Like Water For Chocolate

613 Words3 Pages
Major Themes Tears Tita’s onion-induced crying brings her into the world prematurely. Thereafter, tears reemerge in the novel as symbols of Tita’s deep emotional connections. While cooking with Nacha, Tita realizes that her tears come not only from sadness but also appear when she is deeply moved. Tita’s tears often cause flooding, as on the day of her birth and on the day Chencha brings ox-tail soup to end Tita’s days of silence. Tita’s tears renew and cleanse. They are the physical manifestation of her emotional catharsis. Tradition Like Water for Chocolate focuses almost exclusively on the legacy of one family, the De la Garzas. The De la Garza family comes with its own set of traditions, which are both favorable and inhibiting. The cooking tradition is passed along from Nacha to Tita and later to Esperanza’s daughter. By keeping alive the recipes, the future generations of De la Garzas are able to remember and honor their ancestors. However, the tradition of keeping the youngest child from marrying threatens to inhibit two of the work’s characters from finding true love. Unlike the cooking tradition which exists only to serve and please its adherents, this tradition is abandoned because of the displeasure it produces. Sight and Seeing Sight, like food, sometimes dictates characters’ actions and feelings. Mama Elena is most noted for her powerful gaze that has the ability to both start and stop conversations and the force of which prevents the rebel army from raiding her ranch. The look Pedro gives Tita is so strong that it causes her entire body to heat up. The power of a look is often stronger than that of any physical force. Though the eyes, characters communicate desires and demands without needing to speak at all. Food and Cooking Food as a means of communication and transferal is a common theme in this novel. Tita uses food to convey her emotions to

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