Laura Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate

“You know perfectly well that being the youngest daughter means you have to take care of me until the day I die.” (10). This statement shows how Tita is being oppressed not by mama Elena choice but family tradition. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel concentrate into the stories of the women of De La Garza. Tita the main character aim to find love, happiness and independent, and Elena De La Garza the antagonist who will stand in the way of Tita happiness and would do anything in her power to stop Tita to fulfil her goals which is to find true love with Pedro. This mother and daughter relationship was predestined since the day when Tita was brought up into this world, and her father’s sudden death. Mama Elena was the opposite of a loving, caring women she never had a relationship with Tita. While Tita formed a relationship with food that gives her the strength, and love she never experienced before. The women of De La Garza experienced many challenges in this strict societies. All the women expected to follow an oppressive family tradition.

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.

The initial state in Like Water for Chocolate is when Tita is saddened when she is told by Mama Elena that she cannot marry, and must take care of her mother until she dies, as this is the ritual of the family, since Mama Elena was a young girl. The final state is when Tita finally stands up to Mama Elena,

The book “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel is a story that is connected by the importance of food and family tradition within a Mexican family. Within the novel, the family is impacted by the importance of these aspects. However the youngest daughter Tita is the one who mostly relates to them. The ways these aspects influence her family consequently end up affecting her personal life. Therefore, food and family tradition have an important role within this novel, since through these Tita is able to express herself as well as to show how these impacts her personal life.

Powerful as it is popular, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel has been inspiring strength in women for nearly three decades. A politician, novelist, screenwriter and a teacher, Esquivel has lived a full life of experiences. Her first book and most popular, Like Water for Chocolate followed the life of Tita de la Garza, the youngest daughter in the family thus forced to obey the law laid out by matriarch of the de la Garza clan, Mama Elena. These laws subjected Tita to become the dove in the cage, struggling to break free and live her life. Through the deft

Everyone has a family, no matter if they are blood related or not. Each member of a family has a good, neutral, or even bad relationship with another family member as well. In Laura Esquivel’s novel, Like Water for Chocolate, the reader sees the different relationships between the family, especially with the mother, and how the family 's relationship in the story is so much more different than a “regular” family. You would think that every family is the same, where there is a father, a mother, and the kids, but in this novel, we see how this is not an ordinary family. The reader sees how the head of the household, which is Mama Elena, treats each of her daughters with equal harshness and aggressiveness. During the story we see the daughters, Tita, Chencha, Rosura, and Gertrudis dealing with living under their mother 's rule. There is of course a reason for Mama Elena to treat her daughters this way, such as family traditions, and how it affects the household’s life and where it stands. Family relationships, especially the mother-daughter relationship is very important , because the rise and collapse of their relationships is pretty much what makes up the majority the story, and how it affects the characters lives.

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.

In the Esquivel’s book, Like Water For Chocolate, Mama Elena is one of the antagonist character who tries to keep family tradition even though it is good or not. For expressing it, the magic realism attempts to it with her passion. To keep the family tradition, Mama Elena makes Pedro, Tita’s love, marry with her second daughter, Rosaura. Even though Pedro marries with Rosaura, Tita and Pedro are still loving each other. After Mama Elena’s death, they can love without being oppressed. However, the passion of Mama Elena unveils. After Rosauro gives birth to Esperanza, she worries about

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

The life she had before her love for Pedro. Esquivel’s purpose in this passage is how much life is changed for love. She includes the slightest detail in a random order because that's how Tita thinks, she is overwhelmed with herself in the life she was given. It's to show everyone has a breaking point, but love changes everything. Titas love for Nacha is irreplaceable, she shaped Tita into a woman before she even was one. Her inexplicable love for Pedro began at such a young age and Tita got what she wanted, to spend her life with Pedro but not in the way she had hoped. Seeing her love with her sister throughout many years, did take an emotional toll on her. In addition, Mama Elena’s tradition affected Tita since she was born on that table in the kitchen. Yet no matter how horribly Mama Elena treat Tita she did not defy her out of rebellion, she ultimately defied her out of exhaustion. Tita respected her out of love and that's what kept Tita going throughout this novel, the power of love.                                                 In “Like Water for Chocolate”, Esquivel extends the theme of magic realism to the everyday world of a

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

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

The phrase “mother knows best” refers to maternal instinct and wisdom. It is often used to describe how mothers are the most knowledgeable when it comes to their children’s needs. This cliche is frequently used by mothers who try to guide their children on the path towards success, especially when the child protests. Tita’s mother, Mama Elena, embraces this expression fully, and always pushes Tita towards what she believes is the road to achievement. Mama Elena is perhaps one of the best portrayals of “tough love” in a character in literature. Like Water for Chocolate’s author, Esquivel, depicts Mama Elena as a strong, independent woman who does not bother with things she deems insignificant. This translates to the reader through the decisions and actions Mama Elena makes throughout the book. Her disregard for emotions is often the reason why her actions are misunderstood by readers who claim that she is a cruel, unrelenting mother who is apathetic to her daughter’s suffering. However, this is not the case, as Mama Elena never acts without reason and only goes out of her way to discipline Tita when she believes that Tita is in the wrong. The readers see her go to great lengths to protect Tita numerous times, although these instances are often hidden behind her less than pleasant words, such as when she tries to shield Tita and Nacha from the rebels who were known to frequently terrorize families and rape women. Despite being a strict and unforgiving mother, Mama Elena’s

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. The physically punished Tita endured, multiple times, by the hands of Mama Elena, forced her to live the life as a servant and a house cook; as well as, arrange the wedding of her love, Pedro, to her sister, Rosaura (26-29). While under Nacha’s care, Mama Elena bounded Tita to the kitchen and constrained her to cook for the family, and if Mama Elena saw signs of Tita disobedience, she would strike Tita in rage. The preparations for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding was Tita’s responsibility, which Mama Elena placed Tita in charge just to lower her spirits and eliminate any hope she may have within, causing Tita to have a weak moment that triggers her to hallucinate. In the opinion of

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