Like water for chocolate: summary and analysis of Laura Esquivel's book

Like water for Chocolate is a novel written by the Mexican writer Laura Esquivel, published in 1989.

The story revolves around Tita, a woman who cannot live a love story because of her family tradition, which forces her to take care of her mother and remain single for life.

Impossible love, family tradition, revolution, Mexican gastronomy, reality and fantasy are some "ingredients" that give rise to Like water for Chocolate, an original story that has managed to pass from generation to generation.

Let's see, next, what stands out from her through a summary and analysis of the novel.

Resume

Tita is the youngest daughter of the De la Garza family. From a very young age, she has had a strong bond with the kitchen because, in addition to being born "between stoves", She was under the care of Nacha, the cook of the family ranch, due to the early death of her dad.

In her teens, Tita meets Pedro, the love of her life. Although she, being the youngest of her sisters, she must remain single to take care of her mother, Mama Elena. Finally, Mama Elena decides to marry her daughter Rosaura with Tita's lover.

On the day of the wedding, Nacha dies and Tita becomes the official cook of the house. Soon, the couple have a son, whom Rosaura cannot breastfeed. This task is done by Tita without anyone suspecting it.

Roberto, Rosaura and Pedro's son, dies and Mamá Elena and Tita have a strong argument. Mama Elena wants her daughter to be admitted to an asylum but, finally, she is she stays at the house of John Brown, the family doctor. The doctor ends up falling in love with Tita and proposes to her. However, the protagonist has to return to her house to take care of her mother, who is very ill. Mama Elena dies, but her ghost does not leave Tita alone.

Rosaura and Pedro have Esperanza, her second daughter, to whom her mother predicts the same future as Tita: staying single to take care of her.

Although, later on, the imminent death of Rosaura makes this tradition disappear. This allows Pedro and Tita to maintain a secret relationship.

At the end of the novel, Esperanza marries Alex. Pedro dies while maintaining relationships with Tita, who decides to burn down the ranch. Only Tita's recipe book, inherited from the narrator of this story, remains free from the fire.

Analysis of the book

Like water for Chocolate is one of the most successful Mexican novels. The main theme is love, in this case forbidden, between Tita and Pedro because of family tradition.

One of the strengths of this book is that it is able to merge in each chapter the typical dishes of Mexican cuisine with the story of Tita.

The title of the novel itself refers to a Mexican saying that means "to be upset or furious", it also indicates the state of the novel's protagonist. Like water about to boil, in the state necessary to cook chocolate, so are Tita's emotions.

She also highlights the Mexican tradition in the context of the revolution, at the same time that we witness the revolution of a character in the face of family customs.

Narrator: a family story

The novel features a third-person narrator. At the beginning of the work it can be sensed that he is one of the descendants of the De la Garza family. At the end of the novel, it is confirmed that she is Tita's great-niece.

Esperanza tells the story and part of her great-aunt's cookbook to allude to her family past.

Structure and style: twelve recipes for twelve months

The author proposes a structure that follows the course of twelve months, one month each chapter, and in each one of them a typical dish of Mexican food is presented.

The ingredients are listed at the beginning, and then the recipe is broken down throughout the chapter.

The magical realism in the novel is evident, curiously some of these surprising facts emerge in the culinary daily life of the protagonist.

But, this book is not intended to be a cookbook. So what is the point of these dishes in history? Is there a relationship between the recipes and the characters?

Link between gastronomy and history

We can affirm that there is a very close relationship between the protagonist and her culinary creations. Tita is a cook but she is much more than that.

As an artist capable of transmitting sensations and feelings through his creations, something similar happens to the protagonist with her recipes. It is through her dishes that Tita expresses her joys and anguish. He is also capable of evoking the desire for her forbidden love, Pedro.

To a large extent, the dishes she prepares reveal everything she wants to keep quiet about. This is also transferred to the diners as a supernatural event.

A very prominent example of this in the book is when the protagonist prepares Pedro and Rosaura's wedding cake:

The reason for such a colossal punishment was the certainty that Mama Elena had that Tita had planned to ruin Rosaura's wedding, mixing some vomit in the cake. Tita could never convince her that the only strange element in him were the tears she shed while preparing it.

Thus, the sadness and anger of the protagonist at the wedding of her sister with hers, her beloved Pedro, is transmitted to the wedding guests with an indisposition after eating the cake.

Thanks to Tita's bond with the dishes, the recipes are intertwined with history. While we discover the preparation of a typical dish of Mexican gastronomy, described in detail, we feel that the narration is mixed with these ingredients.

The novel is not only a counter of the traditional dishes of Mexican gastronomy, but also a exhibition of the prevailing tradition in some homes of the early twentieth century, a time when the novel.

Family tradition and the role of women

Tita is one more victim within the matriarchal system, led by Mama Elena, which is forcing her to live in repression. Unlike her sisters, the protagonist has to bear the family tradition that prevents her from getting married because she is the youngest in the house.

The family ranch is full of women, as the father of the family passed away. But each of them could symbolize a different role, at a time when the female prototype was reduced exclusively to the domestic sphere.

On the one hand, Mamá Elena is the authoritative voice of the ranch, a staunch defender of the family tradition and is incapable of accepting criticism.

This character can symbolize the weight of the ancient traditions in the Mexican society of the moment, the which, seen from the novel's point of view, restrict the right to freedom of women society. However, this character also represents hypocrisy. Well, it is discovered from her that her eldest daughter, Gertrudis, is not the daughter of her husband but of another man.

On the other hand, Rosaura represents the traditional role that hardly sees women as mother and wife. She does not confront the family tradition, she embraces it and continues the legacy instilled generation after generation.

Instead, Gertrudis moves away from the family tradition. She is a woman faithful to her convictions that differ from the established female role. She is capable of joining the army as a high position, something groundbreaking for the time.

Tita, at the beginning of the novel, is condemned to accept what she has had to live to please her mother and not break tradition. However, there is a turning point in this character. A revolution that could well be equated with the context of the Mexican Revolution in which the play is set.

Mexican revolution and revolution of the De la Garza family

How can the Mexican Revolution context be related to the conflict that is generated in the De la Garza ranch?

Laura Esquivel's novel is set in the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), in fact it is alluded to on several occasions. A conflict that is marked by a social crisis and by the fall of the dictatorial government of Porfirio Díaz.

This historical event marks the background of history. However, we could speak of a parallelism between the existing revolution outside the walls of the De la Garza family's racho and within them.

If the Mexican Revolution stands out for a desire for liberation and renewal with a view to overthrowing the ruling government, the revolution within the ranch could also be evoking a liberation from family traditions, and the dictatorial profile in this case is fulfilled by Mom Elena.

The trigger for this family revolution happens when Mamá Elena wants to send her daughter to an asylum after a strong fight after Roberto's death. This fight coincides with the height of the revolution outside the home. When Tita leaves the family ranch, she to some extent, she discovers that there is something beyond the family values ​​that she has instilled in her.

Which, later Rosaura raises for her daughter Esperanza de ella. Finally, love wins the family revolution ends up defeating tradition with the wedding of Esperanza and Alex and with the death of Rosaura.

Main characters

• Tita de la Garza: she is the protagonist. The youngest of the de la Garza family, she is the daughter of Mama Elena and her late husband. Because of her womanhood and because she is the youngest in her family, she is obliged to take care of her mother and cannot marry. Therefore, she establishes a very special bond with the culinary art and spends most of her time in the kitchen. From a very young age she is in love with Pedro, who becomes the husband of her sister Rosaura hers.
• Mama Elena: she is the mother of Tita, Gertrudis and Rosaura. She became a widower when Tita was very young and she was left in the care of Nacha, the cook. Mama Elena is an authoritarian person who tries to transmit ancestral values ​​to her daughters, especially Tita, who are part of the family tradition and have passed from generation to generation. generation. She does not accept the love between Tita and Pedro and, following the rules of her family, prevents her daughter from marrying so that she can take care of her until her death.
• Nacha: She has been the cook in the de la Garza family's house since she was very young. She is in charge of taking care of Tita from a very young age, she is almost like a mother to her. Everything Tita knows about cooking is thanks to her. She dies on the day of the marriage of Pedro and Rosaura, while she remembers her impossible love from her youth. Nacha gives Tita advice even after her death.
• Peter: It is Tita's impossible love. Although she loves the protagonist from a very young age, she has no alternative but to marry her sister due to the imposition of Mama Elena.
• Rosaura: she is the eldest of the three sisters. She marries Pedro when her mother commits her to him and with him she has two children. She is deeply rooted in family tradition.
• Gertrude: she is the sister of Tita and Rosaura, although she is not the daughter of the same father. She is passionate and ends up married to Captain Juan Alejándrez. She eventually ends up in the military.
• Hope: she is the daughter of Rosaura and Pedro. Her mother wants to perpetuate in her her family tradition that destined her to remain single to take care of her mother in her old age. However, Tita stops her niece from following in her footsteps and ends up marrying Alex Brown.
• Jonh Brown: he is the doctor of the De la Garza family. He ends up falling in love with Tita when she goes to her house to live and asks her to marry him. He is the father of Alex, Esperanza's fiancé.
• Chencha: She is one of the employees of the De la Garza family house, she accompanies Tita in the culinary tasks.

Film adaptation

Due to the success of the novel, Como agua para chocolate had its film adaptation in 1992. It is a Mexican production directed by Alfonso Arau, considered one of the best films in Mexican cinema.

The film is very faithful to the original work and manages to contribute some elements of magical realism through "supernatural" scenes.

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