Like Water For Chocolate By Laura Esquivel

“You know perfectly well that being the youngest daughter means you have to take care of me until the day I die.” (10). This statement shows how Tita is being oppressed not by mama Elena choice but family tradition. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel concentrate into the stories of the women of De La Garza. Tita the main character aim to find love, happiness and independent, and Elena De La Garza the antagonist who will stand in the way of Tita happiness and would do anything in her power to stop Tita to fulfil her goals which is to find true love with Pedro. This mother and daughter relationship was predestined since the day when Tita was brought up into this world, and her father’s sudden death. Mama Elena was the opposite of a loving, caring women she never had a relationship with Tita. While Tita formed a relationship with food that gives her the strength, and love she never experienced before. The women of De La Garza experienced many challenges in this strict societies. All the women expected to follow an oppressive family tradition.

Amy Tan had many personal experiences in her story. For example, when Amy Tan was living in Northern California, her mother had very high expectations on her. Her mother wanted her to be with the American society and be the best she could be. Amy Tan had to get a haircut very short to the way other famous children were acting in the United States. Amy’s mother was the one who encouraged this. With that, in the story “Two Kinds,” the young girl named Jing-mei live in a part of California and she had to get a very short haircut. Jing-mei’s mother wanted her daughter to look and act the same way Shirley Temple did. Within both of the girls lives, they each had to act like an already famous person exactly to please their mothers.

At some point of a kid’s life, they want to be picky about something. They want to have some control of their little world where adults are constantly telling them what to wear, what to do, and what to eat. Food, for instance, is an easy topic where kids will fight for some independence. Throwing, yelling, crying and even bribing were the essence of a battle at dinner tables. Because some parents would automatically give in to their children’s need, the kids often think they won the battle but technically they didn’t. In the story, “Picky Eater”, Julia Alvarez tells a story of her childhood experience of home meals where her and her sisters were also picky eaters, despite having healthy food served to them. Meals, she said, “at home were battlegrounds. Even if you won the dinner battle, refusing to clean your plate or drink your engrudo, you inevitably lost the war” (Alvarez 145). Battlegrounds at home can occur but it doesn’t have to end up being messy if the parents know how to handle the situation properly.

Chencha had brought Tita ox-tail soup, its scent brought back Tita’s memories “With the first sip Nacha was there at her...There were all the times with Nacha. As always throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began. She cried as she hadn’t cried since the day she was born. How good it was to have a long talk with Nacha” (Esquivel 124). The mood created by this imagery here is relief. It is expressed through Tita’s memories. Tita recalls Nacha stroking her hair when she was young and ill, through it, we feel our own mothers’ stroke our hair with our memories. With the mention of familiar scents, the reader could also smell the tortillas and the atole. This sensory imagery enhances this moment to its full splendor. The imagery has the ability to bring us to tears as well as we recall all of those heartfelt moments with her. This augments the mood of relief in the passage when she cries. Her crying now is compared to how she had cried at her birth. Esquivel uses a hyperbole and describes Tita’s tears as a stream. The mood builds the purpose because, with Tita as the example, once you do find yourself you feel immense relief and can be comfortable without the tension of holding it in

In Jessica Harris’s “The Culinary Season of my Childhood” she peels away at the layers of how food and a food based atmosphere affected her life in a positive way. Food to her represented an extension of culture along with gatherings of family which built the basis for her cultural identity throughout her life. Harris shares various anecdotes that exemplify how certain memories regarding food as well as the varied characteristics of her cultures’ cuisine left a lasting imprint on how she began to view food and continued to proceeding forward. she stats “My family, like many others long separated from the south, raised me in ways that continued their eating traditions, so now I can head south and sop biscuits in gravy, suck chewy bits of fat from a pigs foot spattered with hot sauce, and yes’m and no’m with the best of ‘em,.” (Pg. 109 Para). Similarly, since I am Jamaican, food remains something that holds high importance in my life due to how my family prepared, flavored, and built a food-based atmosphere. They extended the same traditions from their country of origin within the new society they were thrusted into. The impact of food and how it has factors to comfort, heal, and bring people together holds high relevance in how my self-identity was shaped regarding food.

As Esquivel describes the inner emotions of Tita; the main protagonist, through the use of descriptive metaphors she asserts that “The anger she felt within her acted like yeast on bread dough. She felt it's rapid rising flowing into every last recess of her body; like yeast in a small bowl, it spilled over to the outside, escaping in the form of steam through her ears, nose, and all her pores” (Esquivel 149). Her use of metaphors enable the reader to visualize Tita’s anger and frustration by relating them to food items. The way Esquivel is very descriptive when expressing the emotions of Tita convey the mood of resentment; because of the all too familiar feeling of loving someone who you can not be with.

Tita is born prematurely crying on the kitchen table in the De la Garza household. Pedro Muzquiz asks for Tita’s hand in marriage, to which Mama Elena refuses and suggest Rosaura. Rosaura De la Garza and Pedro Muzquiz are married. Nacha dies, clutching a picture of her fiancé. After eating Tita’s Quail in Rose Petal Sauce, Gertrudis becomes overcome with sensual desire, the quail acting as an aphrodisiac, she is then taken away by one of the Pancho’s Villa’s men. Pedro and Rosaura’s first child is born, to which Tita becomes attached to the child, as if Roberto is her own. Roberto dies from lack of proper nutrition. Tita becomes sickly and is taken in by John. Mama Elena dies. Rosaura dies. Alex and Esperanza get married. Tita and Pedro have

The article Into the Dark Water by Lauren Tarshis is about when the most massive, high in technology, indestructible ship sunk. The Titanic of course. Also when passenger and survivor Jack Thayer shared his journey, through his writing with author Lauren Tarshis. It makes the article more intriguing to use quotes because it makes you feel as if you are on the ship on that night.

Food and family tradition are important for this story, since the food is seen as a way of communication and family tradition as an obstacle within Tita’s life. Ever since she had been born, her closeness to food was seen from that very moment. In the first "scene" of the book, this can be seen. “Tita made her entrance into this world, prematurely, right there on the kitchen table amid the smells of simmering noodle soup, thyme, bay leaves, and cilantro, steamed milk, garlic, and of course, onion” (Esquivel, 5-6). This shows how she connects to food, and this connection only grows more throughout the story. Although, later on Tita is able to mix her own feelings within her food preparation helping her communicate what she feels. When she is cooking is also gets emotionally involved, therefore this lets her mix her feelings in the recipe as well.

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

An oppressed soul finds means to escape through the preparation of food in the novel, Like Water for Chocolate (1992). Written by Laura Esquivel, the story is set in revolutionary Mexico at the turn of the century. Tita, the young heroine, is living on her family’s ranch with her two older sisters, her overbearing mother, and Nacha, the family cook and Tita’s surrogate mother. At a very young age, Tita is instilled with a deep love for food "for Tita, the joy of living was wrapped up in the delights of food" (7). The sudden death of Tita's father, left Tita's mother's unable to nurse the infant Tita due to shock and grief. Therefore Nacha, "who [knows]

With each chapter starting with a recipe Esquivel shows the importance of food in Mexican culture and in the story itself. Three products constitute the heart of most Mexican dishes: corn, hot peppers (chiles), and beans. ("Like Water for Chocolate"). Most of the dishes presented in Like Water for Chocolate are centered around these ingredients. In Like Water for Chocolate, the reader sees Tita express herself through the food, and essentially lives through it. It is her only outlet to let her emotions out and flow freely. When she does this the reader sees how the emotions transfer to those who eat it. Starting with the wedding cake that makes everyone sick with sadness, then when Gertrudis is filled with lust, and finally at Esperanza’s, wedding when the guests are filled with sexual desire. That is the culture, food is not just food, and it has a deeper meaning. The cooking is methodical, and important, almost an art form. It is beauty, emotion, celebration, etc. In September people commemorate independence and, in central Mexico, eat a sophisticated dish called chile en nogada, a stuffed chile poblano dressed with a white walnut sauce, red pomegranate, and green parsley, in a representation of the Mexican flag. (“Like Water for Chocolate”). In the novel the reader sees Tita make a very similar dish, but in the month of December for her niece, Esperanza’s,

In the chapter of January in the novel “Water For Chocolate” the recipe and the dish of what Tita makes relates to the content in the chapter numerous times. In the recipe hard rolls are used to wrap up the rolls. Hard rolls can mean a various amount of things like the hard rolls represent the hardships in the chapter and the situations that were hard to deal with or overcome. These representations were inferred by pages 8,11, 12 and 13. On page 8 Tita is punished for burning Rosaura’s hand by accident and is spanked by Mama Elena and forbidden to play with her sisters ever again but; Nacha decided to cheer up Tita by being her new playmate. On pages 11-13 Mama Elena tells Tita she cannot be married to Pedro because she is supposed to take care of her when she becomes old.

Can a book truly relay a cultural aspect of a culture well enough so that we see the true cultural believes of a country? To this I think yes, “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel represents many cultural aspects of the Mexican cultural life style throughout the entire novel using everything from small cultural references to large references. This is due mainly to Laura Esquivel being from Mexico and having string cultural beliefs. Laura Esquivel from what Gale Contextual Encyclopedia tells us “Esquivel was born on September 30, 1950, in Mexico City, the daughter of Julio Caesar, a telegraph operator, and Josephine Esquivel.”(Gale encyclopedia, 560). From her being so tied to her culture we get a deeper point of view on the Mexican

Throughout this course, I have read two main novels where I have identified various biases. Before reading Like Water for Chocolate and The White Tiger, I have had many biases; however, the authors have challenged it. Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquivel, is the novel I have read in my book club. Esquivel is a Mexican writer who enjoys writing about the Mexican culture. She explores and describes the relationship between both men and women who live in Mexico. In this novel, every chapter begins with a recipe which represents every major event that happens in Tita’s, the protagonist’s life. Cooking is like a therapy for Tita because it helps her through physical and mental abuse. Life is tough for Tita and she is someone who listens