CHARACTER
ANALYSIS
I chose Allison
“Allie” Hamilton and Tilo to
analyze their characters from the novel “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks and “The
Mistress of Spices” by Chitra
Banerjee Divakaruni. Allie has a sweet yet vulnerable
personality but she conquers all just to be happy and be together with the love
of her life. She symbolized the development of real love from a potential
summer fling through a tough decision to a career-creating relationship that
yields children who are the product of that committed love. Her relationship
with Noah reveals the essence of true love where one is able to develop one's
own talents, skills, and abilities. Allie is able to develop as an artist, and
a better character, because of Noah's love for her. Yet, she is not dependent
solely on Noah, for she makes important decisions she chooses to seek him out,
she chooses him over Lon, and she chooses to write an emotional, an insightful
letter to Noah in order help him deal with her illness. The end of their love
story is tragically altered by Allie’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, but even that has
no power over their love. While Tilo,
a young woman born in another time, in a faraway place, who is trained in the
ancient art of spices and ordained as a mistress charged with special
powers. She has the ability of foreseeing the future. Her parents were
killed and she was kidnapped by the bandits but escapes and is raised by the
First Mother in a sort of traditional cult of spices. She becomes the Mistress
of Spices and is sent to the Spice Bazaar in San Francisco.
Allie
is a protagonist in the novel since she is the partner of Noah. They are very
much in love, but nearly lose each other because of societal influences. They
ultimately find the courage and the strength to be with each other. I include Anne, “Allie’s mother” as the
antagonist. Although she works to keep Noah and Allie apart, she cannot be
considered a villain because she is the way why those letters reveal to Allie.
Anne represents the difficulties that many parents have when trying to steer
their children to adulthood. She attempts to atone for earlier mistakes, first
by preparing Allie for Lon's impending visit, then by offering her support
without being pushy. I can also consider Anne as catalyst because by giving the
letters to Allie the situation changed. Eventually she encourages Allie to
follow her heart.
On the other hand, Tilo is a protagonist in the novel “The Mistress of Spices”. She become
as the mistress of spices and helps her costumers to satisfy their needs and
desires, such as protecting against from the evil eye. She gives everything she
can, through the help of spices.
Allie,
the daughter of an affluent parents, she comes from privilege and has been
tutored to prepare her for an Ivy League University. Allie Nelson, twenty-nine, has a main weakness in her family. She
is being controlled by her parents. She got flaws that really made her suffered
in a long time. And that is, engaged to another man, but as time passes by she realizes
that the original passion she felt from Noah has not dimmed with the passage of
time. Still, the obstacles that once ended their previous relationship remain,
and gulf between their worlds is too vast to ignore. With her impending
marriage only weeks away, Allie is
forced to confront her hopes and dreams for the future, a future that only she
can shape.
On
the other side, Tilo is a young woman
who has the ability of foreseeing the future. She has a weakness in love. Why in
love? Because as she met Doug, an American and an architect, her life takes a turn on that
moment. She feels romantic attraction. Her life changes when Doug touches her
and begins to fall in love to each other. But because of that, she begins
breaking the rules. She got flaws in that matter which makes her costumers complain
about the bad things happen to their family.
Allie’s
core goal is to be an artist and to be with her one and only love Noah. But her
parents are against with their relationship. When Allie is being apart from
Noah and found another love from Lon, she always thinks Noah and remembers how
sweet their love was. Her parents love Lon because he is a young lawyer who is
handsome, sophisticated, charming and comes from old Southern money. Eventually,
she sacrificed Lon just to be with Noah. She is confused but willing to fight
her love for him even though her marriage with Lon will be complicated.
While Tilo’s core goal is to help her Indian brothers and sisters from
any circumstances that may come anytime. Even those strangers who are badly
need a help like Doug. At the very first time, she sacrificed her own desire
for the spices. She is willing to give herself to the spices but fortunately the
spices are good enough to understand the desire of Tilo that they cannot give. The
spices give way for Tilo without taking back the ability of foreseeing the
future.
Being apart from Noah and her mother’s
opposition, she continues to study and doing many things to forget Noah because
she thinks that he doesn’t care or even writing letter to her. Allie becomes a volunteer in a hospital
for wounded soldiers, where she meets an officer named Lon. Nobody reminds her
that she likes to paint or she is an artist. Allie remains humble and happy
despite her heart is aching and the back of her mind she still loves Noah. She
gets along well with her mother and father; she has many friends and living in
the high class family. She got that kind of job though she is capable of doing
pleasurable thing towards herself since she is a daughter of rich family. While
Tilo get pressured when she noticed the
consecutive flaws of her spices. A lot of complain, murmur and mock she
encountered from her costumers but she still continue serving them even though she
has in her heart that is so hard to give up.
The
symbolism and motifs in the novels (“The
Notebook” and “The Mistress of Spices”) are: The letters are a recording of their feelings for one another,
memories together, and their time apart. The letters symbolize their true love
for each other in the past and the present. They will forget how much they love
each other because it is recorded on paper. The letters being kept represent
them never throwing their relationship away. The
Nature, which I believe that
through this quote Noah had thought about the days and nights that Noah and Allie had spent together, just surviving
and loving each other in nature with no technology needed. Noah remains to live
without this, and probably continues to wonder what Allie is doing, and if she has changed. Swans are birds that mate for life and once they have a partner
they will never leave their side. Noah and Allie are like this in that they
fell and love and both of them know that they never really stopped loving on
another. When the birds are forced to move away, they are bothered, this is
also like Noah and Allie's relationship because they are forced to move away
from each other because of social status, but never lost love. The spices, which symbolizes the real
and pure love of Tilo and Doug. They found
love in a romantic situation because of the spices. They found the real love
which comprises a lot of unexpected things which both of them have shared in
the end. It puts up the confident and sweetness of love which reveals whenever
you once triggered. Like Tilo, she is
beautiful creature that sleeps in a long time and the trails that widely awake
her was the presence of Doug.
The Notebook
happened in 1940’s, that people differentiate the rich and the poor. The women
must follow their parent’s command and aspiration. Men almost have no choice
and enlist to fight in World War II. If a rich young woman will fall in love to
the poor young man, the woman’s parents will definitely hinder their love. Men
know how to build houses by their hands and content of what they have. Compare
to the people in the 21st century, we have freedom to choose our
love and things to do in our lives. Many technologies could acquire the needs
and wants of the people. There are new laws to defend people’s rights. Unlike
to The Mistress of Spices (2005), it
happened in the present. Perhaps, the novel is much more precise and modernizes
in the way it presents its content. Tilo
and Doug meet just once but there is already sparks both of them. They haven’t
involved their parents unlike to The Notebook. They just allow destiny interfere
their future and owned their desires. It portrays the modernize image of love
and expectation to it. It is eligible to show up the reality of love today. It is
prevalent to say love at first sight like in the novel.
Despite
of Noah and Allie’s struggles they
are still together. Allie doesn’t indecisive
in following her heart because she knows that’s her happiness-to be Noah. She leaves
Lon and makes a choice that would last forever. She won’t remember anything. Allie
forgot everything that makes her relapse and panic. Fortunately, Allie got into
herself and able to converse Noah about their feeling towards each other. Eventually,
after a moment of time they died with ecstasy in their both hearts because
before they lose their breath there still sparks in both hearts and able to fascinate
the world of love. “Allie questions
Noah about what will happen to them when she won't be able to remember anything
anymore, and he reassures her that he will never leave her. She asks him if he
thinks their love for each other is strong enough to "take them away
together"; he replies that he thinks their love could do anything”.
At the side of Tilo, she fulfills her own desire by the allowance of spices to be
with her love and only love Doug. She tries to follow what is right for the
spices but they (the spices) are looking forward to the pleasure of Tilo. Her feeling is like a blast. Blow up
the feeling of solitude and get up from the coffin of loneliness and prepared
the life that is really for her.
(I)Allie
is very fortunate of having Noah in her life. Noah is the prototype of what
women desire in a man. He has these characteristics to win Allie’s heart and
men should have these: 1.) Men who are willing to makes fools of themselves to
show how much they want to be with you. The power of the public grand gesture. 2.)
Men who do the loving thing even when it hurts. Noah wrote Allie for a year
without a response. This shows us that your hopes aren't easily shattered, and
even after it all, you are not bitter. 3.) Men who esteem themselves not
because of worldly accomplishments but in the accomplishment of loving another
deeply. 4.) Men who would tell the truth, risk hurting your (girls) feelings,
and fight with rather than withdraw and brush issues under the rug to preserve
peace. 5.) Men who are realists. They believe that it will take work and that
it will be hard. Love is work; it isn't leisure. They don't buy into an easy,
pain-free "happily ever after." It shows us that you are in it with
earthly expectations and that you are not just in love with the high of being
in love. It shows us that you are willing to work at love and that hard times
will not make you hardened. And lastly, 6.) Men who really want “till deaths do
us part”. Forever isn't scary; commitment isn't scary. We want to believe that
it is natural to want forever, to want commitment because it's with us.
No
matter how independent and self-sufficient we are, it is still nice to be
looked after and to be loved unconditionally. It provides a sense of security,
similar to that of when we were young and our parents looked after us. In the
film, Noah loves Allie at her best and at her worst and he stands by her no
matter what. The film literally takes the traditional marriage vows and has
Noah live by example with them 'in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer'. To see that he has stood by her
like this makes women melt at the knees. However, it is important to remember
that the film leaves out a good portion of their lives together, to which, who
knows what happened between them.
I
learned from Tilo how passionate and
loyal she was (to the spices). Since the novel has a slight part of cult but
still I admired Tilo. I want to be
like her, whatever circumstances will try to hinder there still the faith and
loyalty to my God. Nothing will change and ready to offer myself just to please
the Mighty One. No matter how hard it is but all you can do is to accept and
stick on it. Like what the spices did, they gave Tilo what is really for her. So, God won’t hesitant in giving our
desire if we just serious and have faith on it to achieve and to be given by
Him. Also God will give if we have good desire.
The
both novels have changed my opinion because I do believe now that Love conquers
all. Although this idea is sometimes overworked, in this particular work, it is
the most prevalent theme of all. The only thing that I didn’t like from the
story was why people or parents hinder their offspring’s love
and why there is hinder if in the end you still be the winner or in the end you
still have what you wanted.
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