3 Page Essay based on 3 short stories

Professor Villarreal

MLG 312 August 5, 2007

Many of the stories we read were about expectations, traditional roles, and values; that is what all of these stories hold in common. Traditional roles and values are an inherited, established or customary patterns of thought, action or behavior (as a religious practice or social custom) www.webster.com . In each of these stories what is expected plays a role in their actions and thoughts.

The Culinary Lesson tells us about a woman who did as society expected, she married. Although she was educated, upon her marriage she states that “she wandered lost in classrooms, in streets, in offices, in cafes; wasting my time in skills that I now need to forget in order to acquire others.” (pg 43) Everything she learned was no longer important because she had to play the traditional role of the housewife. Miraculously, she was to know how to cook, clean and entertain because she walked down the aisle in a white gown and said yes. She talks about lovemaking and how even that was tradition.” Face up I bore not only my own weight but his as well on top of mine. The classical posture for lovemaking. The classical moan. Myths, myths.” (pg 44) She is only a newlywed but is now imagining her future and what she has given up. She will have to “keep the house impeccable, the clothing clean, the rhythm of mealtime infallible. But I’m not paid a salary, have no day off, can’t switch employers.” She realizes that her life will never be what it was before. Her husband will see and treat her differently; she is now “his property.” As she continues to imagine her future she wonders what it would be with a different role, “For my next film I would like a different part” (pg 48) Although this story refers to a piece of meat and the transformation it takes from being frozen to thawed, cooked, burned and maybe destroyed, she is picturing her own life that way. She has lost her identity, her name is not even her own. She realizes “The meat hasn’t disappeared. It has merely suffered a series of metamorphoses” and compares this to her life. She knows at this point that then decision is hers as to how her life will be. She can play the role expected of her or decide her own future.

In Park Cinema we see again how women are viewed to have expected behavior. The admirer in this story has very clear-cut ideas on how the actress should behave. This deranged man claims to be devoted to her, devoted to an image as he sees it. He does not seem to understand that this is only theater; he believes all he is seeing on the screen. He writes about a scene where he watched her “swoon in the arms of that abominable suitor who dragged you to the final extremes of human degradation.” (p171) He imagines her feelings towards him but claims “It is I who is judging you, and do me the favor of taking greater responsibility for your actions, and therefore before you sign a contract or accept a co-star. Do consider that a man such as I might be among your future audiences and might receive a fatal blow.” (pg 172) Throughout this story the writer claims of his love for her and how he accepted her. He tells her that it was he; he was the only one who “could perceive your soul, immaculate as it was despite your torn handbag and your sheepish manner.” (pg 172) As long as she performed in the way he thought was appropriate she had his love. Whenever she strayed from his expectations he became angry. She could receive kisses as long as she “kissed with simplicity like any good actress.” (pg 173) In his mind everything she does on the screen is directed at him: to play with him, deceive him trick him. He is a married man, yet he accuses her of being in love with someone else. His wife, in the traditional role, should ignore his fantasy. He is angry that his wife is showing “signs of ill-humor” (pg 174) and blames this on the actress also. His wife tries to tell him he is being irrational, that she is not real but he ignores her reasoning. In the end we find out that this letter is being written from jail, and even there he believes she can feel the pain he inflicted upon the screen.

Big-Eyed Women told the stories of four women who had roles they were expected to play but chose to do otherwise. Aunt Natalia grew up in the typical fashion, “She ate off decorated plates, drank from crystal goblets, and spent hours seated before the rain, listening to her mother’s prayers and her grandfather’s tales of dragons and winged horses.” (pg 297) She was expected to marry like her sister and stay in Puebla. She fell in love with the sea and although it was not “proper” for a young woman to leave home for an unknown destination she was determined to go. She followed her dream and returned to Puebla six months later exuding “a strange air of self confidence.” Aunt Leonor followed tradition; she did what was expected of her. ‘At age seventeen she followed her head and married a man who was exactly the kind one would chose, with the head, to accompany one through life.” From the very beginning we know that she is not in love and you wonder if she ever was. Her mother, who is usually a girl’s role model, was very subservient to her husband. She was incapable of making decisions and had no ideas that she could call her own. It is easy to see why Leonor married that way she did. As far as her sex life her mother told her “shut your eyes and say an Ava Maria.” Aunt Leonor had resigned herself to the life she had with her husband and made the best of it. All would have stayed that way if she had not run into her cousin, her childhood love that she was told she was unable to marry. This is when Leonor broke from what was expected of her. She spent a few hours with her cousin and they “returned with peace in their bodies”, (pg 383) I believe Leonor did a lot more picking medlars and also found a lot more peace in her life. Aunt Jose was married as tradition would have it, but her love was not for her husband, it was for her daughter. Her husband believed that the medical world would heel their daughter; and scolder Aunt Jose for her” lack of hope and good sense.” (pg304) She prayed for her daughter’s recovery, and one morning she started talking to her daughter. She told her history about her ancestors, how they lived, what they did, their sorrows and pains, she did this for days. Finally her daughter awoke, and Aunt Jose knew it was not medical science that cured her, it was “other women with big eyes” (pg 305) Aunt Concha also did what was expected, she married and had children. Her husband on the other hand was not the way society expected him to be. He was not ‘the breadwinner” he was more like another child. Concha was responsible “to put food on the table, keep and buy coverlets for the beds, to pay for the children’s schooling, clothe them and take care of other such trifles.” (pg306) When her husband was arrested for writing a bad check, she told the police he was crazy. Her husband avoided going to jail and he went to live with the friars. Her husband did come home but was never able to provide a living for his family. He was another son to Jose, she however did become very successful and learned to love and enjoy life.

Our final story, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World shows the side of traditional religion practices as well as the side of traditional customs. The men who carried the drowned man from the beach to the nearest house commented on his weight “he weighed more than any dead man they had ever known” and his height “he’d been taller than all other men” (pg 101) As tradition would have it the women’s job was to care for the drowned man while the men went off to the neighboring village. As the women cleaned him off they saw him in a different light. They made up stories of what his life and death must have been like. They thought him to be extremely handsome, and were completely fascinated by him. “They secretly compared him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were incapable of doing what he could do in one night.” (pg 102) When the neighboring village did not claim his, they named him Esteban, and claimed him as their own. The men and women both saw Esteban the way they wanted. In the religious tradition they prepared him for his funeral, seemingly with more love and care than they did for their own. Women and men who heard the tales of this man also came to his funeral and many fought “for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep escapement of the cliffs.” In this story we see how tradition played a role in Esteban’s death, but also how this town now saw themselves and were going to change it.

People are faced with expectations everyday. We are expected to become educated, hold a job, and to some extent we are still expected to marry and raise a family. This is still a very important part of our American culture. Years ago, women depended on men for their finances. Today, women, at least in America, are getting jobs that can support them without being dependent on a man. People are no longer as quick to jump into a marriage, many people live together first to see if it will work. Are people making better choices by not getting married young? The divorce rate is still high so I don’t necessarily think that age and living together is a factor. The expectations we need to have whether it is in our jobs, marriages or with friends is the expectation of honesty, everything else will fall in behind it.