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What Are The Symbols In Like Water For Chocolate

Decent Essays

In the book, “Like Water for Chocolate”, Laura Esquivel uses symbols as the base for her story. The main character Tita, had symbols in almost every event in her life. The three symbols that stood out to me most were: Her hands, the cold inside of her and her cooking. The definition of symbols is: A mark or character used as a conventional representation of an object, function or process. I feel the symbol of her hands is a conventional representation of an object. “The cold inside of her”, is a mark of her character. The cooking could be symbolized as the function or the processes in her life. There are symbolic ways of looking at each of these descriptions. Esquivel makes such dramatic use of these symbols to institute magical realism throughout …show more content…

This was a representation of the lack of passion or love received from Pedro. He was her warmth. Dr. Brown told Tita; “A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by until a new explosion comes along to retrieve it” (171). She needed him to keep the fire inside of her lit and the more he was not there for her, the colder she got. No matter how much she knitted her blanket it could never mask the cold inside of her. “If one doesn’t find out what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lightened” (171). Pedro was the little explosions inside of her. His kisses, his touch and his love is what kept the fire inside of her burning. In the end of the story, Pedro dies and immediately Tita is cold. She covers herself in the extremely long blanket she knitted but needs Pedro to keep herself warm. “She would have to find some way, even if it was an artificial one, of striking a fire that would light the way back to her origin and to Pedro” (364). She takes the candles John bought her and started eating them. She started thinking about Pedro and their first kiss, and the first time they touched. That started a spark and lit the candles inside of Tita. This was the way back to her warmth and back to

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