What Is The Theme Of Like Water For Chocolate By Rosaura Esquivel

The novel Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel describes the life of Tita and her two sisters Rosaura and Gertrudis, her mother Mama Elena and her chef-friend Checha. Tita falls in love with Pedro, but her mother does not allow her to marry him because, as it is tradition in the De La Garza family, the youngest daughter has to care about her mother until she dies. Since their true love to each other, Pedro and Tita still have contact to each other, even when Pedro marries Tita's sister Rosaura, what makes their life more complicated. In Like Water for Chocolate food is an important part, so it is in any human's life. In this novel the deeper meaning of food is life, but also death. Characters live and and die because of food considering of different reasons. In one way food is

After Rosaura did not eat for a week because she was so frustrated, “she had lost sixty-five pounds in just seven days” (p.212, ll.30-31) . Her body got really skinny and probably weak because that is what happens when people loose a lot of weight in a short time period. In Mama Elena's case, no food even leads to death. She refuses food, that Tita cooks because she thinks Tita wants to poison her after Tita's food tastes bitter to her. Mama Elena only accepts food Chencha cooks and only if Chencha tries it in front of her. After Chencha leaves the house, since she was depressed after being raped, and every hired cook quit, Tita is the only cook left. Mama Elena still does not accept her food whereupon Mama Elena dies, “wracked by horrible pains accompanied by spasms and violent convulsions” (p.135, ll.17-18). Food gives the body energy and energy means life. When humans do not eat at all their bodies do not have energy and one day the body cannot work anymore, so they die. This happened in this novel to Mama Elena because she did not want to