em”(52).Gertrudis is an essential factor to the romantic and sexual development of the plot. She was the daughter of an illicit father: a mulatto; a slave. This is the reason for the surprising and unlikely rhythm that she shows off while dancing at the Christmas party. No one but Tita, who discovered the secret after her mother’s death, was aware of the fact that Gertrudis’s father was of African descendant. From him , she did not only inherit rhythm, but also strong sexuality and a very fertile genetic dominance. Even though Gertrudis was pale white, had blonde hair and green eyes, and the man she went on to marry was a white Mexican also, “she gave birth to a black boy”(181). Gertrudis’s body was full of a sexual heat, just waiting to detonate. Tita’s Quail in Rose Petal served as this detonator because as soon as Gertrudis tasted it, pink sweat dropped from her cheeks and her skin burned off a cloud of pink smoke as if evaporating all the liquids within her. Her sexual potential was so uplifted by the magic of Tita’s food, that as she ran outside the pink cloud that she gave off was so vast that it reached one of the rebel soldiers fighting in the war several miles away. As soon as he tasted this smell, an unknown force came over him and he dispatched in his horse quickly galloping in the direction of this arousing aroma. Gertrudis ran to him naked, for all her clothes had burned off. Her unification with the horseman was a representation of all the fire that had been stored within her for so long that it was now released in a burst of passion. The delicacy of her face, the perfection of her pure virginal body, the lust that leapt from her eyes, along with the sexual desire that the rebel, Juan, had contained for so long while he was fighting in the mountains, made for a spectacular encounter.In this novel, sex is portrayed as the ultimate act of love. It is held high in ...
