Like Water for Chocolate
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- This is an article about the novel. For the article on the 1992 film, see Like Water for Chocolate (film). For the Common album of the same name, see Like Water for Chocolate (album).
Like Water for Chocolate is a popular novel published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel.[1]
The novel follows the story of a young girl named Tita who longs her entire life for her lover, Pedro, but can never have him because of her domineering mother's traditional belief that the youngest daughter must not marry but take care of her mother until the day she dies. Tita is only able to express her passions and feelings through her cooking, which causes the people who taste it to experience what she feels.[2] The novel was originally published in Spanish as Como agua para chocolate and has been translated into thirty languages; there are over three million copies in print worldwide.[3]
The novel makes heavy use of magical realism. The novel was made into a film in 1993.[4] 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 foreign film ever released in the United States at the time.[citation needed]
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[edit] Plot summary
The book is divided into twelve sections named after the months of the year. Each section begins with a recipe of some sort, involving Mexican foods. The chapters outline the preparation of the dish and ties it to an event in the protagonist's life.[5]
Young Tita de la Garza, the novel's protagonist, is fifteen at the start of the events in the story, which take place in the era of the Mexican Revolution. She lives with her iron-fisted mother, Mama Elena, and her older sisters Gertrudis and Rosaura, on a ranch near the Mexico-US border.
Tita's admirer, Pedro Muzquiz, comes to ask for her hand in marriage, but Mama Elena forbids it on the grounds of the De la Garza family tradition, which demands that the youngest daughter (in this case Tita) must remain unmarried and take care of her mother until death. Pedro then reluctantly marries Tita's older sister Rosaura instead, and a distraught Tita can hardly keep from being grieved, even though Pedro maintains it is Tita he loves and not Rosaura.
Tita has a love of the kitchen and a sharp connection with food of any sort, a skill her sister lacks. Tita unconsciously begins to use the power of food to draw Pedro away from Rosaura, with the rest of the family and hired help becoming pawns in the scheme.
As the story unfolds, Pedro begins to fall under the developing spell of romance caused by Tita's kitchen skills. It is also important to note that Rosaura's cooking skills are poor, and this makes Pedro even more unattracted to her, as he barely wanted to consummate their marriage to begin with. But side effects do result, as when Rosaura and Pedro are forced to leave for San Antonio, Texas at the urging of Mama Elena, who is firmly against a Tita-Pedro union, and Rosaura loses her son Roberto and is later made sterile after complications with the birth of daughter Esperanza. Meanwhile, Tita's elder sister Gertrudis accidentally becomes affected by Tita's culinary delights and leaves the ranch naked with a revolutionary soldier (though she returns as the head of a revolutionary army).
Upon learning the news of her nephew's death, whom she cared for herself, Tita blames her mother; Mama Elena responds by beating Tita furiously with a wooden spoon. Tita, not wanting to cope with her mother's controlling ways, secludes herself in a dovecote until the sympathetic Dr. John Brown reasons her to come down. Mama Elena clearly states that there is no place for "lunatics" like Tita on the farm, and wants her to be institutionalized. However, the Doctor decides to take care of Tita at his home instead. Tita eventually enters into a relationship with Dr. Brown, even planning to marry him at one point, but she cannot shake her feelings for Pedro.
After the removal of all obstacles to the Tita-Pedro union, the lovers finally share a night of bliss that is so heated and passionate that Pedro actually dies while making love to Tita. Their passions then spark a fire that engulfs them both, leading to their deaths in union and the total destruction of the ranch. The narrator of the story is the daughter of Esperanza. Esperanza is Tita's niece and Rosaura and Pedro's daughter, and Dr. Brown's son, Alex, will her marry at the conclusion of the story. The narrator then says that all that was found under the smouldering rubble of the ranch was Tita's cookbook, which contained all the recipes described in the preceding chapters.[6]
[edit] Characters
- Tita De La Garza- main character
- Pedro Muzquiz- Tita's lover, marries Rosaura to be closer to Tita
- Mama Elena- Tita's cruel and controlling mother
- Gertrudis De La Garza- Tita's older sister, runs away with a soldier
- Rosaura De La Garza- Tita's oldest sister, marries Pedro
- Dr. John Brown- the family doctor, falls in love with Tita, has a son from a previous marriage [7]
- Nacha- the family cook, like a mother to Tita
- Chencha- the family maid
- Roberto Muzquiz- son of Pedro and Rosaura, dies young
- Esperanza Muzquiz- daughter of Pedro and Rosaura, marries Alex
- Alex Brown- son of John Brown, marries Esperanza
Nicolas- the manager of the ranch
Juan Alejandrez- the captain who took Gertrudis
Jesus Martinez- Chencha's first love and husband.
[edit] Themes & Issues
Emotional Oppression It is evident, especially in the first few chapters, that Tita has been emotionally oppressed by her dictator-like mother. She is forced to hold in her emotions, thus creating a "dampness" within her that does not allow the matches within her soul to light. Tita has hot, earth shaking sex with Pedro at the end of the story and, in reference to the story of inner matches Dr.Brown told her earlier, their lust and sexual needs were so strong that she lighted all of Pedro's "inner matches"; he died from the raw emotion of it all. In her agony, she swallowed some candles and lit them with memories of him. She sparked, causing the shack they were having sex in to set on fire. In the end, everything on the ranch (except for the animals because they had all runaway when they sensed what was coming) burned down, but the souls of Pedro and Tita were transported to a special place, a place before birth. There they could finally be together without anyone judging or stopping them.
Self Growth At the beginning of the novel, Tita was a generally submissive young lady. She feared her mother and her mother's actions, hardly ever daring to disobey for fear of another brutal beating. However, as time passes, Tita finds herself to have a voice that she must use. The climax of this theme could be said to be the part in chapter five (the month of May, if one isn't going by chapters) when Tita stands up to her mother and runs out of the house. By the end of the novel, though Tita is a humble woman, she certainly is not the submissive and fearful girl she once was.
Mystical Realism Mystical realism, more commonly referred to as Magical Realism, is used greatly in the novel to convey the intensity or significance of a moment or event in the novel. Throughout the novel there are various examples of mystical realism that support this thesis. A few examples would be Tita's birth being one of a kitchen floor flooded with tears that left behind enough salt to last the entire family for a very long time, Gertrudis's sexually aroused body not allowing the water in the shower to even touch her body because she was so hot, and the effect that Tita's cooking has on those who eat it. Each chapter has at least one example of mystical realism.
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[edit] Double meaning of title
Like Water for Chocolate's full title is: Like Water for Chocolate: A novel in monthly installments with recipes, romances and home remedies.
The phrase "like water for chocolate" comes from the Spanish "como agua para chocolate". This phrase is a common expression in some Spanish speaking countries and was the inspiration for Laura Esquivel's novel title (the name has a double-meaning). In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, hot chocolate is made not with milk, but with water instead. Water is boiled and chunks of milk chocolate are dropped in to melt thus creating the hot chocolate. The saying "like water for chocolate," alludes to this fact and also to the common use of the expression as a metaphor for describing a state of passion or -sometimes- sexual arousal. In some parts of Latin America, the saying is also equivalent to being "boiling mad" in anger.[8]
