able to earn that attention that she was not receiving from her mother. Also, she says that she had a lot of curiosity of experimenting with her body and her desires. When she was little, having sex was her get a way. She used sex to feel wanted and fulfill her desires that she was not receiving in other aspects of her life.