Like Water for Chocolate

The title is a simile for Tita's passion for Pedro. Her love for him is as hot as water needs to be to melt chocolate. Don't think of the powdered mixes we use but a chocolate bar. When Pedro...

Tradition plays a central role in "Like Water for Chocolate," significantly impacting the characters' lives. It dictates Tita's inability to marry and forces her to care for her mother, which causes...

In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel uses many devices to build the mood in the novel. However, one of the most important aspects of this work is her use of magical realism....

In "Like Water for Chocolate," fire symbolizes passion, emotion, and transformation, while water represents calmness, nourishment, and the flow of life. Together, they contrast and complement each...

According to Laura Esquivel, the inspiration behind Como Agua Para Chocolate /Like Water for Chocolate is her own experiences growing up in Mexico, where she and her grandmother lived close enough...

Nacha's death greatly impacts Tita in Like Water for Chocolate. Nacha was a mother figure and mentor to Tita, providing her with emotional support and teaching her the secrets of cooking. Her death...

In the novel, Laura Esquivel contrasts John Brown with Pedro in order to illustrate Tita's inner conflict. This is a classic "man versus self" conflict, where the protagonist must decide on the...

Magical realism is a fictional style in which the fantastic or bizarre is mixed with the realistic.  It includes time shifts, dreams, surrealistic descriptions, elements of surprise, and the...

The narrator serves as a cultural translator of the Mexican-American folklore aspects of the story and a modern element which empowers an otherwise distant story with elements of truth.

In Like Water for Chocolate, Mama Elena's ghost represents traditional family roles, expectations to fill those roles, and the guilt and shame that someone can be burdened with when that person...

As a part novella, part cookbook, part fantasy, and part parody, Como Agua Para Chocolate reunites a plethora of instances of hyperbole (exaggeration) and accentuated parody. This is...

In chapter seven, Chencha visits Tita and brings her some ox-tail soup. Once Tita takes one bite of the soup she regains some of her strength and is able to recall the recipe for the soup. Chencha...

Tita’s blindness is a consequence of the many miserable vicissitudes that she has to undergo in chapter 2 of Like Water for Chocolate (Como Agua Para Chocolate). In particular, the object that...

One of the comparative points between Like Water for Chocolate and Romeo and Juliet is that the unfulfilled passion of pure love causes immediate death, in the former, it is the immediate deaths of...

In her novel, Laura Esquivel uses a fictional style called "magic realism", a technique found frequently in Latin American Literature.  In magic realism, elements of the...

It is the month of October in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, and Mama Elena, who had died in Chapter 7, July, has returned in the form of a ghost to haunt Tita.  The tempestuous...

In "Like Water for Chocolate," "The Edible Woman," and "Chocolat," food plays a significant role in shaping the relationships between the protagonists and antagonists. In "Like Water for Chocolate,"...

In Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel draws from her personal experiences by using food and recipes to reflect real-life emotions and events. The preparation and consumption of food in the...

There is clearly an obvious link between love and food. What is interesting about this novel is the way in which both Tita and her sister, Gertrudis, express their passionate selves through the way...

"Tita was washed into this world on a great tide of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded across the kitchen floor" (January, Chap.One, "Christmas Rolls"). From the very opening...

The wedding cake you are referring to is known as Chabela Mexican Wedding Cake. Here is the recipe: Ingredients: 175  g  Refined granulated sugar 300  g  Cake flour, sifted...

I had trouble with this as I read the story also.  I think it has a lot to do with that fact that Tita is destined to be with Mama Elena, no matter what.  We all tend to take for granted...

John's experiment with the phosphorus relates to what Tita just went through with Pedro. John tells her that everyone can produce phosphorus, but we need help to light the matches. In Tita's case,...

Tita is the youngest of three sisters in Like Water For Chocolate. Life for Tita will be one of duty as she will, by tradition, be expected to care for her mother - her father died when she was two...

Food is used figuratively throughout the novel in many different ways. It is used to express the feelings and desires of the characters, like Tita's passion for Pedro and her sadness over her sister...

This is in an interesting question, for the text both challenges and mirrors a male-dominated view of reality, though in the end it arguably more challenges than mirrors it through its use of magic...

Bizarrely, Tita was born prematurely due to her mother's sensitivity to onions. While chopping onions in the kitchen one day, the heavily pregnant Elena starts crying. As she's already emotional...

In the end, Tita finds that her true love is to be found in her relationship with Pedro, as opposed to the more peaceful and secure marriage that she has with John. The different portrayals of love...