Ultimate Love in Like Water for Chocolate by Laura...

Ultimate Love in Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel Laura Esquivels Like Water for Chocolate is a love story set in Mexico, interspersed with recipes, related in unadorned, uncomplicated language. Yet when the ingredients are combined and simmer, subtle and unusual flavors emerge. On one level, this is the story of Tita, youngest daughter of the formidable matriarch Mama Elena who forbids Tita to marry her true love Pedro because tradition says that the youngest daughter must care for her mother until her death. When Pedro marries Titas oldest sister in order to be near Tita, it begins a life-long conflict filled with passion, deception, anger, and pure love. Interwoven throughout the narrative are the recipes, which, like†¦show more content†¦As a toddler she spent her days witnessing the magic that Nacha manifested every time she set herself to make a platter. Tita was her apprentice and without knowing it, little by little, she completely embodied the power to cook, and what?s more, to reveal herself through her food. Wh en she had no other way to express herself, food became her mode of communication. Mama Elena?s cruel appointing of Tita as head of all the preparations for the wedding of her sister Rosaura and the man that Tita loved, resulted very tragically. While baking the cake with Nacha, Tita?s tears sank into the batter of the cake, and acted as poisonous toxins that nauseated all those who ate it, ruining the wedding, and killing Nacha herself, who also tasted Tita?s melancholy teardrops: 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 their lost loves (39). Her feelings towards the other nuptial that occurs in the novel are completely different since it occurs much later in her life and Mama Elena and all the forces that were against her, had vanished. At her niece?s wedding, Tita felt so much happiness in preparing all the edibles that everyone complimented her food and those who dared to ask her for the secret recipe only received the reply: ?The secret is to make it with love? (239). As inShow MoreRelatedArticle Summary of From Kitchen Tales to Table Narratives1447 Words   |  6 Pageserotic are seen as mutually incompatible when depicting women in literature. However, through the use of food in Hispanic fiction, many women authors have attempted to bridge this divide. The bodies of women have often been portrayed as confections like dessert, but the act of preparing food can also take on an erotic resonance of nurturing. In some readings of Hispanic womens fiction this has been read as empowering but Maite Zubiaurre argues in h er essay Culinary Eros in Contemporary HispanicRead MoreHow Is Family Honor Portrayed in the Novels Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Marquez and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel?1723 Words   |  7 PagesHow is family honor portrayed in the novels Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Marquez and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel? Honor can be perceived in different ways – to some it may be the integrity of their beliefs, while to others it may be a source of dignity and social distinction. 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Some families place such a large importance on that role that it is impossible for a person to achieve his or her goals or live his or her life. Society binds people to strict standards that are difficult to avoid. In Laura Esquivels Like Water for Chocolate, Tita is forced to follow the tradition of her family. She cannot marry and is doomed to serve her mother for the rest of her life. Her two sisters, Rosaura and Gertrudis, are also effected by this tradition, but in different waysRead MoreLike Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel1641 Words   |  7 Pagescourage for those who are afraid, infuses hope to those who are desperate, and grants strength to those who are oppressed. However, for the idea to come to reality, one must be mature enough to embrace and act upon it. The novel Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel tells the story of Tita, a young girl who lives under the iron fisted rule of Mama Elena. From a young inexperienced girl, to a full grown and independent woman, Tita fights against Mama Elena’s rules before and after her death,