The Role Of Traditions In 'Like Water For Chocolate'

Improved Essays
“It would be nice if she could let this genius know about this one little flaw in this perfect plan for taking care of women in their old age” (Esquivel 11) This quote is an example of how traditions do not always benefit the majority. Traditions can bring the family together, and create a sense of communion with the family. Each tradition has a role within the family, whether to create a sense of togetherness, or if to imprison the other family members. These traditions play a vital role in the novel, and change throughout the growth and decrease of the family. The traditions remain a constant throughout the turmoil in the novel. These traditions have many effects on the characters, such as not allowing the main character, Tita, to marry …show more content…
Some are more more predominant in the plot then others are but they all variate in their motives. For example, family parties and feasting are one of the most common exemplified traditions all throughout Like Water For Chocolate. The De la Garza family often gets together after Tita and Chencha cook large feasts. The purpose of family feasting is to really host a large communion after long periods of not being seeing together. The parties allow everyone to exchange feelings, reminisce and update each other on how each others lives are going. Another tradition in Like Water for Chocolate is Tita devoting her time to taking care of her mother. Across the variety of modern family traditions, adult offspring taking care of their elderly parents. The purpose of this tradition is for the children to show respect and compassion to their parents. Parents take care of their children at a young age, and paying back that respect by showing compassion to their parents would be viewed as being appreciative. But at the same saw in the first few months of Like Water for Chocolate, Tita wasn’t able to see Pedro or even really have an “outside” life because she was completely devoted to taking care of Mama Elena and working on the monotonous task of cleaning. Her tradition is more like a job and it’s restraining her from her desired lifestyle. In May, Tita displays her frustration from overworking under Mama Elena’s command. She screams …show more content…
Traditions in Like Water For Chocolate deviate a lot. The main two traditions that are existent in the duration of the novel help to construct the plot and mood, as well as develop the antagonist, Mama Elena. Large family meals, a symbol of communion, are very habitual in the central and southern American cultures and are typically prepared on a communal basis with multiple different people working together. This in of itself is a hallmark of the commendable tradition many families enjoy. A contrapositive tradition practiced is the youngest daughter staying home to care for her mother at old ages. “You know perfectly well that being the youngest daughter means you have to take care of me until the day I die.” (10) This detested practice is sporadic or irregular and is usually a sign of greed from the mother, which is especially the case in Like Water for Chocolate. Overall, the diverse traditions of many different communities is what forms the rich culture that is relished

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Tortilla Sun Comparison

    • 154 Words
    • 1 Pages

    In the passages from Confetti Girl and Tortilla Sun, the narrators create different points from their parents. These points of view cause great tension. These differences in Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez and Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes, both create tension because each parent acts in a way that neglects the narrator's interests, the narrator has trouble connecting with their remaining parent, and both narrators want a sense of closeness. First, tension is caused in both stories because each parent acts in a way that neglects the narractor's interests. In the text of Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes, the narrator learns that her mother is leaving her to finish her college degree for summer.…

    • 154 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The love between a mother and daughter is very important to the mother and daughter. It can be shown in many different ways, including tough love but how far is too far? Like Water for Chocolate is about the De la Garza family. The narrator is Tita's great- niece. She tells the story of Tita’s forbidden love with Pedro who marries her older sister Rosaura and other important details of Tita’s life.…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 1110 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The book I chose for the literary critique is Boundless Grace by Mary Hoffman. This book is a fictional narrative from the point of view of a young girl named Grace’s point of view. Grace lives with her mother and Nana in the United States. Her father resides in Gambia, Africa with his new wife, Jatou and their two younger children Neneh and Bakary. However, Grace sees her father as a distant memory.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Clement Stone once said, “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” W. Clement Stone believed that honesty was the best policy if you wanted to live a good life.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a small child she was practically raised by Nacha while Mama Elena was just an authority figure. Nacha fueled Tita’s passion for cooking which also molded who she grew up to be. Mama Elena ruled with an iron fist and treated Tita like a servant making her do tasks like washing her mother in the bath as well as cooking. Mama even furthered the odd cruelty by prohibiting Tita from marrying as the family tradition says the youngest daughter needs to live a life away from love to serve the mother until death. When she was older, a man named Pedro came into her life but because of tradition Mama Elena had him Marry her older sister, Rosaura.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This reality is explored in the book, “Like Water For Chocolate”, by Laura Esquivel through the main character Tita. The book explores the conflict between passion and responsibility in life as Tita is denied her true love in order to carry on a cultural tradition within her family. The nature of Tita’s passionate…

    • 1900 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The novel Like Water for Chocolate written by Laura Esquivel is a love story like no other I have read. As soon as I started reading this novel the main characters Tita and her mother, Mama Elena jumped out at me because they share similarities and differences to my Mother Engracia and my grandmother Ignacia who also went by Nacha for short. Engracia like the protagonist in the novel, Tita suffered emotional and verbal abuse from her mother. However, Engracia was different from Tita because she never ran away from her problems, but instead decided to face them even when she was suffering from her mother’s abuse. Nacha and Mama Elena are both not only strict, but cold and emotionless towards their daughters.…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The manuscript was very informative about the current divorce laws and the role that women should play in society verse what role they are forced to do. Elizabeth Stanton might have had other perspectives or cultural factors shaping her main argument and message to the audience. One cultural factor that could have shaped the essay is the idea of the traditional family. This factor could have played an important role in Elizabeth Stanton’s writing process because she wanted her audience to see that the tradition family is still possible with these new rights. It is not necessary to be a part of the idea of the traditional family.…

    • 1107 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The narrator and her sister, Vanessa appear to be good children who listen to their parents commands, and we can see that from “Mum hisses, “Try and look hungry kids.” I suck in my belly as far as possible,..., Vanessa sinks her head to her chest and shrinks with not-wanting-to-be-here. ”(5-9) Both the narrator and her sister do not question their parents and do as needed. We can also determine that the father is the man of the family, meaning, he is the leader of the family and both the children and the mother follow him. “If Dad starts tearing tickets and his face becomes folded and deep, we feel ourselves become quiet and wishing-we-weren’t-here.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sexism is something most women have dealt with in their lifetime, but in the 16th Century, they were treated as slaves. In Shakespeare’s play, Much Ado About Nothing multiple social commentaries are brought to light. In order to help show injustice on woman, a musical will show how women were not allowed to make choices, they were abused, and they were treated as objects. Women’s lives were in the hands of men. As people grow older, they are allowed freedom of choice, and a larger range of responsibilities, but women did not get that.…

    • 1109 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel, Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel uses magical realism to tell the story of a young girl and her family during Mexican Revolutionary times. Tita’s forbidden love with Pedro causes many complications for the family. Because of the magical elements that Esquivel adds to the novel, unusual circumstances occur to Tita and the people around her causing chaos and tragedies among them. Esquivel uses Tita and Gertrudis’ experiences of high temperature to represent their ability to nurture a successful relationship, unlike John, who does not have any experience with heat.…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chocolat For my analysis I chose to examine the movie Chocolat directed by Lasse Hallstrom. The film is set in a small village in the French country side. The village is known for its devotion to religion and “tranquility”.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    How Style, Tone, and Characterization in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” Show the Universal Pressures on Woman in a Patriarchal Society "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid reveals the overwhelming pressure on young women to look and act in certain ways in order to please men and society. Through the use of the literary elements style, tone, and characterization, Jamaica Kincaid is able to place the reader into the shoes of a young Caribbean girl as her mother describes to her what she must do in order to protect her reputation and grow into a respectable woman. Gender and gender-roles are a main theme in this work as scholar Carol Bailey writes in her article, Performance and the Gendered Body in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” and Oonya Kempadoo’s Buxton Spice,…

    • 1412 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The main issue in the film, Ded na si Lolo is the impact of culture, specifically of irrational beliefs. In the movie, it depicted our traditions and superstitions about family ties and wake. Ded na si Lolo featured how a family cope up with the death of a loved one. It perfectly shows the attitudes and practices of Filipinos that surrounds death, the funeral and the wake. Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.…

    • 1348 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays