Like Water for Chocolate Introduction to the novel: Family Traditions,Magical Realism, and Structure

Family Traditions Family tradition, also called Family culture is defined as an aggregate of attitudes, ideas and ideals, and environment, which a person inherits from his/her parents and ancestors. What large family tradition do we learn about in Chapter one? How does it affect Tita and her family?

Magical Realism  "My most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic."- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (author of “The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”, Love in the Time of Cholera, 1000 Years of Solitude, among others)  A chiefly literary style or genre originating in Latin America that combines fantastic or dreamlike elements with realism.  A narrative technique that blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality. It is characterized by an equal acceptance of the ordinary and the extraordinary.  Magical realism fuses (1) lyrical and, at times, fantastic writing with(2) an examination of the character of human existence and (3) an implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite.  Magical Realism was made famous in the literary worldby: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and other Latin authors.  It is especially prevalent in Latin American Literature

More MR  The term magical realism was coined around1924 or 1925 by a German art critic named Franz Roh what he called magical realism was simply painting where real forms are combined in a way that does not conform to daily reality.  In magical realism we find the transformation of the common and the everyday into the awesome and the unreal. It is predominantly an art of surprises. Time exists in a kind of timeless fluidity and the unreal happens as part of reality.

LWC example  “Tita was literally washed into this world on a great tide of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded across the kitchen floor” (p.6).  Significance: The quote describes an occurrence of childbirth. The author has combined the reality of childbirth with the fantasy of a baby being washed into the world on a large body of water. The deeper meaning of the quote is that Tita is born prematurely due to a sensitivity to onions which foreshadows the pain she will endure in life. An aesthetic image is created by contrasting the strong, sharp smell and taste of an onion instead of stating that Mama Elena will be cruel to Tita because she did not want her. While Mama Elena in her treatment of Tita could easily be compared to the step-mother in Cinderella, the author has used magical realism to show the cruelty in a unique way.

Structure  Twelve “monthly installments with recipes,romances, and Home remedies”.  Each chapter is divided by month and beginswith ingredients and a recipe.  Told from the POV of Tita’s great-niece.

EQ’s for LWC  What is essential for a person to live a meaningful life?  What affect does our family and birth order have on us and on those around us?  What affect do our traditions and culture have on us and on those around us?  As people, what universal things make us the same, even if we have different foods, family structures and social rules?