Reviewed by Kat Bacani ||
Laura Esquivel’s Like Water For Chocolate follows the story of Tita De La Garza, who is forbidden to fall in love with Pedro Muzquiz by her mother. Mamá Elena, Tita’s mother, tyrannizes the De La Garza family with restrictive and traditional rules of being obedient women and presents a complex character of both feminism and misogyny. This novel ultimately examines the role of family tradition and brings to question the preservation and challenge to those traditions. While Tita diverges away from the familial tradition, Tita’s character arc highlights the importance of seeking balance of sustaining family customs and forging new paths beyond them.
Esquivel sheds light on the misogyny in traditional Mexican homes of the early twentieth century through a matriarchal dynamic and brings question to Tita’s social role as a woman. Tita embodies the thematic concepts of self-expression and individuality with her aspirations for a life filled with cooking and without her mother’s tyranny. Her rebellious character naturally challenges her submissive role as Mamá Elena’s primary caretaker and highlights a clear and unfair circumstance out of Tita’s control. Although Mamá Elena is framed as the main antagonist of the story, enforcing rigid rules upon Tita, it’s important to note the systemic aspect of Tita’s hardships and how Mamá Elena fulfills the role as the enabler of the misogynist and traditional system she was born into. The foundations of Like Water For Chocolate’s conflict lies not in one person but in the overarching inability to accept or consider change against traditional values, like misogyny. Marriage, children, and cooking are thematic parts of shaping the misogynist system Mamá Elena and her daughters must submit to. In many instances throughout the book, Tita’s mother emphasizes that her daughters are born to serve their mother and husbands and nothing more than that.
Beyond the systemic misogyny laced in De La Garza’s family operations, the dogmatic family traditions heavily define the family’s lives and play a vital role in the narrative direction of the novel. Mamá Elena asserts, “Nunca, por generaciones, nadie en mi familia ha protestado ante esta costumbre y no va a ser una de mis hijas quien lo haga (Esquivel 3),” which roughly translates to, “Never, for generations, has anyone in my family protested this custom [of serving the mother], and it will not be one of my daughters who will do it.” Esquivel not only introduces the social structure of the family but establishes the inability to question the integrity of De La Garza’s family customs. This novel, filled with unique female characters like Rosaura and Mamá Elena, emphasizes the diverse presentation of femininity through the exploration of sexual liberation and the traditional “virgin versus whore” conflict. Tita’s character arc follows a direct reflection of the selfless Virgin Mary figure, obediently prioritizes the needs of others over her own, and the subsequent deconstruction of that image after pursuing Pedro’s love. Rosaura and Mamá Elena represent a version of a surrendered woman to traditional motherhood—a woman almost oblivious to the very system that oppresses them from thinking independently. Although Esquivel works to place Mamá Elena in an authoritative position over the family and defies the traditional patriarchal family system, the presence of misogyny impacts the existing traditions of subservient women and ultimately defines the way the generations De La Garzas operate.
The story examines family traditions as a complex set of ideas—both advantageous and disadvantageous—to the characters and expresses the idea that the role of traditions can ultimately be ethically ambiguous. The novel is structured with multiple installations of traditional recipes that have connected family members. Cooking is used as a vehicle to build familial and cultural pride and allow for individual identity and self-expression in Tita. To the very end, the traditional activity of food preparation remains as a valued part of the De La Garzas and how the family members bonded, and this can be a positive lasting practice. However, the family traditions can also encompass the confining and cruel expectations of serving the family without question or rebellion. Esquiva brings equal attention to both upholding and challenging the status quo. Values like, self-sacrifice and familial dutifulness, are core ideas in the family and may have functioned well at some point in the family’s history. But Esquiva makes a subtle comment on the relationship between tradition and the passage of time—how the neglect to cultural evolution is a reflection of ignorance.
Traditions can be a unifying part of culture and family, and while they can be the foundations to positive connection between one another, Esquivel expresses the importance of critically examining the functionality of traditions and their impact on those who practice them. Traditions can be a firm obstacle from developing independent thought, as seen in Tita’s insecurities and unstructured ways without her mother’s guidance. Empowerment lies in the initiative away from customs that do not fit the evolution of time, and Tita’s story is a prime example of creating a fulfilling life by separating not from the oppressive mother or family but rather the ways that have kept one disconnected from them. Tita was able to share her passion through her traditional food but pursue her true love outside of traditions—the ultimate expression of balanced respect for others and oneself.
