Like Water For Chocolate Character Analysis

Love is always fun, something that’s usually between two people, but what happens when someone or something doesn’t agree with this love and tries to get between it? This is something seen in the novel Like Water For Chocolate by the author Laura Esquivel. The novel is about an all women mexican family with strict traditions in a world of magical realism. Throughout the story, the main character Tita and her future niece struggle with a specific tradition that prevent them from being with the person they love. The magical realism in the book helps to further understand the symbolism used by the author. Laura esquivel uses symbolism to comment on the nature of true love and how it will overcome any obstacle to ignite happiness.

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.

Tita character development was strongly demonstrated as “Tita reveals that she has now advanced to a whole other level of independence- that she feels confident enough in her strength to return to care for Mama Elena, the person who has restricted her from her freedom all her life” Tita is brave enough to care of the person who destroyed her mental state, this demonstrates the maturity Tita has developed. This assertion contributes to the thesis because Tita maturity brought her the independence she fully deserved. Not only did Tita rebelled against Mama Elena she also rebelled against the love of her life, “Tita also demonstrates her new independence when she rebels against Pedro’s control” Tita realized she does not need to be controlled by Pedro just because she is in love with him, she realized that she is capable of being free from any time of

food she cooks. On one occasion, Tita makes a dish using roses Muzquiz gave her, and

Like Water For Chocolate is one of the Laura Esquivel’s books. The uniqueness of this book is that it uses the cooking, or recipe, to tell a story. In the story, she uses the magic realism, which expresses a primarily realistic view of the real world while encompassing a range of subtly different concepts, to reveal her familiar theme ‘love.’ To summarize the book, there is the family tradition that the last daughter needs to take care her mother until mother’s death without the marriage. The protagonist of this book, Tita, is the last daughter of her family, and therefore, she cannot marry with her love. So, there is the conflict between Mama Elena, who wants to keep the tradition, and Tita, who wants to marry with her love, Pedro, even if it forces family tradition. Esquivel utilizes magic realism to expose the passion to keep family tradition, family relationship, and the complexity of love.

Tita-youngest daughter of mama elena and also the protagonist of the novel. She is barred from getting married as per family traditions in the understanding that she would care for her mother till death. She faces many struggles such as not being able to marry her desirer Pedro and also watch him get married to her sister. The book progress with her life and shows a main focus on her disturbed relationship with pedro and also displays her hardships in her life to pursue love and distinctiveness from others. The purpose of her upbringing was to be excellent in the culinary arts.

Based off the novel with the same name by Laura Esquivel, the film Like Water for Chocolate cleverly uses food in order to not only help viewers get to know its characters but also to convey their feelings for one another. The film follows the De La Garza family living in their ranch in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution and centers around Tita, one of the three daughters in the family who falls madly in love with a young man named Pedro. Continuing an old family tradition that states the youngest daughter must stay home and take of the mother until she dies, Tita’s mother Elena forbids her from marrying him when he comes to ask for Tita’s hand. Elena convinces Pedro to instead marry Tita’s oldest sister Rosaura. It isn’t until later that Pedro reveals to Tita the real reason he chose to marry her sister was so he could remain close to her. The rest of the film shows how Tita deals with the painful reality of having her love become her brother-in-law and how these two fight to stay in one another’s life.

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

She goes from a mellow, passive, or almost barely speaking, to an aggressive and advocating tone against her mother and her sister Rosura. She is quick with her response, and raises her voice when arguing with them. The figurative language in the story depicts the transformation that Tita has to go through. The figurative language shows the sturdy connection between human’s feelings and food or women and their bodies. Poison is being used as a metaphor to indicate how the old society is being corrupted by new society. The magical realism, gives us the blend of an ordinary life with magic. Things that would never happen in reality, but is imported from the beginning to the end of “Like Water for chocolate” to make it enchanted. The story help us readers predict by delivering a hint of something that’s going to occur in the future. It foreshadows with in the lines and the ingredients that is listed at the beginning of every chapter. In the beginning of the chapter the setting of the story indicates the tradition of a girl being raised in the kitchen. Tita is the first in her family to make a different to go beyond the “status quo” and discontinue the oppression of women. She gives women a passage to have to make their own decisions, follow their hearts, but to never forget where they come from.

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

Throughout Like Water for Chocolate Tita faces may obstacles. These obstacles include tradition and society with Mama Elena being the biggest catalyst. Tita was forced to stay in the kitchen and take care of her mom all her life, without the choice of getting married. These obstacles became roadblocks that forced Tita’s quest to find her identity and freedom almost achievable. In the end Tita eventually finds herself but not without facing a great deal of adversity.

This means in terms of health a women looks at what types of food will help take care of people and make remedies for sicknesses. Tita did that when she “poured the seasoned broth with the potatoes and beans into the pan… she served the soup and took it to her mother on a beautiful silver tray” (130). This displays Tita playing the role of a domestic woman because of the way she served it was to impress her mother, like traditionally in Bangladesh, when serving people you have to do it neatly and display it appealingly because that is considered feminine. So in that sense, Tita is pulled back to this

From the day Tita entered the world, her fate was sealed with the De la Garza’s family tradition, which lead to the cause of her pain and suffering from the hands of her mother, Mama Elena. Tita and Mama Elena’s estranged relationship was oppressed with complications from Tita’s premature birth and the sudden death of her father, which caused Mama Elena to reject her nurturing nature and discard bonding with Tita. Although Tita’s emotions would leave her in a weakened mind state, her determination towards breaking the brutal convention, she is faced with, would begin to display her strength, through her visualization of a fulfilled life without the criticism of Mama Elena. While Tita

From the day Tita entered the world, her fate was sealed with the De la Garza’s family tradition, which lead to the cause of her pain and suffering from the hands of her mother, Mama Elena. Tita and Mama Elena’s estranged relationship was oppressed with complications from Tita’s premature birth and the sudden death of her father, which caused Mama Elena to reject her nurturing nature and discard bonding with Tita. Although Tita’s emotions would leave her in a weakened mind state, her determination towards breaking the brutal convention, she is faced with, would begin to display her strength, through her visualization of a fulfilled life without the criticism of Mama Elena. While

The tittle its self is the first evidence displaying the metaphor of food. The reader knows that “baklava” is not a language, however the title is presenting it as a language, giving the reader a clue as to how she is choosing to tell her story. For a majority of the memoir food is being used as a language accosting her culture, family and distinct memories. It is evident that food is universal and that using food as a metaphor will grasp the attention of the reader.Which is seen when she describes her “father [as] a sweet, clueless immigrant-practically still a boy”(Abu-Jaber ).The main purpose of the metaphor is to simplify a the complexity of the situation. In addition, it is evident that food is a way for “Bub” to keep his traditions alive and also to pass them on to his family. For example, the author describes how their guests “[will] be hungry because everyone who "comesover" is hungry: for home, for family, for the old smells and touches and tastes”(Abu-Jaber ). As a result, hunger is used to represent their yarning for culture aspects which is no-longer present in their everyday life. She goes on to describe immigration to be “ like a law of nature: Grow up, go to America,”which once again relates to her family traditions and expectations (Abu-Jaber ). Moreover, metaphors are being used to demonstrate the need to remain connected to their roots. The persistent use of food as central theme is also creating feelings of