Through her food, she intimately affects people around her even when she feels powerless. Though Mama Elena forbids her from expressing her feelings, Tita’s magical ability to infuse her cooking with her desires and emotions allows her an outlet for rebellion. However, Tita shatters the Virgin Mary image through her defiant thoughts and desires, and through her eventual rebellion. As a self-sacrificing virgin-mother figure, the character of Tita evokes ideas of the Virgin Mary. Her role as the mother figure is emphasized by her miraculous ability to nurse Roberto, Rosaura’s first child.
Though forbidden from having her own family, Tita is the primary caregiver for her mother, sister Rosaura, Pedro, and their children. At the same time, Tita also embodies the ideals of the perfect wife and mother. She is prepared to deny her own desires for love and freedom and ignore her loneliness. Following the family tradition forbidding her from marrying, Tita at first resigns herself to a virginal life. On the surface, Tita fulfills many characteristics of the pure virginal archetype, such as chastity and obedience.
Challenging the classic dichotomy between the “virgin/mother” and the “whore” (traditional stereotypes of femininity), the novel allows each female character to struggle with her needs for belonging and security, as well as her desires for adventure, sex, and liberation. Within the historical context of greater social change, the novel allows femininity to be defined differently between characters and within each character’s development.
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