The chapter starts off from the clashes between Tita and Mother Elena. As Tita is preparing for a weeding cake for Rosaura’s marriage to Pedro, Tita keeps beating eggs and her hands starts to tremble. Tita’s strong emotion is being described in this scene when the texts said, “her stomach was swooping like a kite on the wind.”(27) This is because she couldn’t no longer hide her outrage at her sister marrying Tita’s boyfriend. The author, Laura Esquirel emphasizes Tita’s anger by using a simile here, describing the pain of her heart as if a kite struck into her stomach. Of course, Mother Elena didn’t accept her disrespect towards herself so she slaps her face from the outburst of rage.
In preparation for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding, Tita takes on the responsibility of baking the chabela wedding cake, representing marriage as it is shaped by tradition. Tita releases her feeling of heartbreak and cries over the loss of Pedro, pouring tears into the cake batter and icing mixture. Chencha tastes the icing to ensure that the taste isn’t ruined and is “overcome with an intense longing.” (35) Memories of all the weddings she has witnessed rush through her mind, overwhelming her with the yearning for a marriage of her own. After one bite of the cake, the wedding guests become intoxicated with the same longing, followed by “an acute attack of pain and frustration.” (39) The pain experienced by the guests show the hidden resentments with the traditions that have controlled their lives.
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.
Both book and movie capture good moments and ideas of Esquivel. I would say the book was more entertaining and memorable for me. The novel never rests or drags on, and although it evolves around many tragedies a dying love and lovers, in the end you truly feel happy for the way things turn to be. So does the movie, the end of it is very powerful, I might have not got attached to its characters but I fell in love with the magical fairy tale and romance of Like Water For Chocolate. The excerpt from Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel exposes the uncanny scenario of Rosaura and Pedro’s wedding, and the sudden nostalgia everyone is revealing.
Mama Elena’s similar experience of love, with José Treviño, kept suppressed all her life, builds an emotional barrier around her heart. The “bitter poison” of denied romance destroys Mama Elena’s capacity to be loved or to allow Tita to love. Her rejection of food gives the reader the key to understand the driving forces behind Mama Elena throughout the plot. This literary effect can also be seen in Rosaura in the opening of the novel. While Tita dazzled her sisters with a cooking display, “Rosaura was cowering in the corner” .
Marilyn Francus wrote an essay entitle “The Monstrous Mother: Reproductive Anxiety in Swift and Pope” where she establishes a connection between Swift and Pope’s disgust of literary mass production and their misogynist texts. The monstrous mother is the female with inappropriate sexual behavior, the one who procreates for her own benefit; she has the power to manipulate the body and the mind of her products while they are still in her womb, turning these products in her allies, because she has the power to create the product as she wants. This monstrous mother symbolizes lust, because she always wants sex and this becomes the mean from where she gets strength, while on the other hand this constant reproduction will make men weaker, because they loose power every time they ejaculate. Western culture has turned the fecund mother as a monster since Homer’s texts with the creation of Scylla, and Christian tradition have made women the cause of many tragedies since the Fall from Grace. So, the monstrous mother has been created as an allegory which acquired theological and literary significance.
Rosaura, Gertrudis as well as the other characters including Dr. John Brown, Nacha, Chencha, Roberto, Esperanza and Alex are mentioned throughout the book and are flat static characters since they are more of the side line characters. Theme (The theme of a work of literature is the underlying universal truth behind the work.) Write out the major theme of your novel. (For example, it could be that fate determines our destines or that evil in the world will be punished.) - The theme in this book “Like Water for Chocolate” is magical realism.
“Are you starting with your rebelliousness again? It’s enough that you have the audacity to break the rules in your sewing” (11). Tita’s actions against her mother are often repaid in scorn or abuse. Mama Elena is aware of Tita’s plight, but is hardened with spitefulness. She does not allow Tita to gain hope for Pedro Marquiz.
Also in today’s unclear world with the ever increasing amount of divorce and conflict within marriages a screwball comedy would have a hard time getting wide appeal and a success. Today’s culture is so used to explicit sex that innuendo and true romance couldn’t generate enough revenue to work in today’s market. The Lady Eve adheres to the Hollywood style in regards to character type for this genre of film. As I had mentioned earlier in the essay the characters clearly are set in their roles shown not only socially but sexually. Jean the key representative of the lower class shows through her sexual antagonism of Hopsie, that she like the lower class wields the real power when it comes to real world situations.
We can infer from his language that he feels a sexual attraction for them, one that he knows is wrong, since he's feeling remorse over hurting Mina, that he's in some way betraying her, though he doesn't say no, and seems unrepentant about his actions. “The fair girl went on her knees, and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth.” (Stoker,