Week 13

Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water For Chocolate, written by Laura Esquirel, is one of my favorite books.  I routinely watch the movie version of this novel, directed by Alfonso Arau.  Although the movie is a good representation of the book, the book develops the characters more fully and fills in the details that bring fuller meaning that add deeper emotion to specific situations.  Instead of chapters, the book is organized into months where at the beginning of each chapter, a recipe is listed with directions for preparation of the dish and the story continues and correlates to that recipe.  Not only does the reader envision themselves preparing and eating the delicious dish, but also gets caught up in the emotion of the events of that time.  Regardless of the media, both the movie and the novel recount the same story.

The story begins as a narrative from Tita’s great-niece.  Like Tita, she is very sensitive to onions and whenever she chops onions, tears begin to well up and before she knows it, she can’t stop crying.  Tita is born in the late 1800’s.  Her mother, Elena, is chopping onions, and Tita, while still in the womb, begins to cry and her wailing brings about an early labor.  Tita’s birth comes on so fast that she is born on the kitchen table and her tears flow like a waterfall from Elena’s womb.  Once the tears dry up, Nacha, the family cook, sweeps them up and is able to fill a 10-pound sack.  A few days later, Tita’s father dies from a heart attack an Elena’s milk dries up.  Nacha takes over the care and feeding of Tita and from then on Tita’s “domain” is the kitchen.

As a young woman, Tita meets Pedro at a family party.  She feels Pedro’s glances toward her and understands as a result of these looks, how dough feels when it is “plunged into boiling oil”.  The heat that “invaded her body was so real Tita was afraid she would start to bubble”.  From that point on, she and Pedro are deeply in love with each other.  However, close to Tita’s 16th birthday, Pedro and his father come to the house to ask for Tita’s hand in marriage, Elena tells them that it is impossible for Tita to marry because as the youngest daughter in the family, it is her duty to take care of her until her death.  Elena offers Rosaura, her other daughter, as a marriage substitute for Tita, and Pedro accepts in an attempt to be near his one true love.  Upon hearing that her love had agreed to marry her sister, Tita falls into a state of depression and her heart feels as if she has a hole with infinite coldness flowing through it.  In an attempt to free herself from the cold, she begins to knit / crochet a bedspread/blanket.

It is the day before the wedding.  After Elena heads off to bed, Nacha gives Tita permission to cry. While preparing the wedding cake, one of Tita’s tears falls into the batter.  (In the book, her multiple tears fall into the batter and the meringue frosting.)  Upon eating the cake, everyone, except Tita, is overcome by a strange melancholy and yearning for lost loves.  Their weeping is followed by collective vomiting.  Afterwards, Elena blames Tita and Nacha for ruining Rosaura’s wedding, but Tita stops her mother’s scolding with the news that Nacha has died. 

Pedro and Tita’s love for each other simmers throughout the years.  On the anniversary of Tita becoming the ranches head cook, Pedro gives her a bouquet of roses.  Elena demands that they are thrown out.  In lieu of throwing them away, Tita makes Quail in Rose Petal Sauce.  She lovingly prepares the dish and the completed dish stirs passion in the blood of all who eat this decadent dish.  Tita comes to understand that she is able to invade the body of Pedro through her cooking as a new form of communication.  Tita is the transmitter, Pedro the receiver and Gertrudis, Tita’s sister, the medium. This dish produces a sexual synthesis in Gertrudis where the passion inside of her is so intense that she runs to cool off in the shower but instead, sets the outside shower room on fire with the heat from her body.  With the shed on fire, Gertrudis runs out of the shower room, naked.  Upon smelling the fragrant scent of roses emanating from Gertrudis’ body, the rebel, Juan, abandons a battle being fought with the federal troops and rides his horse toward Elena’s ranch.  Seeing Gertrudis running through the field naked, he rides up to her, picks her up and carries her away on his horse.   Later, the local priest tells Elena that Gertrudis is working at a local brothel and Elena burns her birth certificate and demands that her name never be spoken in the house again. 

Pedro and Rosaura eventually have a child and Tita ends up being the midwife and wet nurse for their little boy.  The silent romance between Pedro and Rosaura continues until Elena sends Pedro, Rosaura and Roberto to San Antonio, Texas.  Meanwhile, Elena continues to kill Tita’s spirit bit by bit through degrading and constant verbal abuse.  Upon hearing of the death of baby Roberto, Tita snaps and blames Roberto’s death on Elena.  She suffers from a mental breakdown and is taken away by the local doctor, John Brown, for rest and nurturing. 

There is a scene in the movie that is better developed in the book and in my opinion, is the true theme of the entire story.  During Tita’s stay with Doctor Brown, he shared with her something his Kickapu Indian grandmother, Morning Star, had shared with him.  Also a healer, his grandmother told him that we are all born with a box of matches inside that cannot be lit by ourselves.  The lighting comes from the combination of various experiences:  the breath of a lover, a sound, music, food or sound that lights and explodes one of our matches.  The glow of these experiences gives us the desire and fuel to live – it nourishes our soul.  Without these combustions in life, our book of matches becomes damp and may never be lighted.  Many things can prevent our matches from being lit and it is important to stay away from those influences.  However, there is always a cure for drying out a box of damp matches.  Dr. Brown continues to warn Tita that it is important to light the matches one at a time because if an “intense burst of emotion were to ignite them all at once, they would produce such a strong brilliance that before our eyes would appear a tunnel of such radiance showing us the path we forgot at birth: the same path that calls us back to our divine origins. In other words, such intense emotion can kill us. 

Tita continues to heal and upon her mother’s death, returns to the ranch to live with Pedro and Rosaura.  John Brown asks Tita to marry him and she agrees.  While John is away she finds that she is pregnant from a sexual encounter with Pedro.  At this same time, her abusive mother haunts her. Tita confronts her mother’s ghost by letting her know that she is aware of her own promiscuity and that she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Gertrudis, and tells her that she has the right to live as she pleases.  After this encounter, the hauntings disappear.  The tormenting from Elena was causing a psychological pregnancy and once freed from Elena, she was free of the false pregnancy.  Tita tells John that she cannot marry him because she’s no longer a virgin and that she loves another man, Pedro.  John assures her that he still loves her but that she alone can make the decision to marry him. 

The story fast-forwards to a wedding preparation.  Tita is preparing chilies in walnut sauce, which requires the shelling of 1000 nuts.  Tita lovingly sees to all the banquet arrangements and wants this special day to go off without a hitch.  The reader or viewer is left believing that she is preparing her own wedding feast when in fact, she is preparing the wedding feast for her niece, Esperanza and John’s son, Alex.  Tita’s sister, Rosaura had recently died from digestive problems thus leaving Esperanza free from the family tradition of taking care of the mother until her death.  The chilies are served at the wedding feast and all the guests are overcome with intense sexual desires and quickly make their excuses to leave the festivities.  Tita and Pedro are left alone for the first time in their lives.  As they enter the small cottage, the spirit of Nacha is there and she has lit hundreds of candles.  As they begin to make love, thunder and lightening are heard in the distance.  Pedro shouts, “I love you” and rolls over, dead from his ecstasy.   Using her knitted quilt, Tita covers her and Pedro, and begins to eat a match one at a time.  Remembering their love and experiences over the years, she ignites the matches inside of her.  Her body and the cottage is engulfs in flames and she joins Pedro in eternal happiness.

Freire's Ideas…

This story illustrates the power of oppression and the crippling affects it has on the individuals being oppressed.  Freire believes that once a person is relived of their oppression, they can become oppressors to others.  Elena was unable to fulfill her own love’s destiny by being with the man she truly loved.  Out of anger and frustration with her own oppressive life, she retaliates and oppresses Tita with her own critical and abusive treatment.  Elena was in a state of denial and couldn’t acknowledge her affair and illegitimate daughter.  In her own personal torment, she takes out her internals suffering on Tita.  This story also illustrates that oppression can kill the soul as demonstrated with Tita’s emotional breakdown. Additionally, there is the scene in the story when men raid the ranch and rape Chencha and push Elena over the cliff, killing her, which illustrates another type of oppression, physical and sexual abuse.

Transcends All Borders...

I immediately fell in love with this book when I first read it in the early 1990’s.  Needless to say I was thrilled to find it on our syllabus.  To me, it is not just another love story.  It is a story of how love can penetrate the entire senses and transform a person beyond the physical realm.  The story illustrates how love and passion can be kindled through food, glances, thoughts, etc.  Although many love stories have the common theme of overcoming obstacles, this story is a classic because the obstacles are generated from years of family traditions, of which there is no known reason why it started.  The story sub-theme illustrates how pride can prevent people from taking the steps toward healing and love as shown when Elena refuses to cry or feel anything when Gertrudis runs away with Juan.  (Similar to the classic, “An Affair to Remember” when Terry is too proud to tell Nickie that she’s unable to walk and that is why she didn’t meet him.) The story also illustrates the power of love and how it can transform and motivate a person to do things they would not normally do.  Such as when Pedro marries Rosaura and Gertrudis running off with Juan.  This story captures some of the qualities of the Post Modern Era with its element of Magic Realism, with Tita’s unwilling ability to infuse magical properties and consequences to the food she prepares; Morning Star’s apparitions when Tita is suffering from her mental breakdown (book version), Nacha’s appearance and placement of candles after Alex and Esperanza’s wedding; and the effects of the food on the people consuming it: Rosaura’s wedding, quail and rose petal sauce, and Alex and Esperanza’s wedding.  In summary, this love story illustrates the power of love, how love can conquer evil and/or oppression, and how love is eternal.

Classmate Reviews of Week 12 
Alyssa noted that this is both a love story and a true story.
Brandon wrote how the execution and persecution that Camila and Ladislao faced were all part of the oppression in Argentina at that time.
Candace wrote that the people were oppressed by the rules of the dictator and Camila was oppressed by the obligations of her family.
Kim wrote that one of the reasons her death caused such turmoil among the people was that execution of pregnant women was against the law.
Maria wrote how from the beginning of the movie, the theme illustrated that knowledge can make a person stronger.
Melissa wrote how no one can control whom they fall in love with. This transcends borders and time, today people are being oppressed because of the sex of the person they love, gay marriage is being shunned by our government and by many people who believe it is wrong. 
Michael wrote that this story transcends borders as it could happen in any country with strong cultural views on a religious custom, cultural style or belief. 
Robert feels it was very hard not to admire her courage and perseverance given the male dominant culture she was born into, and her free-thinking ways. 
Sara wrote how Camila transcended many borders. She read and hid books that she was not supposed to have, was more educated than the government would have like her to be, and fell in love with a man that was forbidden to love.
Susan wrote that the people in Argentina were afraid not to follow the dictator and Camila's execution is an example of oppression if you did not obey and follow the rules.