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Like Water For Chocolate

In Like Water for Chocolate, we find out that hot chocolate is made with boiling water in Mexico instead of milk. Like the water that boils while waiting for the chocolate to be spooned into it, so this imagery is used to represent the boiling passions that often go hungry in the film’s characters. The story is narrated by the great niece of the heroine, Tita, a Mexican woman whose love for Pedro was quashed by her mother who insisted she remained at home as the youngest daughter to care for her in her old age. Thus, we see the conflict in 1910 Mexico when it comes to women expressing themselves and being free to define their roles opposed to family convention.

Tita and Pedro hope to marry but Mama Elena forbids her younger daughter to break with family tradition. She must stay at home and care for her mother. Pedro is offered the hand of her eldest sister Rosaura by Mama Elena in Tita’s stead. He agrees to the heartbreak of Tita, but only because he knows by marrying Rosaura he can be around his real love Tita. The movie uses the form of family legend as its framing device, as the narrator takes us back to the life of Tita through an old cookbook of her favorite recipes. Tita’s passion is redirected into the kitchen where she finds love, nurturing, passion, and solace. In the kitchen she weeps as she prepares the wedding cake for Pedro and Rosaura, tears that have the magical ability to evoke her feelings in others who eat it. Instead of being gay and joyous during the wedding ceremony, the guests weep when they eat the cake.

Pedro gives Tita a dozen roses and she fixes some quail using them, honey, garlic, and chestnuts. The meal acts like such an aphrodisiac on those who consume it that Tita’s middle sister, Gertrudis, is seen with smoke coming from her ears. She races to the outhouse which only ignites in flames, and, as she rips off her clothes and runs naked fr

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Like Water For Chocolate. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:47, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1685829.html