Student Question
How is love portrayed differently in Like Water For Chocolate?
Quick answer:
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 here are therefore explored through Tita's relationship with two principle characters in this story, those being Pedro and John. It is clear that for Tita there are two different forms of love at play in this text; one is characterised by a sexual passion and emotional bonds between two people, but also causes a great deal of pain (as seen in Tita's feelings for Pedro).
The two major kinds of love that there are in this text are best captured in the different feelings and emotions that Tita comes to have for both Pedro and also John, the two men in her life. For Pedro, she comes to feel a passion that is worrying and bewildering in its intensity and strength. For John, on the other hand, her love for him is characterised in the peace and serenity that she finds in his arms. The differences between her two emotions with these two men cause her to doubt what love is, as this following quote demonstrates:
Tita was beginning to wonder if the feeling of peace and security that John gave her wasn't true love, and not the agitation and anxiety she felt when she was with Pedro.
In the end, of course, Tita realises that the sexual passion and chemistry that she is forced...
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to repress is only to be found in her relationship with Pedro, and she exchanges a much more peaceful and calm future with John as her husband for a much more difficult and precarious future with Pedro. Even though in the end her and Pedro's love for each other causes them an early death, it is clear that for Tita love has to be associated with truly being alive and exploring sensuality in all of its many forms. This was something that would have been impossible in a marriage to John. The different forms of love in this text are therefore explored through Tita's relationship with the two principle male characeters, Pedro and John, and the different feelings that both evoke in Tita.