Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate

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Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate The novel “Like Water for Chocolate” written by Laura Esquivel is a historical piece of South-American literature which is parallel to the Mexican Revolution which took place at the start of the twentieth century. The De La Garza family in the novel emphasizes certain similarities with the things going on during the Mexican Revolution, especially with the people in the lower rank. One important structural device used in the novel is the use of recipes which is found in each chapter and sets the overall mood and atmosphere for that particular chapter, the mood or feelings of Tita. This mood found in each chapter can be reflected to the feelings that people felt during the revolution. Tita represents the people in the lower class and recipes are the different leaders during the revolutions. This therefore means that people had different feelings as they were under different leaders from time to time, just like Tita’s recipes. Tita’s hand-made cookbook, which was passed down to the narrator via Esperanza, calls the attention to the personalization of historical discourage concerning the Mexican Revolution. The novel seems to be primarily concerned with the feminine identity and contribution to the Mexican identity. The central focus of the novel is therefore the creation of feminine freedom, part of that is the kitchen which could be reflected to real women’s lives. It directs attention to the social situation of Mexican women in the early 20th century who were lower in rank in terms of their social status. This shows that women had probably stay at home most of the day and do all the hou... ... middle of paper ... ...’s dead Mama Elena still tries to pursue her tradition. It is similar to the death of Diaz because his death didn’t stop the suffering od the people but instead it continued even if some things became better. All in all, Laura Esquivel showed a lot of parallels between her novel and the Mexican Revolution. Most of the materials in the novel seemed to have only one meaning, but after reading and comparing the novel with the actual Mexican Revolution, it became clear that almost every single character in the novel had their own role during the revolution. Even the kitchen and recipes can be parallel in some ways which makes this novel a very historical piece of literature which contains lots of truth about what life was like during the revolution. Sources: http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/water_chocolate.html

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