In the film Erendira directed by Ray Guerra is based on a book by Garcia Marquez. This film is about a young girl named Erendira who is forced to become a prostitute by her grandmother because she accidently burns their house on fire and she has to repay her debt to her grandmother. Erendira and her grandmother travel place to place to attract more customers. One day while she was working a young boy named Ulysses, one of her clients, feel in love with her. He loved her so much he was willing to help free Erendira from her grandmother.
The only way to free Erendira was to kill her grandmother. Erendira convinced Ulysses to try and kill her grandmother, with two attempts that failed he tried one last attempt that was to stab her while she sleep and was successful. After Ulysses kills the grandmother, Erendira runs away to the dessert leaving Ulysses alone with murder on his hands. Erendira is a prisoner of her grandmother because her grandmother is the only person she has, she has to repay the damages from the house, and her mind is already use to prostitution. Erendira only family member is her grandmother.
Throughout the entire movie it only shows that her grandmother is the only relative. This gives a sense that Erendira has nowhere to go. In her mind she thinks that it her grandmother is still family and I can’t leave her even thought her grandmother force her into prostitution. This is how girls feel in the article Girls4Sale. “Another pimp saw her alone, shivering in the cold, and picked her up-an older, charismatic guy who flirted, told her she was being mistreated, and said exactly what she needed to hear, “He told me, ‘I will take care of you.
You’ll always have a place to live,’” she says. ”(Marie Claire Report) This relates to Erendira because these girls are trapped with nowhere to go but to pimps because they will take care of them and protect them. Erendira stayed with her grandmother because she knew she was going to be safe because she is family. Erendira situation all started because she forgot to blow out one of the candles in the house her and her grandmother lived in. She was exhausted because she had been doing choirs all day and fell to sleep realizing that she had left the candle on which burned the entire house.
Erendira was forced by her grandmother to prostitution to repay her for the house. “She learned from other girls that it was in her best interest to choose a pimp (even though it would cost her expensive $1,000 “choosing fee”). ”(Marie Claire Report) This still relates to Erendira is some way because the prostitutes in the article are working for a pimp for protection and selling their bodies like Erendira did. Erendira sold her body because she needed the money to repay the grandmother. She knew she didn’t have anything so the grandmother took advantage so sell Erendira’s body was the only way.
In the film Erendira began to travel with her grandmother place to place so men could enjoy her service. She had all sort of men line up one day but Erendira told her grandmother she could handle it anymore that she felt sick and that she was dying. Her grandmother told the men to come back another day when Erendira feels better. The next day they travel to the next town when they got stopped by monks who took Erendira away from her grandmother. The monks kept her till she was 18. When she turned 18 every girl at the church would have to get married with a guy that wanted to get married they would offer five pesos for each girl.
When she was going to get married to the guy she refused and said I want to go back with my grandmother. “Although Powell was disappointed that the girl didn’t want help, she’s accustomed to that-about 40 percent of the time, she says, the girls she reaches out to choose not to leave their pimps. “Sometimes they’re not ready,” Powel says. “I just want every girl to be given the chance to get out. ””(Marie Claire Report) The prostitutes weren’t ready to leave their pimps because they are scared to leave them because that’s the lifestyle they know.
Erendira was the same she didn’t want to leave her grandmother because that the only thing she knew was to be with her grandmother and be a prostitute. Erendira wasn’t a prisoner if you look at decision she chose. She could have gotten married and went with the guy after the church but decided to return to her grandmother. However, who knows how it would turn out to be with the guy he could have beaten her or would have been poor and not have food or shelter. With her grandmother she had shelter, food and well protection from her grandmother because Erendira was basically her property.
Erendira was stuck with her grandmother. She could leave her for anything she was force to be with her. Even when her grandmother forced her to prostitution she still stayed when she had choices to leave but she was a prisoner in her own mind. The Erendira is just a film but there is actual real life cases of sex trafficking. All around the world women are forced into prostitution to pay debts, have no income, or being threaten. Prostitution is a big problem in Erendira’s life but its also a problem in the real world.
