Metaphor In Food

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

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

Rosaura is Tita's sister and is not a great one. Rosaura marries Pedro even though she knows that Tita and him are in love. Tita feels powerless because of this and is trying to escape the entrapment. She wants to gain enough power to get Pedro all to herself and not have to see him with Rosaura. Tita finds her own way to feel power. Tita and Pedro are still together even though he is married and this gives Tita the feeling of power.

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

“Culinary Eros in Contemporary Hispanic Female Fiction: From Kitchen Tales to Table Narratives” by Maite Zubiaurre shows “traditional and conforming, can put the seed of rebellion in their own daughter narratives... from the same token, literary daughters often come back to their mothers” (47). This explores that eventually women are drawn back to the norms even while rebelling and that is what Tita did when she fulfills the ritual “serving as health guardian. It was more often taken by women as an important factor driving their food practices” (Cairns 13). This discusses food nourishes not only the body but also passion. It transmits emotions and sustains culture.

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.

Pedro does become engaged to Rosaura, because, as he tells his father when they are leaving the ranch, "When you're told there's no way you can marry the woman you love and your only hope of being near to her is to marry her sister, wouldn't you do the same?" (15). It is during Pedro and Rosaura's wedding reception that Tita's feelings first become apparent through the magic of her cooking.

Lust seems to be the biggest motivation and is the basis of their relationship. The novel did not offer any explanation or backstory explaining how or why they fell in love and every encounter Tita has with Pedro happens to be very sexual. The first time, Pedro glances at Tita’s exposed thighs when he helps her pick up the fruits that she drops. As a grown man, this bare sight initiated his sex drive. Despite being married to Rosaura and father to her son, Pedro only see sexual intercourse with Rosaura as a duty and not a pleasure. The second time, Pedro peeks at Tita’s breast in motion while she prepares a meal. The third time, Pedro grabs Tita and passionately kisses her while rubbing his body against hers. Things got heated when Tita’s reaches down and “felt a red-hot coal throbbed through his clothes” (98). E.N. Anderson says in his book, Everyone Eats, that drinking a cold beverage when one is thirsty is much more satisfying than when he or she is not (Anderson 76). Likewise, being denied of love, Tita’s and Pedro’s desires and lust intensifies as the days goes on and they long for the day that their physical bodies can

The images in the movie relate very closely to the amusing feeling the book gives us, giving us a high angle on the guests and long shots, showing us collectively how everyone was crying. At that night Nacha dies, and shatters Titas world. Later on Pedro gives Tita roses, and she decides to make quail in rose. The passion dripped from her to the dish, and made Gertrudis the older sister think of sinful thoughts. The aroma arousing from her reaches to a soldier Juan, who was Gertrudis dream, the moment is described magically: “A pink clod floated toward him, wrapped itself around him…naked as she was, luminous, glowing with energy… without slowing his gallop, so as not to waste a moment, he leaned over, put his arm around her waist, and lifted her onto the horse in front of him, face to face” (pg 55-56). The movie draws a great parallel here, the picture is blurry a little as if it is a dream, and for the first time in the movie, which is very dimly lit and poorly lighted, the picture is bright, with a flowing movement of the two as they disappear. One of the most significant moments in the book is when Tita delivers Rosauras baby Roberto, the thing she loved the most. In the movie however, the whole phase of taking care of Roberto in the kitchen and feeding him is very brief, which is very confusing for later scenes. As mama Elena senses that Pedro and Tita might have an affair going on, she sends them to one of her relatives in the United States.

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

Tita’s thoughts shows how, despite her fear of Mama Elena, she still attempts to gain her right to marry and she is secretly happy about Pedro marrying Rosaura just to be near her. Despite Mama Elena 's intentions to break Tita 's heart by making her watch the person she loves getting married to her sister, Tita completely changes the meaning of this wedding to something that makes her love for Pedro grow stronger. This is also portrayed in the film when Tita 's smile remains even after Mama Elena scolds her. The contrast in Mama Elena and Tita 's behaviour is conveyed when Tita thinks about what it would be like to have her mother’s strength:

Even though the rose is distinctly only in the title, it emerges as allegorical and symbolic throughout the story. Getty states, “The "Rose" of the title extends far beyond any one flower or literary allusion in its implications for the story's structure. The "Rose" represents secrecy: the confidential relationship between the author and his character, with all of the privileged information withheld” (Getty 230). The view of the warmth of love and fondness is to be thought when

But of course Rosaura was hurt because of the fact that he brought Tita roses instead of her and Mama Elena did not approve and told Tita to throw them out, but Tita didn’t listen to her so she went into the kitchen to express them the best way she could which was through food, so she cooked the quail in rose petals sauce making the food have a sexual tension especially towards Gertrudis. When Pedro complimented the food Mama Elena downgraded it and Rosaura excused herself. Gertrudis was feeling very hot and lusty causing her to go to the bathroom and shower herself but that didn’t help and the heat from her body cause the bathroom to catch on fire which made her run out of the bathroom naked the opposite way of the ranch, pg. 51 in “Like Water for Chocolate says “The delicacy of her face, the perfection of her pure vaginal body contrasted with passion, the lust, the leapt from her eyes, from every pore. These things, and the sexual desire Juan had contained for so long while he was fighting in the mountains, made for a spectacular encounter.” The tension that she was feeling made her run away from the ranch with Juan on the horse and from there that’s when Gertrudis made love for the very first time. Those two examples were the two major recipes that showed how much Tita’s cooking had a big impact on the people that surrounded her and what it did to them to affect them.

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. Tita was physically punished multiple times by the hands of Mama Elena, and forced to live the life as a servant, and punished to cook, as well as, arrange the wedding of her love, Pedro, to her sister, Rosaura (26-29). Mama Elena bounded Tita to the kitchen and constrained her to cook for the family, under Nacha’s care, and if Mama Elena saw signs of Tita being disobedient, Mama Elena would strike her in rage. Mama Elena put Tita in charge of the preparations for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding to lower her spirits and eliminate any hope she may have within, which caused Tita to have a weak moment and triggers her to hallucinate. In the opinion of a journalist, Justine Baek, which was

Roses are given to people so often. Who among us does not attach some type of personal significance to the image of a rose? I would venture to say that no one has not given, been given, or wished to give or receive a rose. Roses are delivered from florists by the dozen during all holiday seasons, for anniversaries, for apologies, for courting. . . And it is in this obsessive usage that the meaning of the rose has been exploited. What delivers more