engrish final

Adrienne Velasquez, 1
English 1A. Section 2
12/07/2008


Like Water For Chocolates

Noted for its creative ways of conveying the different types of characters that we encounter in our everyday lives, Like Water for Chocolates comes close to perfection. There are three characters whose personalities are so prominent that they that play such large roles, shown constantly throughout the novel. As we progress further into the essay, one will be able to recognize how these characters not only portray prominent personalities in society today, but how their roles are very significant to the novel and its background. Lastly, one may further analyze these characters and how their roles intertwine with portions of those who participated in The Mexican Revolution.
Of the numerous characters in the book, the three whose jump off the pages are: Mama Elena, whom one may consider the dictator, Tita, the hopeless romantic who gets the worst end of everything, and Pedro, the mute one who sits on the sidelines watching it all happen. Though the other various characters add some spice to the story, they aren’t our core ingredients. Without Mama Elena, there would be no conflict and the story would end up like every other gushy, tear-jerking, love story out there. Her firm and strict ways upon following tradition only make one wish to rebel more. This is what leads to Tita. Tita is quite the rebellious stubborn child, although we see she hardly gets what she desires in this novel, and what she truly desires is Pedro. True, he doesn’t exactly get what he most desires, but he definitely doesn’t experience the worst end of things. Under further examination, we see that there is more to their actions that one can guess.
Mama Elena, the horrible tyrant of the story who is a firm believe of “her way or the highway”. As we see in this novel, she wasn’t just raised to be a strict mother of insane beliefs, but rather, she saw herself in Tita. Mama Elena too experienced the pain in heartbreak and the restriction of loving another, which may have led her to put such chains on Tita. Also, we see the bitter hatred and grudge Mama Elena holds against Tita. We can see this especially in July when Tita returns to take care of her own mother. She rejects Tita’s food and swears it is poisoned, by poisoned one can further assume that though the food may not physically be poisoned, the food may not have been produced out of love. Other than the bitter mother Mama Elena plays other roles.
As for tradition, Mama Elena is a firm believer in many odd traditions. Due to her loyalty towards her traditions, Mama Elena disregards all of Tita’s feelings and bans her from marrying the one she loves as well as anyone in general. It is also because of her traditions that one may extrapolate the idea of her signifying the role of Porfirio Diaz in the Mexican Revolution. Diaz was one of the main reasons why Mexico had turn so corrupt, as well as why the peasants and monarchy got the worst end of the bargain. Diaz was a power-hungry ruler who had become so obsessed with the idea of ruling Mexico that he passed a new “no-reelection” policy. As ironic as it is, it felt as though throughout the novel, even when Mama Elena passed away, she still had a hold over everyone in the household, especially over Tita.
Tita, known as the rebellious young daughter who always wants her way. Like Water for Chocolates mainly follows her journey to becoming a woman and watches her struggles of living with Mama Elena and losing the one she loves. In our everyday lives, Tita would signify the person inside of us that we just want to let free. Unfortunately, she is caged. It seems as though her every move is watched, and her every breathe is heard. She practically plays the criminal of the story, though she hasn’t committed any crime. Aside from playing the story’s hopeless, stubborn romantic, we can see how her role intertwines along with the Mexican Revolution.
During the Mexican Revolution, according to mexconnect.com, the church hierarchy got the worst end of the revolution. Though serving as some importance, Diaz never placed the church before his presidency, and with this he saw that anything related to the church meant war. Well, in the novel, we see that Mama Elena never put Tita before her, because she knew it was a hassle she refused to deal with. There are several incidences in the book where we see the unfortunate end of things that Tita has to endure. Situations had became so unbearable that she went crazy for a portion of the book.
For anyone who has ever read Like Water for Chocolates, the main conflict of the story is Tita’s and Pedro’s forbidden love. Constantly throughout the novel, we are reminded of their depressing love story. Looking back at March, Tita prepares a meal so passionately signifying their love, however they are unable to engage in anything due to Mama Elena’s watchful eyes. One comes to see that not only does Mama Elena watch Tita carefully, but Pedro as well.
Pedro, the man who belongs to two women. Pedro belongs to Rosaura physically but belongs to Tita emotionally. In the beginning of the novel his character isn’t as bold, but as the story progresses, we see that his personality develops. Instead of agreeing with others and placing them before him he somewhat forces Tita to pick him over John. We see the role of the dominant male that many of us women encounter everyday. Yes, Pedro is prohibited from marrying the love of his life, he is still dealt a life that is bearable and decent. Mama Elena and Rosaura look out for him, though his intentions are wrong, they believe he loves Rosaura. Lastly, he is taken care of by two women at the same time, who could argue? For all those reasons, we see his character placed under the roles of merchants. Nothing life changing really happens to him, nor is he really affected by Mama Elena’s dictatorship.
Furthermore, from this essay we can see that these three character play huge roles in, not only the novel but, signifying the Mexican Revolution and the prominent, bold personalities we may encounter in our everyday lives. Each character would be nothing without the other, such as Mama Elena wouldn’t play such a large role if she had no one to enforce her rules on. Tita wouldn’t be so pitiful without her forbidden love nor the person who makes life so grim and dim for her. Lastly, Pedro, the most general character wouldn’t be anyone without Mama Elena or Tita. One would not acquire the ability to see how even with such chaos throughout the novel, there are just some people who are completely unaffected. All these characters help in signifying the Mexican Revolution, and with this knowledge hopefully one may realize that though they may just be characters written on paper, the signify more than one may think.