Like Water for Chocolate
The novel is about a lady named Tita who had a life manipulated by her mother. She was deprived from marrying the love of her entire life, Pedro. She is following her mother's traditional belief that the youngest daughter must take care of her mother until she dies. Tita has the biggest love for cooking and she's got a very uniue talent of being able to express her passions and feelings through her cooking. Because of that, she is able to make the people who eat what she cooked feel what she feels. The novel was originally published in Spanish as Como agua para chocolate and has been translated into 30 languages; there are over three million copies in print worldwide. The novel makes heavy use of magical realism. The novel was made into a film in 1992. It earned all 11 Ariel awards of the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures, including the Ariel Award for Best Picture, and became the highest grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the United States at the time.
Laura Esquivel is the author of four famous novels which are Like Water For Chocolate, The Law of Love, Her Between the Fires and Malinche. Esquivel uses magical realism to combine the ordinary and the supernatural, similar to Isabel Allende. This novel showed the importance of kitchen on Esquivel's life. It also characterizes it as a source of knowledge and understanding that brings pleasure.
Esquivel's second novel, The Law of Love (1996) takes place in the twenty-third century Mexico City and combines romance and science fiction. Reportedly, "the theme of romantic love, particularly love thwarted, appears repeatedly throughout her novels, as does the setting in Mexico." Her Between the Fires (2000) featured essays on life, love, and food. Her most recent novel, Malinche (2006), "explores the life of a near mythic figure in Mexican history-the woman who served as Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortez's interpreter and mistress" as he fought to overthrow the Aztecs.
The story of this novel is about family, love, patience, anger, passion, sexuality and the kitchen. It was chopped in 12 chapters which were named after the 12 months of a year. It is about a woman who was stucked in her family’s tradition. She was tasked to take care of her mother until her mom dies. She was not allowed to marry until she does her task of taking care of her mother. Her name is Tita De La Garza. She fell in love with Pedro Muzquiz, who asked her to be his wife. Due to the family tradition that Tita had to follow, she was not able to marry Pedro.
Pedro was asked to marry Tita’s older sister, Rosaura, but declares to his father that he has only married Rosaura to remain close to Tita. Pedro and Rosaura lives on the ranch, which drew Pedro and Tita closer. Pedro gave Tita a bouquet of roses, and she used the petals in a meal. This drew Gertrudis, another sister of Tita, to be whipped into a lustful state and flees the ranch in the arms of a revolutionary soldier. Meanwhile, Rosaura gives birth to a son, who is delivered by Tita. Tita treats her nephew, Roberto, as if he were her own child, to the point that she is able to produce breast milk to feed him while her sister is dry. This gave insecurity to Rosaura. As the days passed by, Pedro’s love for Tita grows.
Sensing that Roberto is drawing Pedro and Tita closer together, Mama Elena arranges for Rosaura's family to move to San Antonio. This separation devastates Tita. A short time later, news arrives that Roberto has died, most likely due to his removal from Tita's care. The death of her nephew causes Tita to have a breakdown, and Mama Elena sends her to an asylum. Dr. John Brown, a local American doctor, takes pity on Tita and brings her to live in his house. He patiently nurses Tita back to health, caring for her physical ailments and trying to revive her broken spirit. After some time, Tita is nearly well, and she decides never to return to the ranch. No sooner has she made this choice than Mama Elena is injured in a raid by rebel soldiers, forcing Tita to return. Tita hopes to care for her mother, but Mama Elena bitterly rejects Tita's good will. She refuses Tita's cooking, claiming that it is poisoned. Not long after, Mama Elena is found dead from an overdose of a strong emetic she consumed for fear of poisoning.
The death of Mama Elena frees Tita from the curse of her birthright and she accepts an engagement proposal from John Brown, with whom she has fallen in love. In the meantime, Rosaura and Pedro have returned to the ranch and have produced a second child, Esperanza. Immediately, Pedro's presence throws into question Tita's love for John. The night that John officially asks Pedro to bless the marriage, Pedro corners Tita in a hidden room and makes love to her, taking her virginity. Soon after, Tita is certain that she is pregnant and knows that she will have to end her engagement to John. The affair between Pedro and Tita prompts the return of Mama Elena, who comes in spirit form to curse Tita and her unborn child. Tita is distraught and has no one in whom she can confide.
In the midst of Tita's despair, the long-lost Gertrudis returns to the ranch as a general in the revolutionary army, at the helm of a regiment of fifty men. Tita is overjoyed at the return of Gertrudis, who is just the companion she seeks. Gertrudis forces Tita to tell Pedro about the pregnancy. He is gladdened at the news, and he drunkenly serenades Tita from below her window. Outraged, Mama Elena's ghost returns, violently threatening Tita and declaring that she must leave the ranch. For the first time, Tita stands up to Mama Elena and, in forceful words, declares her autonomy, banishing her mother's spirit, which shrinks from an imposing presence into a tiny fiery light. She is now sure that she is not pregnant. She can now marry John Brown with a clear conscience. As she expels the ghost, Tita is simultaneously relieved of all her symptoms of pregnancy. The light from Mama Elena's ghost bursts through Tita's window and onto the patio below where Pedro still sits, setting fire to his entire body.
Pedro only looked for Tita and not Rosaura. This event made Rosaura feel that her younger sister and her husband still had feelings for each other despite the fact that Pedro and she are already married. After rescuing Pedro, Tita is consumed with caring for him and helping him recover. John Brown returns from a trip to the United States and Tita confesses to him her relations with Pedro. John replies that he still wishes to marry her but that she must decide for herself with whom she wishes to spend her life.
Years pass, and the ranch focuses its attention on another wedding, this time between Esperanza and Alex, the son of John Brown. Rosaura has died, freeing her only daughter, Esperanza, from the stricture that had previously forbidden her, as it had Tita, from marrying. Tita was known to unlike the tradition ever since. She doesn’t want another woman be deprived from marrying the person she loves. With Rosaura dead and Esperanza married, Tita and Pedro are finally free to express their love in the open. On their first night together, Tita and Pedro experience love so intense that both are led to a tunnel that will carry them to the afterlife. Tita turns back, wanting to continue in life and in love with Pedro. Once she does, she realizes that Pedro has already crossed over. Wanting desperately to be with him, Tita attempts to ignite her inner fire by eating the candles that had lit the room until they extinguished themselves at the moment of Pedro's death. When she succeeds in recreating the climate of true passion, she reenters the luminous tunnel and meets Pedro in the spirit world. The final union of their bodies and spirits sets fire to the entire ranch, and the only remnant left of their love is the recipe book in which Tita recorded her wisdom. Esperanza’s daughter took hold of the recipe book, and she was indeed a kitchen lady too.
Tita - The protagonist of the novel, Tita is the youngest daughter of Mama Elena. She is prohibited by family tradition from marrying so that she will be free to take care of her mother until her late days. The novel follows Tita's life from birth to death, focusing mostly on her tortured relationship with Pedro, and her struggle and eventual triumph in pursuit of love and individuality. Tita is patient and is very good in cooking. She did the kitchen works in their ranch together with Nacha, when she was still alive. Tita fell deeply in love with Pedro. She made a recipe book that was the only thing left after Pedro and she put the ranch in fire.
Mama Elena – She is the most manipulative character I have seen in my entire life. The tyrannical, widowed matriarch of the De La Garza clan, Mama Elena is the prime source of Tita's suffering. Her fierce temperament inspires fear in all three of her daughters. She keeps Tita from her true love, Pedro, and it is later revealed that Mama Elena herself once suffered from a lost love, embittering her for the rest of her life. Indeed, Mama Elena is the main antagonist.
Pedro - He is Tita's first and true love. He is the father of Roberto and Esperanza. Denied marriage to Tita by Mama Elena, he agrees to marry Rosaura, breaking Tita's heart. Nevertheless, he asserts his continued love for Tita throughout the novel and pursues her secretly. Pedro dies after he and Tita are finally blissfully united while making love at the novel's end.
Rosaura - The second daughter of Mama Elena, Rosaura marries Pedro, much to the despair of Tita. Rosaura leaves the ranch when Mama Elena sends her and Pedro to San Antonio to keep Pedro and Tita apart. Her first child, Roberto, dies as an infant; her second, Esperanza, prohibited like Tita from ever marrying, weds Alex after Rosaura dies. She suffered from bad breath and obesity that made her insecure too much. She was not really fond of cooking, unlike Tita.
Gertrudis - She is the eldest daughter of Mama Elena. Gertrudis escapes the ranch after reacting mysteriously to one of Tita's recipes, the dish with the petals that Tita cooked. She runs away with a rebel soldier, works in a brothel at the Mexico-Texas border, and eventually returns to the ranch as a general in the revolutionary army. It is eventually revealed that Gertrudis is the offspring of a hidden, extramarital affair between Mama Elena and her true love, a mulatto man.
Dr. John Brown - He is an American doctor who cares for Tita when she experiences a breakdown, and the father of Alex. John eventually falls in love with Tita and helps rehabilitate her soul, revealing to her the nature of the fire that resides in each individual. Tita becomes engaged to him, but eventually denies him marriage to pursue Pedro.
Nacha - She is the ranch cook, of unspecified indigenous background, Nacha is the prime caretaker for Tita throughout her childhood, and provides her with the love and support that Mama Elena fails to give. She is also the source for most of the recipes in the novel. Nacha dies on the day of Rosaura's wedding but returns throughout the narrative as a spiritual guide for Tita. Nacha served as Tita’s friend and confidant. Her personality was unlike Mama Elena’s.
Chencha - The ranch maid, also of indigenous descent, Chencha possesses a somewhat flighty disposition. She becomes Tita's companion in the kitchen after Nacha's death. She is married to a guy in her hometown and soon moves in the ranch. She also took care of Mama Elena for some time.
Esperanza - The second child of Rosaura and Pedro, and the mother of the narrator of the novel. She is raised by Tita in the kitchen. Her marriage to Alex breaks the De La Garza family tradition that disallows the marriage of youngest daughters.
Alex - The son of Dr. John Brown, and the father of the narrator. He marries Esperanza, the daughter of Pedro and Rosaura.
The novel’s theme is about taking risks. Tita took the risk in every meal that she is taking. She also took the risk of continuously loving Pedro even despite the family traditions. Gertrudis took the risk of escaping from the ranch for love. Also, John Brown took the risk of taking care and loving Tita even though he lost her in the end.
The style of the author in presenting the plot is very unique. She mixed a cook book with a love story. Her idea of presenting each recipe and an event in the De La Garza ranch was really something different. Her words are very informative. Any reader who would read this would splurge into the fantasy of food and love.
Each chapter was filled of delicious information about some Mexican food. The author also instilled some of the famous traditions of Mexico. Her words were easy to understand and it weren’t too deep to need a dictionary to be able to understand it.
“Damn good manners! Damn Carreno’s etiquette manual! He should be punished, his body made to fade away a bit at a time, forever. Damn Pedro, so, decent, so proper, so manly, so… wonderful.”
These lines show the undeniable love that Tita has for Pedro, which was given justice by the author. Each reader would really feel how the protagonist feels. Moreover, each reader would indulge himself/herself in falling in love. Each chapter’s story was clearly stated, making the reader follow every inch of movement where the story goes.
The text is very informative. It is also used symbolisms. Let me place this paragraph that personally caught my attention. This was spoken by John Brown to Tita (page 115).
“As you see, within our bodies each of us has the elements needed to produce phosphorus. And let me tell you something I’ve never told a soul. My grandmother had a very interesting theory; she said that each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves; just as in the experiment, we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen, for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle would be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. For a moment we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it. Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. That fire, in short, is its food. If one doesn’t find out in time what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lighted. If that happens, the soul flees from the body and goes to wander among the deepest shades, trying in vain to find food to nourish itself, unaware that only the body it left behind, cold and defenseless, is capable of providing that food.”
I personally love the book, its contents and the way its plot was presented. The book taught me that traditions are not really important especially when it may soon hurt a person. It is always proper to follow your parents but it doesn’t mean that you have to let them choose your destiny. It doesn’t mean that you can let them manipulate your life.
The book was very informative, mixing a cook book with a love story. It is very unique from any other love stories. It is mix of the reality of life, the war dangers, fantasy of love and the magical world of food. It captures the hearts of many ages from the first love, the lost love and the occurring passionate love.
Some parts of the text are not realistic enough like the magical tunnel and the part where Mama Elena reappears and almost killed Pedro. Despite its unrealistic scenes, it can still capture the heart of any reader and can teach thousands of lessons. I found it not convincing with the part where Pedro and Tita was making out and because of the tunnel where they went to, they both died. Also, I was not convinced by the part where Gertrudis’ smell reached the other side of the town. Although, yes, some parts may not be very convincing, these scenes gave proof that love is magic and it can cause many things to a person.
Some recipes were too long and it somehow made me bored because I don’t really cook. But for some people who have the passion for food and cooking, they may really enjoy those parts. This book gave me the idea that true love doesn’t have boundaries. It cannot be destroyed by an arranged marriage, by age or time, or by another pointless rebound. I also realized that families are bound to understand and give you. It is not selfish and it must not hurt you.
The book taught me to take risks in whatever I do. I must explore every little thing just like what Tita did with her dishes. I learned to put passion in what I do and I must make sure that each would be showered with what I really feel. I must not fake and I must be true to myself. Also, others won’t matter as long as the people I love believes me.
“Of course! There’s nothing to stop you. And do you know what? Once we’re married, I’d like to have a child with you. We still have time don’t you think? Now that Esperanza is leaving us, we’ll need some company. And I want you to know that you can’t convince me not to do it. I don’t care what my daughter or anybody else thinks. We’ve spent too many years worrying about what people will say; from now on, nothing is going to keep me away from you.”
Passed by: EUNICE CLAIRE A. CAPILI of IV – Marie Curie
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