Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate

Background: Published in 1989 Written by Laura Esquivel and made into a movie in 1992. Como agua para chocolate is the Spanish translation of the title. Teaches the Spanish tradition of the story and magical realism.

Characters Josefita (Tita) De La Garza – main character Pedro Muzquiz – Tita's lover, marries Rosaura to be closer to Tita Elena de la Garza (Mama Elena) – Tita's cruel and controlling mother Gertrudis De La Garza – Tita's oldest sister, illegitimate daughter, she runs away with a soldier Rosaura De La Garza – Tita's older sister, marries Pedro Dr. John Brown – the family doctor, falls in love with Tita, has a son from a previous marriage 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.

Themes: Self Growth At the beginning of the novel, Tita was a generally submissive young lady. As the novel progresses, Tita learns to disobey the injustice of her mother, and gradually becomes more and more adept at expressing her inner fire through various means. At first, cooking was her only outlet, but through self-discovery she learned to verbalize and actualize her feelings, and stand up to her despotic (tyrranic) mother.

Family Tradition The romantic love that is so exalted throughout the novel is forbidden by Tita's mother in order to blindly enforce the tradition that the youngest daughter be her mother's chaste guardian. However, the traditional etiquette enforced by Mama Elena is defied more and more throughout the novel. This parallels the setting of the Mexican Revolution growing in intensity.

Emotional Oppression It is evident, especially in the first few chapters, that Tita has been emotionally oppressed by her dictator-like mother. Her mother, enforcing a family tradition, decrees that Tita is not allowed to marry because she is obligated to care for her mother until she dies. Deprived of the love of her life, Tita is forced to repress her feelings and transmute them into her cooking. The feeling she pours into her cooking then affects the people who eat it, contributing to the magical realism evident throughout the novel, as her repressed emotions have tangible, magical consequences. We eventually learn that Mama Elena too had to forgo the love of her life; her control over Tita is at least in part an attempt to prevent Tita from achieving what Elena never could.

Magical Realism Magic realism, or magical realism, is an aesthetic style in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even "normal" setting. It has been widely used in relation to literature, art, and film. As used today the term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous: Matthew Strecher has defined magic realism as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something 'too strange to believe'."[1] The term was initially used by German art critic Franz Roh to describe painting which demonstrated an altered reality, but was later used by the Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri to describe the work of certain Latin American writers. Today, there are many writers whose work falls under the category of magical realism.