Ursula Buendia in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Mama Elena in Like Water for Chocolate are two of the prominent and powerful female characters in the novels. No less important than men, these women assume the leading roles in the families; through their verbal and visual representation they exhibit their leadership qualities in some similarities and contrasted way .

Though the settings of two novels situate in different places and different times- One Hundred Years of Solitude depicts the Buendia family in a mythical and Eden-like town where exists the patriarchal domination, and Like Water for Chocolate set in modern life where matriarchal rule of mother Elena control the family- Ursula and Mama Elena are bound to have some similarities. Behind the simple episodic plots, there was history of life as it was lived, with all its multiple restrictions for women of social class. Their characterizations followed the forms of life of these women rather than their unique individuality. They live out a full life in institution of marriage, which was a form of indentured slavery for life in which a woman serve father, then to husband as they're married, and to the s

As positive as the actions of both Ursula and Elena mean for their families, the inevitability of situations they encounter and the attitude they take on turn the positive direction, which they try to maintain, to the negative which consequently set them far into contrast. By Ursula's power of sympathetic insight, she's able to have her keen look into character and recognize the family's problem: the Colonel is driven to his reckless adventures by fear, and the seriousness of the incestuous nature of the family's relationship. Men, in a erotic and outgoing imaginative adventure, seem to lack of the reality principle; whereas, the women are encased in it. What seem to miss or what Ursula fails to recognize is the middle ground between delusion of weak and unstable men and the homebound order and stability of women. This inability points to the inability to orient themselves with wider world which they live in and take control of their own destiny. Therefore, they become victims of themselves, and the personal constructions Ursula as well as others erect in the course of living all fail and plunge them into a cruel and lasting solitude.

The actions of Ursula and Mama Elena in running the house and keeping it together convey some similarities and contrasts in their ways of handling it. Even though the ending of both novels are similar: destruction and fall-apart of the family, the readers must take into accounts the conditions that influence the events. The condemnation of Buendia family and the tyrannical inflexibility of Mama Elena make the consequences of two families inevitably into degradation.

Instead of having recognition to the problem like Ursula does, Mama Elena obstinately tries to run the house with her dictatorship, attempted to keep her family together by enforcing the tradition which to her is right, the family break off as the result of it by her. Rosaura, oldest daughter, never questions her mother's authority and follows her commands submissively; after her marriage, she becomes an insignificant imitation o

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Approximate Word count = 1384
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)