preview

Like Water For Chocolate Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Decent Essays

Laura Esquivel uses all of her strategies to make small moments in Like Water for Chocolate have meaning and emotion in relation to her characters. In the book, the month of July is where Tita, the protagonist, is staying with a doctor named John and she refuses to speak. That is until Chencha comes to see her. Esquivel uses repetition and imagery in a few paragraphs to enhance that moment, Chencha’s arrival, and to make it meaningful. With her use of repetition and imagery, Esquivel is able to convey her tone, create a mood and support her purpose in the matter of one page. Tita had lived in silence with John long enough to become accustomed to their life until she caught an unexpected scent. She had been away from familiarity that Tita forgot …show more content…

Chencha had brought Tita ox-tail soup, its scent brought back Tita’s memories “With the first sip Nacha was there at her...There were all the times with Nacha. As always throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began. She cried as she hadn’t cried since the day she was born. How good it was to have a long talk with Nacha” (Esquivel 124). The mood created by this imagery here is relief. It is expressed through Tita’s memories. Tita recalls Nacha stroking her hair when she was young and ill, through it, we feel our own mothers’ stroke our hair with our memories. With the mention of familiar scents, the reader could also smell the tortillas and the atole. This sensory imagery enhances this moment to its full splendor. The imagery has the ability to bring us to tears as well as we recall all of those heartfelt moments with her. This augments the mood of relief in the passage when she cries. Her crying now is compared to how she had cried at her birth. Esquivel uses a hyperbole and describes Tita’s tears as a stream. The mood builds the purpose because, with Tita as the example, once you do find yourself you feel immense relief and can be comfortable without the tension of holding it in

Get Access