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Like Water Fir Chocolate Critical Analysis

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Laura Esquivel in Like Water fir Chocolate interweaves a story of female oppression because of familial and cultural pressure throughout the conventional women’s area of romance and cooking. Tita, the protagonist, is a delightful cook, but her recipes and their results on those who enjoy her food reinforce and mirror the novel’s main theme, repression of women. Tita’s use of her cooking prowess, one of her many feminine abilities does not come without risk. When Mama Elena says “…you have no opinion about anything that’s the end of that…” (Esquivel 17), Tita is forced to challenge Mama Elena’s authority by expressing herself through her food, that is, her recipes. The author feminizes her story by presenting women characters sustained through the preparation of food, which transcends …show more content…

Tradition in Mexico as portrayed in Like Water for Chocolate means that Tita is prohibited to marry because it is her responsibility to care for her mother until she passes away, “…you have to take care of me until the day I die…” (Esquivel 9). It is evident that the culture in Esquivel’s text dictates the place and role of women. Tita’s mother, Mama Elena De la Garza is a cruel and harsh woman who is far removed from the conventional view of mothers. Mama Elena is rather portrayed as an evil parent; a twisted, tyrannical, and authoritarian, woman who enjoys using her power to destroy and demean her daughters whilst being “…merciless, killing with a single blow…” (Esquivel 47). Mama Elena keeps Tita on surveillance and impedes any chance for Tita to find love. However, Mama Elena cannot control Tita’s recipes and the power of her food. It is probably for this reason that Tita’s quail in rose petal sauce dish is the hallmark recipe in the book. Even though Tita has been banned from pursuing her love for Pedro, her sister’s husband, she shows her love for him through her quail

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Two women are the most important in a grown man’s life, his wife and his mother. Adam Gopnik, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts graduate and a long time writer for The New Yorker explores his relationship to these women in his article “Bread and Women” (AdamGopnik.com). Gopnik describes how his sojourn into bread baking uncovered insights about his mother and spouse. He utilizes allusions, epithets, and dialogue to portray his wife and mother as important individuals who are unique and interesting in their own rights. Gopnik uses allusions to ancient buildings and famous figures to clarify the complex personalities of his beloved muses.

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Laura Esquivel in the book “Like Water For Chocolate” uses many strategies throughout the book like imagery ,and exaggeration. Both imagery and exaggeration helped develop the tone and the mood ,and set the purpose the passages that were given to us by Esquivel. Esquivel is trying to convey to the readers that you don’t need to be just plain like other writers to have a good story to tell, as she demonstrates in her way of writing and strategies. The use of words that Esquivel uses gives us a better understanding of the strategies being used by the author, and what she is trying to say by using those words. There are many other strategies that Esquivel uses, but exaggeration and imagery have a huge role in the book, and not only in the passage where she describes Nacha, but in others where the food is involved.

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In Esquivel’s novel, Like Water for Chocolate, she argues that kindness is more powerful than cruelty. Unlike kindness and compassion, people will never be fully loyal to those act cruel. The strongest form of loyalty is obedience founded by trust and powered by love, which cannot be replaced with intimidation and fear. When kindness is displayed to a given individual, it is capable of creating a strong core of purpose within oneself, forming loyalty through the desire to be near the one who gives them that affection. In contrast, brutality does the opposite, in hope to break that core enough for the person to resort to dependency Overall, cruelty pushes those under its control to break down, whereas kindness allows for people to strive.

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Formalist Plot You know what they say; you are what you eat! What kind of food you eat and prepare shows a little bit of who you are and in literature it can sometimes be used to convey meaning. In many ways the heart shaped cookies that one makes in february can represent their love for somebody in a way that words can’t. Sometimes we have to recognize that the smallest actions we make can tell a lot about our lives and our stories.

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In fact, she is a loving mother who struggles to convey her love to her children and only knows how to do so by enforcing respect and proper behavior through discipline. Her blunt ways are frequently misinterpreted by both the characters in Like Water for Chocolate and its readers. She only gives Tita laborious tasks because she trusts Tita and believes that it is Tita’s responsibility to carry out these duties due to family traditions that were passed down from generation to generation. Her objection to Pedro’s proposal when he asked for Tita’s hand in marriage was due to her apprehension of what may be the outcome of the two’s relationship. Traumatized, she wanted to protect her daughter from the severe mental pain of forbidden love and did so by stopping Pedro from ever becoming an influential figure in Tita’s life.

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Madeleine Thien’s “Simple Recipes” is not mainly about the father cooking food and his treatment towards his son, instead, the author uses food to symbolize the struggles her immigrated family experienced in Canada. While it is possible to only look at the narratives that food symbolizes, the idea is fully expressed when the father is compared with the food. The theme of food and the recipes are able to convey the overall troubles the narrator’s family encountered. Although, food is usually a fulfilling necessity in life, however, Thien uses food to illustrate the struggle, tensions, and downfall of the family. Yet, each food does represent different themes, but the food, fish, is the most intriguing because of the different environment

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Lola takes advantage of her deteriorating mother whose illness represents the declining hold of the norms over Lola. Since her mom “will have trouble lifting her arms over her head for the rest of her life,” Lola is no longer afraid of the “hitting” and grabbing “by the throat” (415,419). As a child of a “Old World Dominican Mother” Lola must be surrounded by traditional values and beliefs that she does not want to claim, so “as soon as she became sick” Lola says, “I saw my chance and I’m not going to pretend or apologize; I saw my chance and I eventually took it” (416). When taking the opportunity to distinguish herself from the typical “Dominican daughter” or ‘Dominican slave,” she takes a cultural norm like long hair and decides to impulsively change it (416). Lola enjoyed the “feeling in [her] blood, the rattle” that she got when she told Karen to “cut my hair” (418).

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Imagine being invited to your sibling’s wedding, only to find out that they are marrying your significant other. The novel, Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquivel, takes place on a ranch in Mexico in which Esquivel explains the hardships that the youngest daughter, Tita, has to go through due to the De La Garza’s family tradition and Tita’s relationship with her mother. Since she is the youngest of three, the tradition is that she is not able to marry, and her main focus should be to take care of her mother until she dies. Tita had already been in love though with Pedro Muzquiz, but now he is married to her sister, Rosaura, to try to get closer to Tita. Therefore, Mama Elena knows to keep the two apart and threatens Tita if she ever does anything she is not supposed to.

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“Maria Concepcion” is a short story by Katherine Anne Porter about a young Mexican peasant woman who kills a young girl who threatens her marriage, and thus wins back her husband and restores her universe to order. It is only after a cold act of murder that her world assumes its former balance. Being set in Mexico where women were under the impression to be submissive to men even when they are in the wrong of their actions. Women were not allowed to be in a position of dominance. Porter develops María Concepción into what could be called a powerful round character by contrasting her attitude in the first part of the story to the end of the story.

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This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a

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