Like Water For Chocolate Chapter 1 Summary

Tita 's fear and her dislike towards her mother is also clarified in the film when Tita, as a child, hides behind Nacha 's apron as soon as Mama Elena enters the kitchen. Tita 's resistance to Mama Elena 's cruel demands are evident again when even after Mama Elena scolds her and orders her to stay away from Pedro, she is still happy knowing that Pedro still loves her:

One of Tita's last values are her family traditions. "First work, then do as you please, except crying, do you hear?" (5, 352) This tradition in the family is that everybody works no matter what the occurrence is and if you don’t there will be unavoidable consequences. In this household, you can see that theses people is raised to be hardworking housewives with no life. "Perhaps Nacha only heard what everyone else was afraid to say." (1, 58) In this quote you begin to get an understanding that this household does not speak out of turn or in a disrespectful way. That is why throughout this narrative, Tita is shown holding her tongue and not expressing how she really feels in some situations. Finally, one of the last traditions that are highlighted throughout the fiction is that Tita is the youngest sibling. "You know perfectly well that being the youngest daughter means you have to take

Esquivel applies suspense in the passage expressing Titas fears of becoming pregnant the night Pedro followed her into the darkroom. She has yet to tell Pedro but instead of worrying, she decides to focus on preparing the Kings’ Day Bread for her guests. Being aware of the situation, she knows she will have to cancel her engagement to John Brown, given that she is no longer a virgin. Esquivel uses tradition as a reason of why Tita feels so horrible with losing her purity of the white flower and not being holy in God's eyes. While Tita makes the bed, she remembers the King’s Days of her past. As a girl, she would always receive something Mama Elena wanted her to have on King’s Day instead of the gift she herself

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.

Cruelty and violence have been often a solid influence with Mama Elena towards Tita. The psychological damage that Mama Elena cause Tita took effect after, Tita heard news of the death of her nephew Roberto. According to the chapter five (99) in the month of may. Mama Elena took a wooden spoon and smashes Tita across the face. The act of cruelty and the violent behavior of Mama Elena. In addition to Mama Elena attitude toward the death of her grandson being callous and tactless. This causes Tita to hide in the dovecote overnight. Where the psychological damage began to surface. When the Dr. Brown came to retrieve Tita from the dovecote, only to find Tita there naked with a broken nose and holding a dead pigeon. Tita then became suffer in silences for the next coupled of months. Instead of Mama Elena seeking professional help for Tita to get better, Mama Elena suggested that Tita be taken to the asylum.

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

Additionally, the sorrow that Tita felt was also unintentionally transferred to others. . Specifically the wedding cake in which she managed to communicate her longing and sadness to Rosaura and Pedro 's wedding guests. As she prepared the Chabela Cake, her tears fell into the batter and icing. "The moment they took their first bite of the cake, everyone was flooded with a great wave of longing...Mama Elena, who hadn 't shed a single tear over her husband 's death, was sobbing silently. But the weeping was just the first symptom of a strange intoxication-an acute attack of pain and frustration-that seized the guests and scattered them across the patio and the grounds and in the bathrooms, all of them wailing over lost love" (Esquivel 39). The tears affected everyone at the wedding banquet with longing for lost loves, so much so that they become physically sick. They were literally love sick and Tita was responsible even though she had no idea what she had just done. In the same manner, even though Tita didn’t actually make the hot chocolate from story’s title "Like water for chocolate", it still symbolizes her biggest emotion. It is learned that once she hears Rosaura tell Alex about

From the day she was born, Tita carried this burden. A burden so heavy and it was so heavy that it hurt. From the day Tita was born there was something inside of her, some

tightening into a thick knot and clouding her eyes and making her cry. (131) This shows how much fear and unease Mama Elena had exacted into Tita’s life, something as small as her spit making such a huge effect. This only shows how unnecessary Mama Elena is for Tita’s physical and mental health, just like an extra bone. Extra bones can expand to other diseases which is also unnecessary for your health similar to Mama Elena.

Following, we learn that Mama Elena has no milk to feed Tita, which makes Nacha, the family cook - her official caretaker as she replaces Mama Elena. This is important to point out because the initial separation of the two main characters is quite evident; there is no mother-daughter bond that should have been established, Mama Elena doesn’t have time to worry about her, “without having to worry about feeding a newborn baby on top of everything else.” (7) We grow to understand why Tita forms other vital bonds with Nacha, and of course the food that surrounds her daily, helping her not only to grow but acts as an outlet for her emotions. “From that day on, Tita’s domain was the kitchen…this explains the sixth sense Tita developed about everything concerning food.” (7) From the beginning, Tita is given barely any freedom, she is given a purpose, she will not marry anyone until Mama Elena is alive, she is to look after her, which becomes a great conflict when the love of her life, Pedro, is to marry her sister, Rosaura, and not her. Mama Elena wants to hear nothing about Tita’s frustration. Mama Elena herself has lost her true love and because of it is insensitive to Tita’s love with Pedro. The reaction of each woman to her predicament helps explain the opposite characters. Mama Elena lets the loss of her young love turn into hatred for anything but tradition, and

Mama Elena, sensing Tita's reluctance to participate in her sister's upcoming wedding, warns her, "I won't stand for disobedience... nor am I going to allow you to ruin your sister's wedding, with you acting like the victim. You're in charge of all the preparations starting now, and don't ever let me catch you with a single tear or even a long face, do you hear?" (27). At the wedding party the following day, although Tita keeps a perfectly calm demeanor, her true feelings about her sister's marriage to Pedro are revealed in the guests' first bite of the Chabela wedding cake. "The moment [the guests] took their first bite of the cake, everyone was flooded with a great wave of longing... [T]he weeping was just the first symptom of a strange intoxication that seized the guests" (39), all but Tita, on whom the cake had no effect. The author uses the cake's effect on the guests to reveal first, Tita's grief over her loss of love through the guests uncontrollable weeping and second, her disgust over her sister and Pedro's

The first example of how the author shows Tita as bring trapped is with the use of parallelism. By using the parallelism it was able to create the effect that she is like a robot. “At her mother's, what she had to do with her hands

The author combines the reality of Tita’s hard life with the supernatural powers of her tears. The author uses Tita’s crying to foreshadow the hardships and pain she will endure throughout her life such as her mother’s cruelness and her denied

Tita yearned to talk to someone about her predicaments, but could not find the courage to tell anyone anything; she thought to herself that she could only console her feelings with Gertrudis. Thus, now that Gertrudis is back visiting the ranch, Tita wanted more than anything to open up about all that she is struggling through and to ask Gertrudis for any advice. However, before she could do that, she had to sit and listen to Gertrudis’s stories of the battlefield and all the adventures she had. When time came that Tita spoke, she couldn’t hold in her tears because of the immense stress she’s in trying to find a resolution. Gertrudis advises a steadfast approach to her problem, luring Pedro in so that Tita had to tell him what was going on.

Since Tita was unable to stand up to Mama Elena, she felt helpless, which she then realized how strong her fate for an identity would be nonexistent; however, Tita would not accept that fate. From the day Tita was born and past off to Nacha, the cook, Mama Elena formed resentment towards Tita, while attempting to make Tita obedient through force, cruelty and mistreatment. The physically punished Tita endured, multiple times, by the hands of Mama Elena, forced her to live the life as a servant and a house cook; as well as, arrange the wedding of her love, Pedro, to her sister, Rosaura (26-29). While under Nacha’s care, Mama Elena bounded Tita to the kitchen and constrained her to cook for the family, and if Mama Elena saw signs of Tita disobedience, she would strike Tita in rage. The preparations for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding was Tita’s responsibility, which Mama Elena placed Tita in charge just to lower her spirits and eliminate any hope she may have within, causing Tita to have a weak moment that triggers her to hallucinate. In the opinion of