Without Means to an End

I found that "Cooking Lesson" by Rosario Castellanos demonstrated the dual wielding consciousness of the woman of her internal wants and what people expect from her. The main character in this poem is a married woman preparing a meal for when her husband returns. In between her fumbles at culinary prowess, she reminisces on stages of her marriage. The memories of her marital strife mirror the feeble attempt of preparing her dinner. Her flower metaphors congeal cohesively to convey that the suffocating role of women as wives permeates every aspect of their lives, especially ones expected of traditional housewives. The craft of cooking is a cultural practice that requires discipline, attention, and time. The main character with her fantasies playing out of actions she wishes she could take as well as the fear surrounding being a failing wife distracts her from her meal just as it distracts her from her loss of autonomy. It makes sense that Rosario Castellanos would feel foreign in a kitchen, a place that often is spent with older relatives throughout adolescence, as Castellanos parents died when she was 15 years old. The pristine whiteness of the kitchen and frosty package of the beef broil contrasts starkly to the bleeding ripped open package and sunburnt back. The same tearing and pleasure of her back when her husband bore his weight on her can be sensed throughout the piece.

So much is expected of women, much less when historic marriage served as a maneuver for acquiring wealth, ownership over a woman, and a guarantee of a continued bloodline. Castellanos own anxiety over what defines as a wife resurfaces many times in the poem and is crushing to consider that these anxieties could have manifested from her multiple miscarriages before she was able to give birth to a son. Wanting to be the infallible house figure society expects her to be is much more difficult under the constrains of depression, insomnia, and infertility. Lacking the means to the end in what she perceives to be the receiving end of a losing game. The need to justify your actions in the extensive detail that the author goes through is reminiscent of victims of trauma and abuse. It makes me wonder how often in historical marriages were households transformed into volatile environments for the benefit of the husband. Her accounts of his being offended by her virginity, his inability to trust her, end in creating a sediment of armor. Her dissociative analyses of a marriage too much, then too little, then burnt to a crisp. She gains back her autonomy but only in a sardonically happy way, which makes me sad.

My question is more personal: How have you seen the reflection of this poem in the lives of women and wives who surround you. How is this an example of culture?