Like Water For Chocolate Literary Analysis

Tita is the youngest daughter so it is her job to take care of Mama Elena. Mama Elena knows the power that this gives her and abuses them by holding them over Titas head. Mama Elena makes Tita miserable by using the power

Tita was born in a family with strict rules and traditions. It is tradition that keeps Tita and Pedro apart. Even though Tita and Pedro are madly in love with each other. However, because tradition demand that Tita the youngest daughter does not marry in order to take care for her parents. “For generations, not a single person in my family has ever questioned this tradition, and no daughter of mine is going to be the one to start”. (10). Tita mother makes this statement to shows that she has power over Tita life, she’s not going to let anybody come between her decisions and explained to her that tradition could not be broken. Later in the story, Pedro fails to gain Tita’s hand in marriage when he speaks to her mother. Instead Elena offer Rosaura the middle sister to marry Pedro in which pedro agrees. “When you’re told there’s no way you can marry the women you love and only hope of being near her is to marry her sister”. (15) This news leaves Tita broken-hearted because she imagines this could have been her, marrying her true love, having a future with him, and probably having children with him. Instead she is doomed to served 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

In her journal “Mother- Daughter Relationship”, Jeanine Perez gives her readers a perspective on one of Mama Elena’s weakness. The author Perez writes “Mama Elena is later discovered to have betrayed her husband with her true love… the fact is that Mama Elena preaches something and behaves in a different manner” (p.192). In other words, Mama Elena does not take her own advice. Thus, making Mama Elena a fraud and voiding her of having any valid credibility. In the book Like Water for Chocolate the author also shows how Mama Elena is a harsh parent. In the book Mama Elena is quoted telling Tita “You know perfectly well that being the youngest daughter means you have to take care of me until the day I die” (p.10). This shows how messed up in the head Mama Elena is. Not only is the ordinance downright awful, it is dehumanizing to follow such a rule. As you can tell by now, Mama Elena has some serious demises that make her a weak character.

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

Tita is upset as they are cooking and Mama Elena sees this and says, “You’re in charge of the preparations starting now, and don’t ever let me catch you with a single tear or even a long face, do you hear? (Esquivel 27)” Mama Elena won’t even let her be sad at the fact that her sister is marrying the man she loves. Tita never really gains power over Mama Elena and she even has power over her when she dies. Even her ghost has power over Tita. Although Tita is upset she is brave enough to not only go to her sister and lover’s wedding but also to prepare the food for all the guests. Even though Tita struggles with power over her mother, Tita can always rely on Nacha, the family cook, to be there for her. Nacha sees that Tita is upset before the wedding and says, “Now we’re alone in the kitchen, so go ahead and cry, my child, because I don’t want them to see you crying tomorrow. (Esquivel 29)” Nacha truly cares about Tita, unlike Tita’s real mother, Mama Elena. Tita get her brave spirt from Nacha and Nacha teaches Tita how to be brave without even realizing she’s teaching her something. Bravery is what gets Tita through all her struggles and this could not be possible without the help of Nacha.

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

The first way Tita changed in the story was because she decided she did not care about anyone basically ignoring societal expectations, when she can not marry pedro. In the story Like Water For Chocolate Tita can’t marry Pedro because Mama Elena wants Tita to take care of her until she dies. “ Damn good manners! Damn Carreno’s etiquette manual! He should have been punished, his body made to face away a bit at a time, forever. Damn Pedro, so decent, so proper, so manly, so...wonderful.” Tita says this after being told she can not marry Pedro. Tita does not want to go along with the tradition of taking care of Mama Elena until she dies she wants to marry Pedro. Tita is told she can not marry pedro, she needs to care for Mama Elena Until she takes

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

from mama Elena to get married to Tita. Mama Elena refuses to approve on the

Full of love, passion, family tradition and mouth-watering recipes, Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate" is seasoned with magical intensity that will leave your heart boiling. This book expresses the value of true Mexican family tradition and how a girl's passion for cooking can affect the loved ones around her. Tita, a girl who is destined to a solitary life due to family customs, is brought into the world in what comes to be the one and only way she knows how to express herself. She was born on the kitchen table and was raised by the sweetest smelling meals known to man. Un-denounced to her, she was meant to remain in the kitchen, where she would become a servant until

Two months into the story there has been many feelings and themes expressed including love, violence, injustice, and tradition. Love can be referring to how Tita feels toward cooking and her love for Pedro Muzquiz. Violence because when Mama Elena is mad she beats Tita to the point where it takes weeks to recover from her bruises. She also gives Tita many threats if she were to go anywhere near Pedro. Injustice and tradition ties together. The de la Garza family lives by a tradition that states the youngest out of all the siblings isn’t to marry and must take care of the mother until the day she dies. I feel this isn’t fair and it’s actually a little shocking. Tita stated many flaws in the system and surprisingly it still never failed. It’s

Mama Elena’s tyranny does not stop here. After Tita’s lover-Pedro- came to their house to ask Mama Elena permission to marry Tita, she offered Rousara to him as if marriage is a business arrangement rather than a lifelong commitment between two persons who love each other. Her cruelty is further proved by forcing Tita to cook the wedding cake. "I won't have disobedience," she tells the heartbroken young Tita, "not am I going to let you ruin your sister's wedding, with you acting like a victim. You're in charge of all the preparations starting now, and don't ever let me catch you with a single tear on your long face, do you hear?" (Esquivel, 1989).