Analysis Of Like Water For Chocolate By Laura Esquivel

How hard can life be for a teenager? In the book, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel tells the story of a teenager name Tita, who suffered from her mother who treated her like a slave throughout her life. She was living during the Mexican Revolution, which in those times it was hard for women to live peacefully because sometimes soldiers would go inside the house to steal or to rape women because some women were living on their own. Mama Elena was a mother from three daughters Gertrudis the oldest daughter, then Rosaura the second daughter and Tita the youngest. Tita, since she was born they did not put enough attention to her. She was born in the kitchen, later on her mother did not feed her because she did not had milk to give to …show more content…
She was born in the kitchen and that is where she spent most of her life time. Tita was a girl that expressed her feelings through food plates. She only knew about the kitchen stuff and not about the outside world. Tita helped Nacha, the cook, at the kitchen because Tita considered Nacha more like her mother than Mama Elena, her real mother. At the young age Tita had she could not distinguish the difference between the tears of sadness and happiness, Esquivel states, “… when Nacha chopped onions, but since they both knew the cause of those tears, they didn’t pay them much mind. They made them a source of entertainment, so that during her childhood Tita didn’t distinguish between tears of laughter and tears of sorrow. For her laughing was a form of crying” (Esquivel 7). It did not took much time for Tita to distinguished the difference between the tears of laughter and sorrow because she heard what her future was going to be and also because she was going to lose the love of her life. Tita spent her childhood inside the house and did not lived the same kind of life as her sisters, Esquivel says, “It wasn’t easy for a person whose knowledge of life was based on the kitchen to comprehend the outside world. That world was an endless expanse that began at the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house… Her sisters were just the opposite: to them” (Esquivel 7). As she was growing …show more content…
When Tita was about to be fifteen, she saw for the first time Pedro Muzquiz, which became the love of her life, but their love could not be accomplished due to Mama Elena because she did not Tita to have a boyfriend. Mama Elena told Tita that she could not have a boyfriend because in the family there was a tradition, which was that her job was to take care of her until she died, Esquivel states, ‘“If he intends to ask for your hand, tell him not to bother. He’ll be wasting his time and mine too. You know perfectly well that being the youngest daughter means you have to take care of me until the day I die”’ (Esquivel 10). Tita disagree with this tradition because for her there was no future. Meanwhile her other sister did get the chance to have a life and not taking care of her mother. When Tita knew that she had to serve for life to her mother, she started to argue that it was not fair, but for Mama Elena Tita’s opinion did not count. This tradition does not make any sense because why would only one girl would take care of the mother, while the other daughters were having a better life. Tita grew up emotionally because for her there was no future and at the young age she had, she had the illusions of having a husband. But for Tita this was no impediment, she broke her family’s tradition and at last she stayed with Pedro. Tita did what she wanted, she always did things on her way, which she struggle but obtained what she proposed