Like Water For Chocolate By Laura Esquivel

“Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, is a beautiful romantic tale of an impossible passionate love during the revolution in Mexico. The romance is followed by the sweet aroma of kitchen secrets and cooking, with a lot of imagination and creativity. The story is that of Tita De La Garza, the youngest of all daughters in Mama Elena’s house. According to the family tradition she is to watch after her mother till the day she does, and therefore cannot marry any men. Tita finds her comfort in cooking, and soon the kitchen becomes her world, affecting every emotion she experiences to the people who taste her food. Esquivel tells Titas story as she grows to be a mature, blooming women who eventually rebels

Denise Chavez’s The Last of the Menu Girls is about the recognition of one’s potential and qualities as a distinct individual. Nonetheless this story reminds me of Almost a Man, it is the universal of all adolescences into adulthood in the human development. The character in this story is Rocio, she is a Hispanic-American girl whose identity is infused in relationship with her mother and those on her street. She does not find joy in life. She finds herself disappointed and uncomfortable. Finally, Rocio dream of the blue room, from which she can fly into the universe symbolizes life-giving water, this is also a metaphor from the bible about the water of life.

Like Water for Chocolate tells the story of a girl name Tita, the youngest in a family that lives in Mexico. Tita, the protagonist, strives for love, freedom, and individuality. Tita's love, Pedro Muzquiz, comes to the family's ranch to ask for Tita's hand in marriage. But, her mother Mama Elena , the chief antagonist , doesn’t let her fulfill her these goals because of their family traditions. T Each chapter is labeled a month and we see in each month that Tita struggle to purse true love and claim her independence.

Like Water for Chocolate is Laura Esquivel’s original romantic love story and is often dubs as the Mexican Romeo and Juliet. In just 246 pages, Esquivel creates a breathtaking work of art, strategically incorporating love, desire, nurture, and feminism. This novel is famously known for its magical realism, a device Esquivel uses in order to justify the perception of the novel and to make extraordinary concepts seem normal. In other words, it is the glue that holds the book together. The novel’s magical realism, helps define lust by incorporating the element of fire. By adding magical elements into the day-to-day life, readers can critically analyze the characters and thus understand their thoughts and actions.

The thesis of the article is “Both works showcase strong female protagonists endeavouring to escape and solve the issues of their pasts”, but the thesis for just the novel Like Water for Chocolate is “Tita grows from a submissive character to a strong and independent protagonist in a positive way”, because it demonstrates the character development of Tita throughout the novel. The author of the article wants to demonstrate that the development of each character is growing due to the role of feminist they are taking. Tita becomes a strong independent women when she realizes she does not need anyone in her life to survive.

A soul in distress is always looking for a mean to escape through a difficult situation. In the story Like Water For Chocolate, Tita De La Garza who suffered like no other, isn’t the exception. This young woman since birth was instilled with a very deep love for cooking. When the people who she loved most betrayed her, cooking eased her pain. All of the intense emotions that she felt while preparing food, were unknowingly added to the recipes. The author, Laura Esquivel through the use of symbolism, she demonstrates that the role of food in the story isn’t there just to sustain life, it also transmits strong emotions such as desire, sorrow and healing felt by the

Because the onion first signified her emotional connection to food, when she cooks it is her form of therapy. It became even more of her session even more when Nacha passed away. She realized that the family tradition has completely ruined her love life with Pedro. Yet still continues to love him, but because of Mama Elena’s overprotection she still can’t be with him. This parallels the setting of the Mexican Revolution that was occurring. During the Mexican Revolution the power of the country was in the hands of few and the people had no power to express themselves. Like in the novel, Mama Elena represents the few who had the power in their hands, while Tita represents the people because she had no freedom to express her opinions but had to obey her mother. This reminded her of her unfair life and the recipe in this chapter is Ox-tail soup and Nacha taught Tita that soup can cure any illness. As a reader it can be believe that she saw her love for Pedro as toxic and made this soup to be cured of him. For Tita, cooking is her only sense of freedom on the ranch.                      Although this passage mainly focus’ on Titas relationship and memories with

Tita, who endures all of her mother’s suffering, has no life and is always working in the kitchen. While she is controlled by her mother, it also leads to her character to change. The author shows how it is painful to give up someone you really care about: “She couldn’t let it happen. They couldn’t take the [Roberto] child away from her now” (81). Tita gets really close with the child of Pedro. It is the closest Tita is to having a life. Having the child taken away symbolizes that Mama Elena just wants Tita to work and have no distractions. Mama Elena may worry that Tita will want to have a child, however, having Roberto move leaves Tita in the desperate world she is in now. In the book, Mama Elena starts screaming at Tita for not working, thinking there was a chick in an egg, therefore resulting in Tita getting slapped and being told to stop acting crazy (27-29). Tita does not want to die doing the same thing repeatedly nor does she want her mom controlling her life, which is why she is the most rebellious child. Tita does recognize that in order for her to be free, she cannot be

Esquivel uses food as a way for other characters to get a sense of how Tita feels even though they don’t know it. Food becomes an important item within the book, and it changes the course of things. “In addition, the unique ways in which food is prepared and the ingredients employed are shown as determining or redefining people’s fates, as with the wedding cake prepared by Tita that spoils Rosaura’s reception and destroys Nacha’s life.” (Janice 2). At Rosuara’s wedding readers first get the feel of what Tita was able to do when she cooks. The sorrow she felt while making the cake ultimately ended Nacha’s life because she could not bare to feel the pain that flowed through her after tasting the frosting. That same feeling flowed through those who attended the wedding, ended Rosuara’s wedding in a terrible way, and preventing her from being with her husband sooner than she could (even though Pedro really did not want to be intimate with her, it gave him a great

Through her cooking, Tita had a lot of power. When Tita cooked food, she could make people's feelings change. At Pedro and Rosaura's wedding, the tears Tita cried into the wedding cake because of her lost love make everyone who ate the cake start vomiting, thinking about their lost loves. Also, because Tita could hardly be near Pedro when they were on the ranch, her cooking aroused Pedro, and at the kitchen table he could hardly control himself. Although, the plot line seemed to progress rather slowly Like Water for Chocolate, soon shaped itself into a film of passion, romance, sorrow and magic.The lighting technique seemed to provide the biggest component of tone in this movie. The use of colors in the film, set the emotional tone for the viewer. Shades of sepia and rust-colored hues that blankets the screen for the majority of the film, give the viewer a sense, of a timeless, love story. The coloring also suggests a rustic feel, reflective of its historical storyline. The movie is more fantasy than anything else, it is certainly visually exciting, very fanciful and erotic. Although the movie is not for everyone, if you are a conservative reserved person, this movie may be a bit too erotic for you. The film brought out a good representation of the food. To fully comprehend the characters' actions, the viewer needs to accept the constraints of that time period, the context. Obviously, anyone who finds this story "empty"

When we are sad, we eat. When we are happy, we eat. We celebrate births, lives, and deaths with food. Our emotions are intertwined with food. One bite of food can remind us of happier and safer times or it can make you wallow in sadness, for those happier and safer times are long gone. You can taste the love prepaid in food; it fills you up with glee. However, you can also taste the oppression in food, each morsel sautéed with anger and anguish. Food and humans influence one another; the two are emotionally bound. Whether, the characters were cooking or eating it, the food in Like water for Chocolate was more than just for nourishment or dinner, it was an outlet for Tita to secretly cry. Food allows the cooks to transfer their heartache and

Characters can have conflicts in life due to the involvement or interference of their parents, due to them having different perspectives on their lives, which is the case with the girls in these stories. The realistic novels, “Confetti Girls” by Diana Lopez and “Tortilla Sun” by Jennifer Cervantes demonstrate the tension mounting between the main characters and their parents. Confetti girls introduce the main character living happily with her dad. Her father, a teacher cares that she is doing her work, but she wants him to care about anything but her work, while Tortilla Sun mentions how the mother confirmed her departure to Costa Rica to pursue her vocational studies; the narrator is torn hearing this news, an invisible nothing hearing this

Laura Esquivel is best known for her first book, Like Water for Chocolate, a compelling story and cookbook. Laura Esquivel was born in Mexico City, Mexico. While teaching as a kindergarten teacher, Esquivel began writing short stories. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, Esquivel scripted plays for the local theatre. In 1990, Esquivel wrote her first book, Like Water for Chocolate. Like Water for Chocolate became an instant best seller all over the world, selling 4.5 million copies. Like Water for Chocolate was made into a movie in 1992 with the help of Esquivel’s husband. Esquivel continued to write books such as: The Law of Love (1996), Between the Fires (2000), and Malinche (2006). (Laura Esquivel). Like Water for Chocolate is a book about a forbidden love story between a young Mexican woman named Tita and her love, Pedro. Like Water for Chocolate is magical realism, meaning that it combines magic into a non-magical world. Tita uses her cooking to express her feelings and her feelings are reflected onto the persons who eat the food. All of Esquivel’s books are based in Mexico with a good

Like Water for Chocolate opens a new page in Latin American magical realism. This book, paradoxically combines reality and fiction, eroticism and mysticism, a love story and recipes of Mexican cuisine. Tita de la Garza, the main character of the story tries to protect her love and personal freedom. In her turn, Tita’s mother Elena is the one who does not let Tita fulfill her wishes. Elena blames Tita for all her problems, so Tita decided to spoil her life and deny any connection with Tita 's lover instead of finding a common language with her daughter Elena deliberately makes Tita suffer. In order to satisfy her suppressed desires of body and emotions, she expresses them in the food that she prepares.

This factor, the craving of a better life with different parents, causes tension to arise in both Confetti Girl and Tortilla Sun. Differentiating points of view between the narrators and their parents create tension in each