“Tita grabbed it so tightly that there was no choice but to let it drag behind the carriage like the huge train of a wedding gown that stretched for a full kilometer” (97). In this bit, Tita is finally able to escape the ranch and Mama Elena. And as she goes away, she drags the bedspread she had been knitting behind her, which, as the passage demonstrates, evokes the image of a train on a wedding dress. This is important in linking the idea of Tita's freedom to marriage. Tita is basically doomed to spend the rest of her life trapped on the ranch with Mama Elena because she can’t get married. Of course, she is not supposed to be leaving the ranch at this point, but she rebels against Mama Elena. Although she finally challenges Mama Elena directly and does not want to live with her, she does not leave the ranch on her own. In fact, John Brown (the doctor) has to rescue her. It is as if she could not have left without him, which seems to show that Tita is dependant on the man. I think that this is related to the belief that women must wait for men to save them and help them fulfill their lives by marrying them.
“He was convinced that only there would he find the most advanced medicine—if he could scientifically prove all the miracle cures Morning Light had accomplished” (110). I think that this passage could be read in at least a few different ways. One is that John (the white man) depends on the work of his grandmother (the Native American) to understand medicine. It seems that he might respect traditional, native forms of medicine because they are more effective than anything he learned in medical school. In this case, it would be a little ironic to compare John embracing tradition to Tita who wants desperately to escape it. The other way to read this is to see John as trying to make his grandmother’s work more valid with his medical school knowledge. This would mean that, as a white man, he couldn’t simply accept the work of his native grandmother, even though it was obviously effective. In order for it to become credible, it has to pass the tests of a white man. If the latter is true, than John might be putting his grandmother’s work to the test unconsciously, and not because he thought she was actually incapable.
“Without words, they made their mutual reproaches and thereby severed the strong tie of blood and obedience that had always bound them together, but could never be reestablished” (126). It was apparent from the beginning of the book that Mama Elena did not show Tita any love or affection. And Tita not only resented her mother not allowing her to marry, but actually hated her for her unnecessary cruelty. So, it is interesting to consider how two people who feel nothing positive toward each other are tied together because they share blood. Of course, sharing blood is an idea rather than a truth, so really, the only relationship that exists between Mama Elena and Tita is imagined. The only other factor that contributed to their relationship was that Tita obeyed Mama Elena. Once she finally rejected being in this subservient position, nothing could exist between them anymore. In a way, this calls some family relationships into question. Do some relationships between parents and their children only work when the children obey and serve their parents? If so, can that be a loving relationship? Esquivel seems to suggest that this type of relationship results in unhappiness on both ends (but mostly on the child's).
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