The story of Tita's entry into the world marks the first fantastical image of Like Water for Chocolate, initiating the reader into the novel's magical realism and illustrating the intensity and improbability that characterize the events of the story. The image of Tita flowing into the world in a flood of tears prefigures the sadness and longing that will pervade her life. After 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.
Her isolated childhood in the kitchen gives Tita an outlook on life different from that of her sisters, Gertrudis and Rosaura, and she comes to develop different ideals for herself as she matures. As a young woman, 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 can be identified as one of the feminist impulses in the novel. This refusal to accept an assigned and undesirable social role marks the beginning of Tita's path to self-assertion and freedom.
The overwhelming sense of cold that descends upon Tita 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 nights of insomnia spent feverishly crocheting a bedspread represent her desperate desire for the heat of love and help establish the pattern of Tita's channeling her passion into domestic activities (she later transmits her passion for Pedro through cooking). As with many of the behaviors in the novel, Tita's reaction to the feeling of cold is exaggerated so as to highlight the intensity of the emotion behind the action.
Another important aspect of Tita's sadness about the engagement is that not even the Christmas Roll can lift her spirits. The warmth that Tita would normally receive from her favorite food cannot overcome the coldness induced by her starved love. Tita's understanding of life through food fails to comfort her, and the inadequacy of food as a substitute for love is demonstrated.
The weakness and hallucinations that Tita experiences while preparing the wedding feast are physical manifestations of the heartache that begins with her terrible cold. She fixates on the wedding cake and wedding gown, which serve as dreadful symbols of her hopeless love. The focus of her hallucinations on the whiteness of these objects comments on the purity of Tita's emotions, in contrast to the loveless, and hence impure, nature of the impending union between Rosaura and Pedro. Additionally, the color white evokes ideals of femininity and womanhood--ideals to which Tita will never be able to conform because she is forbidden to love and marry. White also represents a virginity that Tita is never supposed to escape.
The escape of Gertrudis serves as a foil to Tita's stifled passion. The intensity of the former's reaction to the meal serves to communicate the potency of the passion that the latter possesses but is unable to express directly. With her primary form of expression limited to food, Tita takes the illicit token of love from Pedro and returns the gift, transforming it into a meal filled with lust. The manner in which Gertrudis is affected by the food and later swept away on a galloping horse is clearly fantastical, and the vivid imagery (the pink sweat and powerful aroma) exemplifies the novel's magical realism.
The disappearance of Gertrudis reveals much about female sexuality in Like Water for Chocolate. While Tita can only articulate her sexuality within the domestic sphere, Gertrudis is able to exceed these boundaries without a second thought. Her flight can be seen as a triumph, wherein she sheds notions of social propriety to pursue her unbridled desires. Conversely, her departure from the ranch is also a sort of expulsion: The free expression of female desire clearly has no place in the ordered domestic realm.
The contrasting experiences of Gertrudis and Tita illustrate the only two possibilities for female desire, both of which are extremes: stifled and unarticulated, or hypersexualized to the point of being pornographic.
The later revelation that Gertrudis is of mixed ancestry makes it interesting to read this chapter (and further characterizations of Gertrudis) in terms of racial stereotypes. Her intense eroticism (her strong sense of rhythm is mentioned later) corresponds to typical depictions of mulatto characters. It is possible to argue that, in showering, Gertrudis is attempting to rid herself of her inherent sexuality.
Additionally, her insatiable desire may also be related to the circumstances of her parentage, because she was born of a love that was never fulfilled. Yet, though there is some textual support for a reading of Gertrudis as sexualized by her background, such a reading seems out of place in a novel normally so sensitive to issues of marginality and otherness.
Already have an account? Log In Now
4424