These notes provide a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the events, characters and themes from the award-winning book Como Agua Para Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. These notes are particularly useful for students studying the book for A-Level Spanish as they are bullet-pointed, clear and easy to...
Como Agua Para Chocolate
Chapter 1:
Key events
Tita – Protagonist
Tita – born in kitchen – amidst flood of mother’s tears
Mama Elena – unable to produce milk – shock at recent death of husband
Tita is with Nacha (house cook) – Nacha raises Tita up in the kitchen
around cooking, spices – understands the world in terms of food - Tita
enjoys cooking and her isolation in the kitchen
Outside kitchen – Mama Elena – demanding regime – has 2 other sisters
(Rosaura and Gertrudis)
Tita’s life – cooking, cleaning, sewing and prayer
Routine interrupted – Tita timid announcement – suitor Pedro Muzquiz
wants to visit her
Mama Elena greets this announcement with indignation, invoking the De
La Garza family tradition that the youngest daughter is to remain
unmarried so that she can care for the mother of the family when she is
old
Tita – upset by strict tradition – has to keep to Mama Elena’s wishes –
she questions the family tradition privately – maintains feelings for Pedro
Next day – Pedro + father arrive at house unannounced to ask for Tita’s
hand in marriage
Mama Elena refuses this marriage proposal, offering instead the hand of
her second daughter, Rosaura.
Recurring themes
Tita’s onion-induced crying brings her into the world prematurely.
Tears - emerge as symbols of Tita’s deep emotional connections. While
cooking with Nacha, Tita realises that her tears come not only from
sadness but also appear when she is deeply moved. Tita’s tears often
cause flooding, as on the day of her birth.
The De la Garza family comes with its own set of traditions, which are
both favourable and inhibiting.
Unlike the cooking tradition which exists only to serve and please its
adherents, this tradition is abandoned because of the displeasure it
produces.
, The kitchen is a site of birth, heritage, and nourishment. There, children
are born, raised, and fed, and the family recipes and stories are passed
down to future generations.
Character development
Sight, like food, sometimes dictates characters’ actions and
feelings. Mama Elena is most noted for her powerful gaze that has the
ability to both start and stop conversations. The power of a look is often
stronger than that of any physical force.
The image of Tita flowing into the world in a flood of tears - sadness and
longing she feels throughout life
Tita's birth - the flood of tears dries to leave ten pounds of salt to be
collected and used for cooking - The practical attitude with which the
characters greet this surreal happening helps to establish the supernatural
as an accepted part of the characters' lives.
Isolated childhood in the kitchen – Tita different outlook on life
compared to sisters – develops different ideals for herself
Feminist impulses of Tita - rebels against the family tradition that
confines her to a life without love. Her insistent questioning (even though
she does not petition Mama Elena directly) of her lot in life.
Sense of cold Tita feels after Pedro and Rosaura become engaged is an
early instance of a theme that will figure prominently in the novel: an
emotional state manifesting itself physically.
Tita’s sadness about engagement – Christmas roll can’t lift her spirits –
power of her love for Pedro – warmth from favourite food cannot
overcome her sadness – starved love inadequacy of food as substitute for
love
Chapter 2:
Key events
Wedding of Pedro + Rosaura – De La Garza household – busy
Kitchen – preparation of Chabela Wedding Cake (recipe at start of
chapter 2)
The wedding feast requires gigantic proportions of food--170 eggs for
the cake and 200 roosters to be fattened up and served as capons
Nacho + Tita have to make all the food for the wedding – fatigued by
work required to prepare feast
Tita – hallucinations
Mama Elena declares – won’t have Tita ruin the wedding
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