Like Water For Chocolate

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature II

21 February 2011

Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate was interesting. I liked reading it even though some parts, like the ending, were slightly weird. Nacha, the cook, was my favorite because she was so loving and nurturing, like my own mother. I liked Gertrudis as well because she left the restricting home to do want she wanted. This rings a cord in me because it reminds me of myself. I left my friends, family, and the only home I had ever known to do what I wanted; which was to come to Ohio to go to UC. The recipes were also a wonderful touch to the story; however, what they did to people was really unbelievable and sometimes gross. Like the wedding scene where everyone who eats part of the wedding cake starts vomiting. That was so gross that when I read it I almost vomited myself. Also the scene where Gerturdis runs away with Juan was unbelievable. That was so weird and intense. Mama Elena was a character I did not like because I hated how she treated people. She was a mean, cruel, lonely woman. She took out all her pent up frustration out on those around her instead of finding some other outlet for her anger. She made Tita’s life miserable. I do not understand how a mother could treat her daughter so horribly. After reading this book I am so grateful to my mother for treating me with unconditional love. Love is very important. I am so glad that Pedro and Tita got to be with each other. They suffered so much because of external forces. They way they were together was wrong seeing as Pedro was married to Tita’s sister, but as it has been said “love conquers all.” I must admit, though, that at first I wanted Tita to go with John, but after later reflection I realized Tita could never have been truly happy without the love of her life. No one should ever have to endure the pain that Tita and Pedro did.

Zorro

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature II

14 February 2011

Reading Zorro was an interesting experience. It took probably an hour or so to read, which is pretty good. Zorro was not what I expected. I had never read a graphic novel before, preferring to read regular novels. It surprised me because it gave a whole different perspective to the story of Zorro than I would have gotten reading the traditional novel. The graphics done by Francavilla are so potent. It’s a story with in a story, and it grabs at a person. Reading the words on the page gives one reality that is so vivid; and tells the story of Diego de la Vega. He fight for justice against oppression and his need to be able to protect his family from harm show that there are people out there willing to stand up for those who cannot do so for themselves. Diego has to become El Zorro and become someone other than himself to do that. I think that was foreshadowed by his mother. His mother was a warrior woman from the Tongva tribe who became an upstanding Spanish lady named Regina. She had to hide her true self. She was a warrior, and she died as one. Francavilla shows the two sides of Regina wonderfully in the images of the attack of the pirates. S

he is dressed as a Spanish lady, but she fights as the warrior she is. Francavilla’s graphics of her fighting are always big and centered on her fight. She is so important to the development of El Zorro. Diego follows in her footsteps. He is a dandy by day and El Zorro by night. This is actually something people do all the time, probably without even realizing it. I know that until the idea of having two identities came up in Zorro I had never thought of how that happens in my own life. In school people see a carefree, happy, “cute” me. I’m fun and make people laugh, but at home it’s a little different. It is not all fun and games. At home I am with people who really know me and with whom I am not afraid to show my true emotions. I can be angry or sad or just plain crazy with my family. Showing that side of me to strangers is not acceptable. Diego does that by being a dandy than being Zorro. I have realized as I have gotten older that books really can describe a person’s life, even if it is fiction.

Borges

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature II

31 January 2011

Reader Response: Julio Luis Borges’s stories are interesting in the way they manipulate a person’s perspective of intelligence and ignorance. In “The Garden of Forking Paths” Borges makes his main character, Yu Tsun, out to be an idiot. Why in the world would someone want to fight for another country instead of their own? There is no way that Germany’s regard could be of more value than that of one’s own country, and that which one holds for oneself. Yet, there‘s the Chinese man going off to kill a innocent man just so people in Germany will think highly of him. Can you say self-absorbed! Then to make matters even worse the innocent man, Stephen Albert, turns out to be a man of great intelligence who knows that this idiot has come to kill him. Also, he has cracked the riddle of Yu Tsun’s ancestor. Consequently, I do not understand how Yu Tsun could kill Albert knowing that they could have been friends. To me, that makes Yu Tsun an idiot of the first degree. Here is this wonderful, intelligent man who never did a thing to Yu Tsun, and actually helps his family and Yu Tsun kills him. I feel so bad for Albert, and I honestly pity Yu Tsun for not seeing a good thing when it was right in front of him. I like think that giving the chance I would have given the friendship path a chance. How can a good man’s life be worth the regard of another? It is not nor will it ever be.

            “The Gospel According to Mark” was a story I like a little better than that of “The Garden of Forking Paths” because I was able to understand more. However, this story is just like the other in that ignorance kills good man. A man who’s only “crime” was to sleep with a woman who clearly offered herself to him. Baltasar Espinosa never did anything to the Gutres but read to them from the Gospel. Yet, in their ignorance they killed him for their sins as Jesus did for the world’s sins. It is depressing that the Gutres were so untutored that they thought they had to kill a man, but I guess that is the price some people have to pay. What I do not understand is how people continue to live in ignorance and think that it is no big deal. My earliest memory is of stealing my older brother’s math workbook and completing almost the whole thing within a couple hours. Even as a child I had the thirst for knowledge, but those people lived their whole lives in ignorance and it cost a man his life. That is just plain stupid.

            “Emma Zunz” is a powerful story. It is filled with shame, revenge, and disturbing genius. Emma’s intelligence is outstanding. She creates such an intricate plan, to get revenge for her father’s death, where she has to change reality for everyone around her. Yet, she pays for her revenge. Her shame becomes more real than one person should have to bear. In Borges other stories, ignorance destroys greatness, but in this story intelligence is what must suffer. That is so unfair. Why should she have to suffer for the ignorance and selfishness of others? Ignorance is the bane of the world, in my opinion. So many people suffer when things could be different. If I did not have the knowledge I have now or the chance to learn more I do not know what I would do. I always thought that when high school was over I would not care. I did not realize how much I would miss learning, so college no matter how hard it can be is a blessing for me.

AnaMarie Mehmel-Gabriel Garcia Márquez

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature II

24 January 2011

Reader Response:  Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s stories, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” are supposed to make people see that life is crazy. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” Márquez shows that people are so self -absorbed and wrapped in their own perceptions of the world that they cannot see what is right in front of them, the miracle of an angel right in their midst. So he has wings of a vulture, covered in parasites, and is an old man. That does not make him any less miraculous than he is, but the villagers don’t see that. They do not see the connection between the appearance of the angel and the child getting better or even that the angel then got sick. No they see something that can entertain them and make them money. It is sickening actually. Then when the story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” is added to that, God it is horrible! The villagers in that story are just as bad. They find a drowned man who common sense would say should be buried, but do they? No! They clean him up, make an imaginary life for him, and then toss him over a cliff. The villagers most have been very unhappy to have to make up a whole life for a drowned guy so that they could have some entertainment. That is what it seems to come down too, entertainment. People are consumed in their own lives that they do not see anything wrong with treating an old man poorly and a dead man without respect. Unfortunately, I know that people are really self-absorbed. Sometimes I am too, but I would never treat an old man with such disregard. He is a person even if he had wings. Putting him in a shed is just plain wrong, my mother would kill me if she ever heard I did something like that, and it would be worse for me if I had done it for money and entertainment. I am not sure what I would have done if I had found a drowned man, but I know for sure I would not have played with him and dressed him up with new clothes and a new life just because I was bored. These stories made me so angry. I cannot comprehend how despicable those villagers were in both stories. Also they made me sad because some people do things like that.  

Cortazar Stories

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature II

17 January 2011

Reader Response:  Julio Cortázar is an interesting author who uses his stories to make people look a little deeper into what they are reading then just seeing what is on the surface. In his story “The Continuity of Parks,” Cortázar manipulates two stories into one. He makes people believe that books are real; also, that books can be so dangerous that they can kill. People use books as an escape, and they can suck the reader into their reality. Of course those are the best books. In the story “Our Demeanor at Wakes” he wants people to realize that people can create reality, even if it was false at first. Yet, the story is so bad because these people fake their sorrow, for whatever reason good or bad. Yes, it becomes real the more they play their role, but still, they completely push the real relatives out of their own wake. Who are they to say that they needed to teach the “grieving” family a lesson? Nevertheless, Cortázar’s story about the manipulation of fiction to reality is important because people should realize that that happens all the time in everyday life. The story “Axolotl” is the same, but it also is important because the story is an example of how telling someone’s story can lessen the suffering they feel. The poor axolotls were suffering from being stuck in their glass prison, but having the man tell their story helped. Personally, having someone to talk to and tell my troubles too helps me feel better, so I can understand why the axolotls wanted their story told. Cortázar’s stories are all similar in that they all show that people escape from reality because of art. In the stories “The Continuity of Parks” and “Axolotl” he shows the escape in the form of books; in “Our Demeanor at Wakes” the escape is through being in someone else’s shoes. Most people really do want that escape.

AnaMarie Mehmel- Popol Vuh

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature II

10 January 2011

Reader Response:  The Popol Vuh was interesting in that it gives a different point of view on how the world, and everything in it, was created. It was interesting to read how the gods failed several times to make humans, but they still continued to try and try again until they did succeed. People make mistakes and having a text that says gods make mistakes is pretty cool. However, being Catholic I believe that God created humans in his own image and all that. Of course, I am always willing to hear different sides to every argument, so having a different interpretation of how humans were made is nice. Though there were some parts that confused me. For example, I was not sure how many gods there were, who did what.