Like Water For Chocolate Film Analysis

Laura Esquivel’s film adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate and Kate Chopin’s stories, A Pair of Silk Stockings and The Storm, share a similar theme. They all focus on the complexity of women’s struggles to discover their freedom and individuality against social norms and traditions. At first they all place their desires aside because they feel a sense of duty whether they are forced or self imposed. Eventually, each woman takes a step to fulfill their desires if only for one brief time. In the film Like Water for Chocolate Tita is struggling with the desire to be with her true love and find her independence and individuality. Since she is the youngest daughter in a strong traditional Mexican family she is forbidden to marry and take care …show more content…
Sommers who is struggling between her role as a devoted mother and her own personal freedoms and desires. She has always been a very devoted mother, putting the needs of her family above her own so, when she received the fifteen dollars she carefully planned how she would spend it on them. On shopping day she found herself very tired after taking care of the family and skipping lunch. She sat down to gain her strength when her hand accidently felt the soft and silky stockings. She spends a long time running the luxurious stockings through her hands until she finally decides to purchase them. When Mrs. Sommers makes way to the dressing room and puts them on she is not thinking about her responsibilities, she is acting on her own personal desires. Chopin writing demonstrates this, “She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility.” She continues on to purchase a pair of boots that she desires and she does not care if they cost her a little more than expected. This is recognized in the quote, “She did not mind the difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she got …show more content…
One day while her husband and son were at the store a storm starts to brew. They decide to wait out the storm. As the storm approaches, Calixta stops sewing and dashes out to collect the clothes from the line. As she is collecting the clothes a man named Alce arrives and seeks shelter from the storm. The statement “She had not seen him very often since her marriage, and never alone.” suggests she has a past relationship with him. When he enter the house the storm intensifies, so does the tension in the room. When lightning strikes it pushes Calixta into Alce’s arms. Chopin demonstrates this, “Calixta put her hands to her eyes, and with a cry, staggered backwards. Alce’s arm encircled her, and for an instant he drew her close and spasmodically to him.” Calixta pulls back and begins to struggle with the feelings she is experiencing by expressing concern about her husband. She is struggling with the feelings that Alce is stirring in her. When the storm grows stronger outside Alce and Calixta find themselves in each other’s arms making passionate love until the storm dies down.
Laura Esquivel’s film adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate and Kate Chopin’s stories, A Pair of Silk Stockings and The Storm, all brought to mind the aspect of a women’s desire for freedom and right to becoming independent. The three stories illustrate really well how a human being needs