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Portrayal of inferiority and mediocrity of females by the usage of Marianismo in Like Water for Chocolate and Chronicles of a Death Foretold

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Portrayal of inferiority and mediocrity of females by the usage of Marianismo in Like Water for Chocolate and Chronicles of a Death Foretold
Portrayal of inferiority and mediocrity of females by the usage of Marianismo in Like Water for Chocolate and Chronicles of a Death Foretold
“The girls had been reared to get married”. This statement provides insight into a culturally rich society’s views about females and their position in the society. Marianismo in reality means semi-divinity, sexual purity and moral strength of a woman yet the wider mass of people most commonly visualize Marianismo as being something opposite to Machismo or being manly. The generalized view of Marianismo is being feminine and powerless. Following the colonization of Latin America by Catholic European invaders, the new economic system implanted a dichotomized sexual division of labor where men served as the producers and women as the reproducers. In addition, the interpersonal dynamics of the existing social structure provided each sex with separate and complimentary ideals, namely Marianismo and Machismo, which demanded a certain sort of behavior from men and women. Where as in one hand, the males were allowed to display their aggressiveness, sexual infidelity, arrogance, stubbornness and callousness, a woman was expected to accept the fate that she has in her hand. This might as well be cited as a reason for which there is so much gender discrimination, especially against women in Latin America. This matter for instance is clear from books such as Chronicles of a Death Foretold and Like Water for Chocolate. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Laura Esquivel use imagery, motifs, connotations, magical realism and characterization to emphasize the perceived mediocrity and inferiority of women in a traditional Latin American Society through Marianismo. Garcia Marquez and Esquivel portray the mediocrity and inferiority of women through different examples in a similar fashion which shows us that they carry similar view points about the topic of female gender roles in a male dominated Latin American society. Garcia Marquez and Esquivel


Bibliography: Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. New York: Anchor Books, November 1995. "The Marianismo Ideal." Latin American Studies. . . 12 May, 2009. . Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Chronicles of a Death Foretold. New York: Ballantine Books, February 1984.
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