EMOTIONAL POWER OF LOVE IN
‘LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE’
M. Banupriya,
Assistant
professor,
Pavai
Arts and Science College for Women,
Anaipalayam,
Namakkal
Abstract:
The depiction of love in
our culture is far from realistic, as love is not always perfect or
unconditional. When we think of passionate love, the image of a fairy
tale-inspired love story comes to mind, an idealized version of what it is to
be truly in love with someone. Like
Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, which takes place in Mexico
during the Mexican Revolution, explores this concept. Love is portrayed in the
book as a supernatural force that may defy reality. Family and romantic ties
are formed by sincere love, not by social or biological structures. The
experience of true love is rare and incredibly resilient. Furthermore, moral
standards of society are not always applied to sincere love.
In the book, romantic love
creates a spiritual connection that is more important than the legal framework
of marriage. The idea that Pedro and Tita are each other's genuine loves is
fundamental to the story. When Tita and Pedro first meet, they make a vow of
eternal love. Despite being forbidden by Mama Elena and subsequently by Pedro's
marriage to Rosaura, the couple struggles to resist their overpowering want to
remain together. Even though Rosaura is Pedro's spouse in legal terms, they
continue to be faithful to one another. No matter who she is in a relationship
with, including Dr. John Brown, who has always loved and supported her, Tita is
unable to reproduce the same type of love.Gertrudis reduces Tita's guilt by
arguing that pure love is more sacred than the responsibilities of husband and
wife after Tita and Pedro start a covert affair.
Keywords:
Passionate, Cosmic love, Forbidden, Illicit
connection, Vulnerability, Sexuality
The narrative centres on Tita, a young woman
who develops exceptional cooking talents while living with the tyrannical Mama
Elena, and her two sisters, Rosaura and Gertrudis. It draws inspiration from
magical realism, which combines the fantastical into ordinary life. She has two
different kinds of love throughout her life—passionate and companionate—for two
different types of men, Pedro and John, who influence her choices. While
passionate love is more attractive, intense, and limitless in its expression,
companionate love fosters a more close-knit, devoted relationship, according to
Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate. She demonstrates that maternal love
can exist outside of connections between biological mothers and their children,
just as romantic love frequently exists outside of marriage. Tita views Nacha,
who cares for her, as her real mother. The depth of Tita's love for Rosaura's
children enables her to treat them with the same affection and tenderness as
her own.
Love overcomes the limits of reality, giving
the book its characteristic magical realism. Tita gains the supernatural
ability to express her feelings through her food as a result of the pain of her
forbidden love. When she is heartbroken, those who consume her food also
experience heartbreak as if it were their own agony. Finally making love, Pedro
and Tita's bedroom bursts into dazzling colors and musical noises that can be
seen and heard from outside the door, like fireworks. When they pass away, a
fire that consumes them is started when all of their "inner matches" are
lighted. The fire produces an impressive volcano that sends firecrackers into
the sky and covers the surrounding area in fertile ash.
Maternal love performs miracles even if there
is no romantic element. Even though she is a virgin, Tita's breast miraculously
fills with milk out of sheer love for baby Roberto. Even after Nacha's passing,
Tita and Nacha can still talk because of their mother-child bond. The spirit of
Nacha whispers instructions for cooking into Tita's ear and helps Tita deliver
Rosaura's child. Although admirable, the pursuit of romantic love can lead to
difficult moral decisions that can have unpleasant effects on the lovers and
other parties involved. Rosaura suffers because of Tita and Pedro's illicit
connection, and Tita herself faces challenging issues. Despite all of Dr.
Brown's care and devotion for her, Tita breaks his heart by ending their engagement.
Tita loves Pedro to such an extent that she would rather be his mistress than
have the chance to be with a man who would provide her a respectable social
position as his wife. The final image of the book's two lovers lighting all of
each other's "inner matches" highlights the idea of true love. John
learned from Morning Light that circumstance can only come about as a result of
the total joy experienced by someone who discovers the ideal manifestation of
true love.
The unhappiest characters in the book are
those who have given up on finding real love, which is another way the book
promotes the pursuit of true love. The characters who have discovered and
fought for true love, on the other hand, are the most cheerful and loving. Mama
Elena, who lost her boyfriend Jose Trevio, disapproves of love by forbidding
her children from pursuing it independently. She starts to feel angry,
miserable, and unkind. Similarly, to Rosaura, Pedro's loveless marriage to her
is preferred over the prospect of finding her own love. She loses her
friendships with her sisters and is overcome with insecurity and jealousy.
Gertrudis and Tita, in contrast, don't give up on their genuine loves. In
addition to uniting everyone around them and preserving their connection
despite being apart for a long time, they both promote an atmosphere of love
and honesty. In the final chapter, the book shows how true love is a force that
nurtures the spirit and brings about more happiness than it does grief. Being
genuine to oneself is essential for achieving freedom, which comes through the
quest of true love.
According to Esquivel, a well-lived life
should at some point be touched by a ferocious and intense passion, an inner
fire that encourages one to act purely out of the heart. After devouring a
plate of fowl flavoured by Tita's lust, her sister Gertrudis exudes passion and
entices a soldier to approach: “Juan… abandoned the field of battle… without
knowing why he did so. A higher power was controlling his actions. He was moved
by a powerful urge… This woman needed a man to quench the red-hot fire that was
raging inside her” (55).
The soldier is under the control of a
"higher power," something external to him that compels him
blindingly. Because he is unable to identify the root of it, it is unjust. His
passions and emotions so take control of his entire being and cause him to act
impulsively. His passion for something is so strong that he forgoes doing what
is right to fulfil "urge." Gertrudis also feels a "red-hot
fire," which needs to be "quenched" because it is a longing for
someone else. Like any other urge, passion, like the desire to eat, must be
satiated to stop driving the person insane with lust. Later, when Tita is
preparing dinner, she muses on her longtime love Pedro and muses, “Growing up
one realizes how many things one cannot wish for, the things that are
forbidden, sinful. Indecent. But what is indecent? To deny everything you really
want?” (175).
Tita's "wish" in this situation is
to be with Pedro. Since she hopes for it in her mind even if she knows it
cannot come true, it is a wish. Since she is unable to satisfy her overwhelming
yearning for Pedro, she is left with no choice but to wish for him as if a
shooting star might grant her request and make her happy. She is unable to
satisfy her passion since it is "sinful" and "indecent."
Passion is sometimes viewed as inappropriate or out of place because of its
frenetic, uncontrollable character. It is wrong in terms of religion, such as
Christianity, which is why it is called "sinful."As a result, Tita's
desire is restrained and frustrated; her inquiry into what constitutes
indecency reveals her annoyance at being unable to publicly express her love.
Although it is nice, passion can have terrible results if it is what one
"really wants." No matter how she is perceived, Tita's passion for
Pedro is unending and she wants nothing more than to adore him. In another
section of the book, Pedro and Tita are alone in the kitchen when Tita notices
him. Their immediate, ardent stares were so finely focused that anyone who
witnessed them would have only seen one look and one longing. From her personal
experience, Tita understands how fire changes the elements and how a soul that
hasn't experienced life's fire is lifeless, like a useless ball.
Their eyes meet, demonstrating the ability of
emotion to figuratively bind two individuals together with yearning. Since
being one with a lover is the goal of passion, their intense love for one
another causes the "fire of love" to unite and fuse them. Without
Pedro or her desire for him, Tita equates a lack of passion to being a
"useless ball of corn flour" that is "lifeless"; in other
words, her life would be pointless. She is driven by passion; without love, she
is lifeless, uninteresting, and dull. Tita is energized by passion's intensity
and overwhelming strength. Therefore, a life without passion is dull and
lifeless. Once more, the idea of fire suggests the burning caused by the love
that sustains Tita. In the book, it is made apparent that passion is necessary
for life and that, occasionally, we should give in to wild desire to feel alive
again.
The author also demonstrates how companionate
love—calm and selfless—exists to counteract passion, demonstrating how the
latter's erratic, selfish nature is both unsustainable and self-destructive.
One day, Tita is reflecting on her life when she considers Pedro and John. Her
assessment of the two is as follows: "John, on the other hand, was
offering something different, the chance to start a new family that no one
could take away from her... It wouldn't be difficult to develop a strong
romantic attachment to him over time" (217). The word "opportunity"
is used to highlight how companionate love is more long-term and future-focused
than intuitive or momentary. Tita examines over her alternatives for what she
and John would do in the future, not right away and without thought. This
differs from passion in that Titawould only consider herself and ignore the
long-term if she were with Pedro. She can remain devoted to John by giving her
options some thought and delaying gratification. Since this would happen as
time went by, it suggests Tita will do it gradually and step-by-step rather
than diving in headlong and without restraint because she is also considering
John's demands in addition to her own. It is ‘deep’ love, not lust-driven
adolescence, and it is not commandeering.
This contrast is also made when John's aunt
stops by for dinner and Tita says she is unable to marry him. When asked why,
she replies, "When you are here, everything changes. When you aren't here,
I think he [Pedro] is the one I love. I feel satisfied, at ease, and at ease
being around you" (223). The word "when" is used often, showing
how unsure of itself passion is. It is unpredictable, loose, and
uncontrollable, changing on a whim. It is short-term and self-centred because
it can't stay in one spot for very long. Companionate love, on the other hand,
makes Tita feel "settled" and "at peace." Companionate love
is anchored and grounded, substantial and solid, immovable, and singular
compared to the ephemerality of passion. To be "settled" is searching
for a permanent residence. Tita can feel at home with John. She is "at
peace" because she is free of passion-driven conflicting impulses. She is
at ease being close to John since she knows they will support one another. At
the conclusion of the book, after parting ways with John, Tita and Pedro make
love until Pedro passes away, which makes Tita understand that with Pedro gone,
there is no chance of ever again finding her inner fire. Now that she was
unable to feel anything, she would never be able to catch a glimpse that light again.
She would need to find a means to start a fire that would illuminate the path
back to Pedro and her dwelling, even if it were artificial.
Tita loses all hope of ever finding happiness
because she puts everything she has into Pedro. Pedro is killed by her love for
him, and she is killed by the thought of ever falling in love again. Her
passion, in essence, destroys itself by uniting with the object it seeks to
destroy. Because it sabotages itself, desire is therefore unable to last. Passion
cannot stay forever because it erupts with such ferocity that it makes
attaining it impossible and unreachable in the first place. Tita is
consequently no longer able to feel anything. Due to overstimulation, she is
numb. Her love is so strong and overwhelming that it makes her numb to
everything; nothing will ever be like it or compare to it since the pleasure is
unmatched by anything else.
Tita's passion is like a rollercoaster: it
soars high and then plummets. Only recently has it completely reached too high
and forever crashed at the bottom. Her yearning for an artificial route
"to her origin" means that her capacity for love is now damaged and
that she must go back to her roots, or self-destruct, to restore it. She must
die to be reunited with her boyfriend Pedro, which necessitates her death;
hence, she can no longer love passionately, living only in the visceral
present. The contrast between greedy desire and selfless compassion is
illustrated via Tita's love relationships and conflicting feelings,
demonstrating that one cannot exist alone but must be balanced with
companionate love.
Esquivel therefore subtly asserts in Like
Water for Chocolate that while unrestricted passion makes life worthwhile,
companionate love is essential to establishing and maintaining a stable union
in which both spouses can thrive. There aren't always red flowers, chocolates,
and happy endings in life. Because fairy tales are rife with magical realism,
reality is not a fairy tale. Instead, we must recognize that love is difficult
and takes time in the modern society. In fact, passion is necessary, but it
cannot sustain itself. Love should be viewed as a lifetime commitment rather
than as something romantic.
Tita is competing for the attention of two
guys in the novel Like Water for Chocolate. Pedro is only fascinated
with Tita because he is sexually attracted to her and has sexual motives, but
Doctor John Brown wants to build a relationship with a foundation in love and
trust.
The main character, Tita De La Garza,
oversees the ranch's kitchen and is tasked with caring for her mother until the
day of her passing. Tita looks for her mother, her two sisters, Gertrudis and
Rosaura, as well as Rosaura's husband, Pedro, whom Tita loves but is unable to
wed.Dr. Brown's recipe for matches and Tita's recipe for quail and rose sauce
made with Pedro's roses are the two most significant recipes in the book out of
all the ones that Tita learns and employs. The rose sauce recipe is indicative
of human lust and sexuality, whereas the match recipe is symbolic of the human
soul.
When the quail and rose sauce supper is had,
"it seemed [Pedro and Tita] had discovered a new system of communication,
in which Tita was the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis their
medium, the conducting body through which the unique sexual message was
passed"(49). The message of
sexuality conveyed through the quail and rose sauce is so potent that it
prompted Gertrudis to feel the consequences and flee to a brothel, where she
ends up working for portion of the novel. Tita's emotions become part of her
recipes, which is crucial. The main barrier separating Pedro and Tita is
removed after the death of Tita's mother. Pedro "caused her to lose her
virginity and learn of true love" (137) by throwing himself on Tita. The
first thing Pedro does is have sex with Tita rather than declare his love for
her. Pedro offends Tita with everything he said and did, not once considering
her feelings, even when she tries to talk about her complicated love life. It
is undeniably true that Pedro has become a monster of conceit and mistrust.
Pedro's hold on Tita's heart is dangerous for her because of his selfishness
and unbridled lust because a healthy relationship cannot be sustained on
sexuality alone but instead requires a base of commitment and uplifting support
provided by both people in the relationship.
Dr. Brown makes matches and talks to Tita
after saving her from brief insanity brought on by her harsh family. Since
being taken to live with Dr. Brown, Tita has become mute. He talks to Tita and
convinces her to use the element phosphorous to write on the wall. Dr. Brown's
support is evident in the statement that when he "entered the laboratory,
he was happy to find the writing on the wall, in firm phosphorescent letters:
"Because I don't want to." Tita had already made her first step
toward independence with those remarks” (118). Instead of freeing her from the
ranch, the doctor empowers Tita to free herself and discover her identity as a
woman and a person.Dr. Brown's true character and intentions are revealed
in the crucial scene where Tita writes on the wall. She hears Dr. Brown's
formula for matches and his assertion that everyone carries a box of matches
within themselves before being persuaded to write on the wall. According to Dr.
Brown, "Each of us was born with a box of matches inside of us, but we
can't strike them all by ourselves; just like in the experiment, we need oxygen
and a candle to help" (115).
Dr. Brown compares the delight we experience
as humans to the flaming warmth of a match. He also explains to Tita that
sometimes happiness is not something we can always depend on ourselves to provide.
Beyond Pedro's desire for sexual fulfilment or possession, Dr. Brown's desire
to see her happy outweighs his own. Dr. Brown holds Tita's hands and continues,
"There are many ways to dry out a box of damp matches, but you can be
sure, there is a cure" (115), after comparing human feeling and delight to
matches. Dr. Brown gives Tita hope that she can get over her trauma and move on
with her life by informing her that she still has a chance to dry out the moist
matches.
The next month, after her mother is attacked
by bandits, Tita is compelled to go back to the ranch so that she can assist in
taking care of her. Tita "felt the urge to run far, far away, to shield
the tiny flame John had coaxed up inside her from her mother's chilling
presence" (131) when she got back to the ranch. Tita values the personal
development Dr. Brown has assisted her in making evident by her desire to guard
the flame he has assisted her in lighting. Pedro observes the new bond that has
developed between the doctor and Tita when Dr. Brown comes to the ranch to see
Tita and to treat the family members.While seeing them, Pedro makes the
decision that "Tita belonged to him, and he wasn't going to let anyone
take her away" (139). Pedro presents Tita as a prized possession or object
that he has gained and will not let anyone else possess. When contrasting Dr.
Brown's and Pedro's perspectives on Tita, it is evident that only Dr. Brown
truly cares about Tita as an individual because he sees her as a person who
needs to escape her family's oppression while Pedro sees her as an inanimate
object who is only there to satisfy his insatiable lust.Pedro "wanted to
study, examine, and investigate every last inch of skin on her lovely,
monumental body" (197). Pedro's perception of Tita and thoughts about her
are evidence that their unlawful relationship is motivated by lust rather than
love.
Dr. Brown’s support and speculation in Tita
never wavers even when she ultimately chooses Pedro over him. Dr. Brown is
still willing to marry Tita even though she loses her virginity to Pedro during
her engagement with the doctor. He is in support of Tita no matter whom she chooses
to be with. Dr. Brown’s unwavering support proves himself as the better option
for Tita because all he desires is her happiness, even if it costs him his own.
When Pedro is told he cannot marry Tita, he is easily convinced to marry her
sister rather than waiting for her or running away with her. Pedro expresses
his desire for Tita with lust, not love. He fulfills his urge by gazing at
Tita's chest when he sees her cooking and watching her take a shower. When they
are alone, Pedro goes so far as to force himself upon Tita, and he only offers
to be with her when she thinks she is carrying his kid. If Pedro really cares
about Tita and wants what is best for her, he will help her choose between him
and Dr. Brown. Instead, as Pedro observes Tita and Dr. Brown's developing
relationship and ensuing engagement, he becomes hostile and belligerent.
Tita makes an emotional decision to choose
Pedro over Dr. Brown. Because he is constantly by her side and works to bring
out the best in her, Dr. Brown is unquestionably the sensible choice. Tita
nevertheless opts for Pedro, the man who does not fight to be with her and
merely sexualizes her, despite Dr. Brown saving her from the life her family
has planned for her and bringing her out of madness. When Pedro passes away from
extreme excitement—previously described as all his matches being struck
simultaneously—it happens as he is having unfettered sex. Pedro still treats
Tita as a sexual object right up until the very end. Like a match, love cannot
endure without the fuel of one's own passion and love. In contrast to uplifting
love and acceptance, which create a gradual, steady burn of enjoyment that can
last a lifetime, sexuality and desire, while intense and rapid, swiftly burn
out.
The novel by Laura Esquivel expresses the
concept of cosmic love story via distinctive cultural motifs drawn from a
passion for Mexican cuisine and the spirit of sacrifice. Tita and Pedro's love
story is depicted in a passionate way that captures the unfortunate predicament
that arises when their other family members say that their relationship is
forbidden. This may be shown when Tita tries to give Mama Elena her opinion
when Pedro begs for her hand and gets the response, "You don't have an
opinion, and that's all I want to hear about it" (8).
The love story blends several issues between
the numerous limitations placed on women. However, the marital institution,
which in this scenario is nothing more than a type of indentured slavery for
life, is brought into the domains of the Mexican social class by the idea of
love. Thus, we can examine how a Mexican mother, till the very end, satisfies
her immoral love for her family.
The character ‘Tita’ is the main character
that embeds her love in the form of mouth-watering recipes while she knows how
to transcend the limitations of existence and express oneself in love and
creativity. When Pedro expresses his love for Tita and Tita also confesses her
love, Esquivel describes in the story how Tita feels it would be to desire her
future husband, this way she considers and give priority to her moral values,
Esquivel writes “It wasn’t decent to desire your sister’s future husband, she
had to try to put him out of her mind” (13). This shows that her inner positive
strength of love and sacrifice is superior to anything else in the world.
Tita’s concept is not exclusive to Pedro; in fact, she loves everything that
comes to her, especially what she thinks is important to Pedro. She adores his
nephew Roberto, for instance. Tita makes many sacrifices throughout her life to
meet Pedro because she firmly thinks that sacrifice is the path to true love.
The character of Tita's older sister Rosaura,
who is married to Tita's beloved Pedro, is very intriguing. Rosaura marries
Pedro solely for Tita's sake since she understands that there is no other way
for Tita to meet Pedro, and this is another example of Mexican love and
sacrifice. Cooking, sewing, needlework, and decoration—acts that are ingrained
in Mexican women's DNA and are practiced in every aspect of life—are only a few
of the many expressions of feminine love that Esquivel praises throughout the
novel, but in a cultural context (De Valdes, 1995). Esquivel, on the other
side, also depicted the Mexican representation of an autonomous woman, which is
nothing more than a social prison of marriage.
Tita believes that sacrifice and love go hand
in hand. Tita thinks it is her enthusiasm for her love that makes all the doors
of opportunity for meeting Pedro open to her. Tita's love endures through
sacrifices, which she believes is the human exposure to contingency. By going
through true adversity, which she believes to be the real cause of her worry,
Tita realizes that her vulnerability lies in her awareness of the uncertainty
that Pedro's love for her has brought her along with all the unpredictability.
This aspect keeps Tita aware of how much she
always loves Pedro, and the fact that she might still run into him down the
road makes her life vulnerable.But in the end, she marries Pedro because of her
fear of the prospect of money, having already lost Mama Elena, Rosaura, and
Roberto. Tita and Pedro finally have the freedom to confess their love to one
another after many years, and when they do so on their first night together,
their spirits are permanently reunited. This portrays a passionate circumstance
where their romance is made more exciting and intense by lovemaking, and
because their first love has always kept them in love with one another, their
erotic pleasure for the time and their newfound desire to conquer each other
resulted in their deaths.
Tita and Pedro's affection for one another is
the cause of an uncontrollable event that takes their lives despite giving them
the chance to be free after many years. This clarifies to us that falling in
love is not a question of chance or luck; rather, it is an emotion into which
we merely fall and which we remain in for the rest of our lives. Tita endures
all these years to have a brief but intensely passionate night that gave the
lovers divine freedom to meet. In this sense, we can see that the philosophy of
love requires patience and sacrifice, and that passion almost always results in
more suffering than it does delight.The lovers' intense love for one another is
what has put them in so many challenging circumstances and brought about so
many challenging outcomes throughout their lives. Although they realize that they can never be
happy without each other but for the sake of love for other family members,
they keep on giving sacrifices, like the sacrifice Tita gave before she finally
meets Pedro. Similarly, Pedro sacrifices his love to remain close to Tita and
marries Rosaura. Thus, Esquivel hopes that the reader will understand that love
is all about sacrifice, happiness and passion the ultimate destiny of love.
Work Cited
Esquivel,
Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Random House, 1995.