Breaking Gender Expectations In Like Water For Chocolate

Lillie Sorensen
Period 4 - Women and Lit
January 27th 2023
Breaking Gender Expectations
Throughout history, women and men have had specific expectations based on their gender and these are known as gender roles. Traditionally, men have held jobs and made money, and farmed and cared for the animals, while the women stayed home and cooked, cleaned, and took care of the children. Men are usually perceived as strong and women are seen as submissive. But more recently, media is being published with a feminist’s perspective that subverts these gender expectations to make an effort to push for equality between men and women. An example of this is the book Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Like Water for Chocolate is a novel about a

Towards the beginning of the book a troop of soldiers gets threatened by Mama Elena, and at the end of the book Gertrudis proves herself to be stronger than her male peers, and she becomes the leader of a troop of soldiers. On page 90 mama Elena threatens the captain of a troop of soldiers by holding him at gunpoint. She says “‘I have a very good aim and a very bad temper, Captain. The next shot is for you…’”(Esquivel 90) Mama Elena’s intimidating behavior is far from how a woman is “supposed to act”. The soldiers even got scared and left, which breaks gender roles for both men and women because Mama Elena behaves in a very threatening way, and instead of threatening Mama Elena back, the men fled which is far from how men were “supposed” to act. Gertrudis has also proved herself to be stronger than her male peers in the audience. Towards the end of the book Laura Esquivel writes “When they got close enough, she could see that the person in charge of that troop was none other than her sister Gertrudis” (Esquivel 177) Gertrudis is a very strong female character who is stronger than her male peers, so she has earned the position of the leader of a troop in the army. Both of these are instances where men are weaker than women showing how Like Water for Chocolate strays away from the cultural

On page seven Laura Esquivel writes “...for Tita the joy of living was wrapped up in food…through the door leading to the patio and the kitchen and herb gardens was completely hers - it was Tita’s realm” (Esquivel 7) Tita loves being in the kitchen, she was born in the kitchen and cooking is how she expresses herself. Tita also has a very motherly instinct because she loves taking care of her nephew. Laura Esquivel writes “As Rosaura was still weak sometimes, no one was surprised that Tita took over her nephew’s feeding…”(77-78) Both of these instances are times when Tita is conforming to gender roles because she is in the kitchen and taking care of children, but because most of the characters are women, Tita not only does women’s jobs, she has to do men’s jobs as well. This further demonstrates how this book breaks gender roles because the characters in the book don’t think of the chores as “men’s jobs” or “women’s jobs”, the chores are just jobs that must be done in order for the house to be