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Analysis of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 1, 2023

Mexican writer Laura Esquivel (1950– ) wrote Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies as an extraordinary tale of the unique relationship between the magic of love and the sensuality of food. Actual cooking recipes abound in the novel as epigraphs to introduce chapters. Her unique admixture of physical passion and fl avorful sustenance is cast in the hyperbolic style of magic realism. Like Water for Chocolate ’s colorful union of realism and fantasy make the novel a tour de force as Esquivel’s extremely sensual language reaches a highly descriptive plane. Brewing and boiling like an incredible spicy bouillabaisse, it carries the reader through an enchantingly entertaining journey that is compelling and innovative.

Laura Esquivel / MUBI

Esquivel first wrote Like Water for Chocolate as a screenplay; however, when she was unable to get it produced, she reshaped the story into a novel, which was published in 1989 in Spanish and then translated into English two years later. The novel quickly became an international best seller and gained critical acclaim the world over for its innovative structure and style.

Much of Esquivel’s writing is identified as partaking of the genre of magic realism , a term first used in 1925 by Franz Roh when describing a “quasi-surrealistic work of a group of German painters in the 1920s.” Magic realism came into its own in literature in the latter part of the 20th century. In Like Water for Chocolate, scenes of magic realism include Esquivel’s description of the house in which the protagonist Tita lives. This house, always bursting with the preparation of wonderful tasty delights, belies the constant undercurrent of passions and descriptive catastrophic occurrences in the lives of the author’s characters. Esquivel has maintained that “all objects have consciousness.” Other Latin American writers engaged in magic realism include short story writer Jorge Luis Borjes and novelist Gabriel García Márquez .

Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing through the Mexican revolution that began in 1910, the story of Like Water for Chocolate takes place on a ranch in Coahuila, located on the border between the United States and Mexico. The story is told in the first person by a young woman whose great aunt is Tita, a main character in the work. The title of the novel refers to the process of boiling water for hot chocolate, and “when someone is about to explode, we say that person is ‘like water for chocolate,’ ” explains scholar Claudia Loewenstein in her interview with Esquivel published in Southwest Review. Fittingly, Esquivel’s romance tells the story of two characters, Tita and Pedro, whose passion is so strong that they are about to explode.

Even though they are in love, these two young starcrossed lovers cannot marry. According to her mother, Mama Elena, because she is the youngest of three daughters, Tita must remain single and care for her widowed mother. In despair, Pedro chooses to marry Rosaura, Tita’s older sister, so that he can at least live near his true love. Esquivel shows the tension of this triangle through magical elements, as evident in the wedding scene. Besides having to watch her sister marry her one true love, Tita must also bake their wedding cake. Her tears and sorrow become part of the cake as she cooks it, and when people eat it at the wedding, they consume not just the cake but Tita’s pain.

The 12 chapters of the novel correspond to 12 months in a year, and each chapter begins with a recipe that relates to the plot. Some critics have pointed out that many readers enjoy the novel as a romance, while other readers may find the work more of a parody of what Maria Elena de Valdes explains as “the Mexican version of women’s fiction published in monthly installments together with recipes, home remedies, dressmaking patterns, short poems, moral exhortations, ideas on home decoration, and the calendar of church observances.” Also, exaggeration in the book suggests a playful twist on traditional romance: Tita’s sister Rosaura suffers a smelly death due to excess fl atulence. Pedro, the hero, has a stroke during an intense sexual climax, and Tita decides to kill herself by swallowing a box of matches, with bursting flames devouring both Tita and Pedro. The scholar Dianna C. Niebylski cautions the reader from attaching a sentimental or romantic view to the novel: “What is so romantic about an ending where practically everything in the novel is burned to a crisp?” However, Esquivel resists calling the novel a parody.

Parody or not, Esquivel’s novel challenges patriarchy and celebrates the domestic sphere of the kitchen. Mama Elena, a strong leader of the family, shows little compassion toward Tita’s situation. One reason to explain her harshness is that she loves someone outside tradition, suffers a broken heart, and spends the rest of her life obeying and enforcing tradition. Esquivel comments that she sees “the mother as being equal to the masculine world and masculine repression, not feminine. Mama Elena is the one who wants to impose norms and a certain social organization,” according to Loewenstein. And like her mother, Rosaura does not challenge convention and follows family and cultural tradition. Other women in the novel make different choices. Gertrudis shows one version of feminism when she leaves home and joins the revolution and becomes a general. Esperanza, part of the next generation, goes to the university. Tita pursues her romance with Pedro to its fiery end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barbas-Rhoden, Laura. Writing Women in Central America: Gender and the Fictionalization of History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003. Beer, Gabriella de. Contemporary Mexican Women Writers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Colchie, Thomas. A Whistler in the Nightworld: Short Fiction from the Latin Americas. New York: Plume, 2002. Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Translated by Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. New York: Doubleday, 1992. ———. Malinche. Translated by Ernesto Mestre-Reed. New York: Atria Books, 2006. ———. Swift as Desire. New York: Crown Publishers, 2001. Niebylski, Diana C. Humoring Resistance: Laughter and the Excessive Body in Latin America Women’s Fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.

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Like Water for Chocolate

by Laura Esquivel

Like water for chocolate study guide.

Like Water for Chocolate , published in 1989, is Laura Esquivel ’s first novel. Part cookbook, part fiction, this best-selling work retells the story of the De la Garza family with a specific focus on Tita de la Garza. Every chapter begins with a recipe, and every major event in the story has a direct tie to food and food preparation.

The early nineties ushered in literary success for minority women of cultural histories. Shortly after Esquivel first published the book, it soon inspired a Spanish-language movie adaptation. The work was then translated from Spanish into English in 1992, and the novel became a best-seller.

Like Water for Chocolate is best known for its use of magical realism and its focus on female characters. Magical realism, developed by Alejo Carpentier in 1949, is a literary style that incorporates fantasy, myth, and supernatural themes into an otherwise realistic plot and setting. Magical realism is a common style among Latin American writers, partly because it expresses the fusion of cultural myths originating in Latin American countries and the European colonial standards of the Catholic Church.

Like Water for Chocolate Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Like Water for Chocolate is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

the exchange between pedro and his father don pascal,as overheard by nacha

Chapter please?

How has the revolution touch the lives of the people on the ranch?

For a large part of the novel, the revolution seems far away... the people on the ranch are uninvolved adnd their only connection to the revolution is through the stories they hear. Later, the revolution makes its way to the ranch... Gertrudis...

• Mama kept it a secret that she was hiding the family's chickens.

• Captain Juan kept it a secret that he was responsible for taking Gertrudis.

• Captain Juan kept it a secret that he had a romantic relationship with Tita.

Study Guide for Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate study guide contains a biography of Laura Esquivel, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Like Water for Chocolate
• Like Water for Chocolate Summary
• Character List

Essays for Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.

• Mothers and Daughters in Like Water for Chocolate and Therese Raquin
• Analysis of Chapter 5 of Like Water for Chocolate, the Scene in Which Tita and Pedro Meet in the Dead of Night
• The Portrayal of Women as Consumable in Tina Howe's 'The Art of Dining' and Laura Esquivel's 'Como Agua Para Chocolate'
• A Venture into Womanhood: The Unveiling of Tita through Rosaura
• Latin America, Native America and Magical Realism

Lesson Plan for Like Water for Chocolate

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Like Water for Chocolate
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Like Water for Chocolate Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Like Water for Chocolate

• Introduction

Like Water for Chocolate

Laura esquivel, everything you need for every book you read..

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Water for Chocolate: Introduction

Water for chocolate: plot summary, water for chocolate: detailed summary & analysis, water for chocolate: themes, water for chocolate: quotes, water for chocolate: characters, water for chocolate: symbols, water for chocolate: theme wheel, brief biography of laura esquivel.

Historical Context of Like Water for Chocolate

Other books related to like water for chocolate.

• Full Title: Like Water for Chocolate (Original Spanish: Como Agua Para Chocolate )
• When Written: 1989
• Where Written: Mexico City, Mexico
• When Published: 1989 (Mexico) 1995 (United States)
• Literary Period: Contemporary Fiction; Magical Realism
• Genre: Magical Realism
• Setting: Near Piedras Negras, Northern Mexico. 1895-1920.
• Climax: The climax of the novel occurs in Chapter 11, when Tita confesses to her fiancée, John the truth of her affair with her brother-in-law, Pedro. John reacts by telling her he will still marry her, but that she must first decide for herself what life will make her happiest. Tita has never had so much control over her own destiny. Now, she must choose whether to marry John and start a new life with him or break off their engagement and remain as Pedro’s mistress.
• Antagonist: Mama Elena
• Point of View: The novel begins and ends in first person, but most of the story is in close third person.

Extra Credit for Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water’s Inspiration: The stories in Like Water for Chocolate were inspired by Esquivel’s experience growing up and her close relationship with the grandmother who taught her to cook. Many of the female character’s stories were inspired by stories passed down from her mother and other women in her life. In her memoir Between Two Fires , Esquivel discusses her own thoughts on the magical relationship between food and emotion through the lens of her own experiences.

International Acclaim: Like Water for Chocolate was Mexico’s bestselling novel in 1990.

Film: The novel was adapted to a Spanish-language film released in Mexico in 1992.

Feminism In Like Water For Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate is a 1990 historical fiction novel written by Laura Esquivel. The story follows the life of Tita de la Garza, who is born with an intense love longing; she can literally feel everyone’s emotions and sense everyone’s feelings. This proves to be most difficult when she falls in love with Pedro, who is not only her first cousin but also her best friend, the man she has been promised to since birth. Like Water for Chocolate  demonstrates what can happen when patriarchy meets matriarchy, and the patriarchy wins.

About Like Water for Chocolate : The Novel that Inspired the Motion Picture Like Water for Chocolate  is a novel following the life of Tita de la Garza and her passionate love affair with Pedro while living in Mexico during the early 1900’s. As we follow Tita through life we learn that she is doomed to turn into stone if she does not get married by the age of twenty-four and that she can sense others’ feelings. Like Water for Chocolate  is a tale of forbidden love, family secrets, and ultimately one woman’s struggle against traditional gender roles.

Synopsis: Like Water for Chocolate  follows the life of Tita de la Garza from pre-birth to death and provides an intimate glimpse into her emotional world, where food is used not only as nourishment but also as communication and familial bonds are never severed despite distance or time. The patriarch of Tita’s household passes away shortly after Tita is born; this leaves his wife (Tita’s mother) in charge of the domestic affairs inside their home.

In accordance with tradition, each daughter in their family is allowed to marry only after the oldest daughter ( Tita) has been married. Because of this, Tita’s mother is determined to find a suitable husband for her and ultimately chooses Pedro, with whom Tita shares a close bond with and who happens to be both her first cousin and childhood friend. Like Water for Chocolate  follows Tita and Pedro throughout life as they struggle with their forbidden love-affair that seems doomed from the start due to their family ties.

Plot: Like Water for Chocolate takes place in Mexico in the early 1900’s during a time when patriarchal tradition was still heavily influential. As such, women were expected to marry men who they shared no familial ties with in order to future problems within the home. This is why Tita’s mother forces her to marry Pedro after the death of her father, as he is not only Tita’s first cousin but also her best friend. Like Water for Chocolate  is a tale that demonstrates the strength and endurance of women as well as their ability to adapt within a patriarchal society.

Main Characters:

-Tita de la Garza – protagonist throughout Like Water for Chocolate , often referred to as “la dependienta”, or “the store clerk” because she works at the family chocolate shop; forbidden love with Pedro; has an intense ability to connect deeply with others (can feel their emotions, sense their feelings)

-Pedro Muzquiz – childhood/first cousin of Tita; other half of Tita/Pedro relationship; forbidden love with Tita

-Gertrudis “Tru” Chan – sister of Pedro, youngest daughter in the family; also quite fond of Pedro

-Mama Elena – matriarch, very traditional woman who holds to old Mexican customs and superstitions yet is strong-willed underneath it all

-Papa Julio – patriarch, dies shortly after Tita’s birth, leaves his wife (Tita’s mother) to take care of the domestic affairs inside the home

-Rosaura Almanza – stepsister of Tita, eldest daughter in the family; married off to a wealthy man at a young age only to be divorced years later for an unknown reason

-Gertrudis “Tru” Chan – stepsister of Tita, youngest daughter in the family

Minor Characters:

-Mama Elena’s parents (Tita’s paternal grandparents)

-Rosa Luz Aurora Esperanza de la Garza aka Mamá Dolores- mother to Mama Elena; dies during childbirth while bearing another daughter after Tita is born

-Don Fernando Muzquiz aka Grandfather – father to Pedro and Gertrudis; dies while working on his farm when Pedro is very young

The feminist subtext of Like Water for Chocolate is rather pronounced. Like Water for Chocolate is not only the story of love and loss, but also that of women’s liberation (Esquivel 10). Tita de la Garza (the protagonist) begins Like Water for Chocolate as an elderly woman, reflecting on her life where she has remained chaste despite marriage proposals from countless suitors because she was never able to bear children due to Pedro’s decision to not consummate their marriage after their wedding night (de la Garza 59-60).

Like Water For Chocolate largely concerns itself with the lives of Mexican women in the early twentieth century. Due to the fact that men held power over land ownership, Mexican women were often married off into other families in exchange for food, money, or land. Like Water For Chocolate explores the ways in which women are oppressed by society’s gendered expectations that focus on their role as child bearers and servants within the domestic sphere (Esquivel 4). Women are valued according to this standard of womanhood since without men they would have no power at all (de la Garza 20-21).

Like many other Latin American societies, Mexican society at the turn of the twentieth century is patriarchal. Women are only respected if they marry and raise children properly. While Tita is still a young girl her mother tells her, “you’re going to be my right hand” (de la Garza), but once she is married off to her older sister’s fiance, Pedro, Tita becomes the main servant of her mother-in-law. While Like Water For Chocolate is not intended as a work of radical feminist literature, its strong thematic presence allows it to be interpreted as such.

It was very common for young women in Mexico at this time to be married off by their parents without consulting themselves because they are seen as part of the property that belongs to their fathers until they are given away in marriage (de la Garza 20-22). Like Water For Chocolate exhibits the way in which many Mexican families were organized around patriarchal structures where men controlled all aspects of life including family finances and community resources (Esquivel 4).

Women have no choice but to submit to their fathers’ mandates in order to gain a better life provided they are lucky enough to have a family that cares about them (de la Garza 20-21). Tita’s father, Juan Francisco, is a very kind and loving man who is willing to do anything for his daughters. However, he still believes that the most important thing for his girls is to find a husband with land and wealth because this will ensure financial security. Like Water For Chocolate explores how Mexican women were valued by society based on their ability to bear children and perform household tasks such as cooking or cleaning.

Tita knew from an early age that she was meant to become Pedro’s wife even though her mother forbade it until both of her older sisters had married (de la Garza 20-21). Like Water For Chocolate explores how many women were forced into roles that they did not want because of the patriarchal society in which they lived. Tita is born to cook and be a servant; it is all she knows. Like Water for Chocolate also explores feminism, particularly radical feminism. The heroines of Like Water for Chocolate assume power only when men alone cannot protect them against other men who are trying to take advantage of their vulnerability.

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Feminism in Laura Esquivel’s “Like Water for Chocolate” Essay

Laura Esquivel’s ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ is a novel that was published in 1989 (Esquivel, 1993). The story brings out a typical Mexican home that strictly follows the traditions passed down by the forefathers. At the center of this story is Tita, a young woman who is the last born in her family. According to the Mexican tradition, the last born girl in a family is expected to take care of her mother until the mother dies before she can marry.

Tita finds herself in such a worrying situation where she has to take care of her ailing mother. As she blossoms into a young beautiful woman, she falls in love with Pedro. Unfortunately, the two lovers realize that they cannot be together because of the responsibilities laid on the young woman. Feminism is brought out in this book in a unique way. It strongly advocates for the freedom of women from unfair traditional practices. Using the character Tita, the author of this book clearly explains how women are sometimes forced, by the archaic traditions, to forego joy and success to take care of this family.

The author also shows that when women are subjected to suffering, it is not just these women who end up suffering but also men. In this case, society has placed a lot of responsibilities on women, some of which are unfair. However, when she falls in love with Pedro, we also see him undergoing the same pain and suffering. The novel demonstrates that that the pain of women is sometimes shared by men. Pedro and Tita both suffer because tradition makes it possible for them to be together. Feminism in this story also comes out based on the setting.

De la Garza kitchen is the setting of this story (Skipper, 2010). According to the Mexican tradition, women were expected to spend most of their time in the kitchen preparing meals for their families. Tita is no different. She is expected to prepare good meals for her aging mother and ensure that she is always comfortable. However, she is demonstrated as a person who is capable of more than just preparing meals. She is a successful and intelligent woman who is capable of achieving greater success given opportunity. The author makes it clear that women can be very successful if the issue of tradition is not used retrogressively to deny them the opportunity to achieve their ambitions.

I strongly believe that Laura Esquivel has used her skills in the literature to champion for the rights of women in a very unique way. She clearly portrays the true challenges that women face in a society that is characterized by archaic traditions. In this novel, the author skillfully intertwines the fate of women to that of men (Taylor, 2003).

The author tells her readers that the fate of a woman directly affects the fate of a man within society. If a woman cannot marry because she is the last born her family, she will share her pain and sufferings with a man who will fall in love with her. This is a very unique way of championing the right of women (Willingham, 2010). I like the fact that she is not begging her audience to re-evaluate some of these traditions that make women suffer. Instead, she tells her audience that if women are to suffer, then men should be ready to share their pain.

Esquivel, L. (1993). Like Water for Chocolate . London, UK: Black Swan.

Skipper, E. (2010). A recipe for discourse: Perspectives on Like water for chocolate . Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi.

Taylor, C. (2003). Bodies and texts: Configurations of identity in the works of Griselda Gambaro, Albalucía Ángel and Laura Esquivel . Leeds, UK: Maney.

Willingham, E. (2010). Laura Esquivel’s Mexican fictions: Like water for chocolate, the law of love, Swift as desire, Malinche: a novel . Eastbourne, UK: Sussex Academic Press.

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IvyPanda. (2020, August 25). Feminism in Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate". https://ivypanda.com/essays/feminism-in-laura-esquivels-like-water-for-chocolate/

"Feminism in Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate"." IvyPanda , 25 Aug. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/feminism-in-laura-esquivels-like-water-for-chocolate/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Feminism in Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate"'. 25 August.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Feminism in Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate"." August 25, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/feminism-in-laura-esquivels-like-water-for-chocolate/.

1. IvyPanda . "Feminism in Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate"." August 25, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/feminism-in-laura-esquivels-like-water-for-chocolate/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Feminism in Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate"." August 25, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/feminism-in-laura-esquivels-like-water-for-chocolate/.

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Essays on Like Water for Chocolate

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Mother Figures and Their Relationships with Daughters in Like Water for Chocolate and Therese Raquin

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Magical realism in the works of laura esquivel and isabel allende, "like water for chocolate": tradition and transformation, relevant topics.

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Like Water for Chocolate, Essay Example

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The film Like Water for Chocolate (1992) is a film based in the sub-genre of magical realism.  The movie uses devices of fantasy combined with an expression of human lust and love to create a story which not only challenges conventional ideas about the nature of human passion, but attempts to show a link between human emotion and the human experience of the material world. In many ways, the film draws a direct relationship between moods, desires, and passion and the way that physical reality responds tot these emotions, almost as though  the physical world is regarded as an extension of human emotional experiences.  One example of this dynamic is when Tita bakes a wedding cake that includes her tears. Eating the cake then causes those who have ingested it to become sick and also to experience a painful longing for the person they most truly love. The magical element of the story is mean to illustrate the previously mentioned connection between the material world, symbolized by the cake, and the world of passion.

Another example of this theme in the film is when Dr. John Brown reveal to Tita the secret reality that all people contain the combustible materials to create fire within them but that each person has a unique “match” that triggers the fire. This ultimately results in the conflagration that takes place between Tita and Pedro that takes place more than twenty-years after their initial falling in love with one another. Pedro is killed by way of sexual experience and Tita’s internal power, manifested as a physical fire, which burns down the ranch leaving only her recipes behind.

The theme of an invisible link between emotion and physical experience is the main theme of the film. The message of this theme is that  emotions, no less than objects, can be dangerous and that passion when neglected or pursued to intensely can become a self-destructive power.  These themes are mean to enrich the lives of viewers by instilling within them a belief that emotions and passion occupy as important a station in life as material things and that material experience is only valuable due to its connection to human emotion and passion.

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