Magical Realism In Like Water For Chocolate, By Laura Esquivel

Superior Essays
Love is a powerful feeling that burns with a fiery passion. The novel Like Water for Chocolate presents this and many other ideas through the examples she shows with Magical Realism. Magical Realism is a genre in where realistic narratives are written along side with some of fantasy, which the novel uses to develop the plot of the itself. For example, there are multiple times when the characters see ghostly apparitions of their lost relatives, light the walls on fire as a result of their overwhelming emotions, or having food cause unnatural side effects just due to the fact that the tears of someone were applied during the preparation. The novel Like Water for Chocolate is by Laura Esquivel, and as a result of the novel, has become a bestselling author. The web presentation Power of Magical Realism is by Sandy Lam, whom is a student journalist who has posted other online articles that discuss historical and social issues. Laura …show more content…
Esquivel uses Magical Realism to develop the plot in Like Water For Chocolate as shown through the examples of the wedding cake, the Gertrudis event, and the ghost of Mama Elena, and they all have a positive impact for the story. As for the wedding cake, it does help the novel as the cake serves for an example for the melancholy that Tita had felt during making it. In the event of Gertrudis’ overwhelming emotions, Gertrudis this way develops her character and actually helps Tita further along in the story, being an important development point in the story. Finally as for the ghost of Mama Elena, she serves as a huge point of character development for Tita, finally being free from authority of anyone. Overall Magical Realism is the reason for why Like Water for Chocolate is stays an interesting story throughout and why it moves it story efficiently. The story of the Like Water For Chocolate is a classic and greatly shows how Magical Realism can be used

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Magic-realism is defined as fiction that maintains a realistic narrative while recounting fantastic or supernatural events along with everyday life and commonplace events. The novel Bless Me, Ultima expresses this through the acceptance of some ideas that would normally be considered unrealistic. For example, the characters view witchcraft and sorcery in actuality and never seem to question it. Early gods, as well as spirit animals and mythological creatures were also widely accepted by the characters throughout.…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ella Cara Deloria’s novel Waterlily tells a story of a fictitious Dakota girl named Waterlily, and the lives and customs of women in Dakota community. Deloria describes a detailed premises of the camp in which the Dakota life was based and the kinship defining the role of the women through the life experience of two generation women, Waterlily and her mother. The story follows the journey of Waterlily from birth (6) to her grandmother’s death (141) through her adulthood, to her marriage (160) and remarriage (220), during the time of happiness and sadness, until she finally found the true love.…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • 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…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It takes a moment in your life to have a self realization that will impact you for the rest of your life.…

    • 1024 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jeanette’s childhood was like no other. The Wall’s nomadic lifestyle taught Jeanette from an early age that she had to take care of herself. While most three year olds are playing with dolls, at age three Jeanette was cooking hot dogs by herself on the stove. The Glass Castle shares Jeanette’s stories of her adventure-filled childhood. In the memoir, Jeannette Walls perseveres through tough times, forgives others and becomes self-reliant, which shows that overcoming barriers leads to finding happiness.…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In life, all people are faced with challenges and difficulties regardless of social status, racial background and desire for knowledge. Few people are given a greater number of hardships than others. How people deal with their circumstances can differ contingent on how everyone around them impacts them. All in all, what makes individuals effective? Success is a result of doing the right thing by learning from and overcoming mistakes and failures, achieving the goals set for oneself, positively affecting the lives of others, and being content in one's circumstances.…

    • 1273 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The narrator of the short piece The Moths is a fourteen-year-old girl. She is an unusual girl, who is quite different from everything and everybody, especially the feminine world. The girl from the story is entitled as being rebellious due to lack of respect, non-stop confronting her family members and being immature. She is not as “pretty or nice”, nor does she do "girly things". The story itself has many stages, themes and it gives the ability to the reader to sympathize with the protagonist while she is going through different situations.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls brings the reader back in time to when she was very young and recalls her life experiences that deal with poverty, dysfunctional parents, and the choice between family first or herself. The Glass Castle reveals that Wall lived a large portion of her life on the run due to her adventurous, yet troublesome parents. Overtime, Walls discovers that life has more to offer if she gives herself a chance to experience the real world. Because of her parents’ influence, Walls grew up assuming that her parents’ views on society and the way life should go was inspiring, but now that she is grown and she makes choices for her own good. The memoir gives off a deep, meaningful feel to the reader. The overall…

    • 1173 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In times of hardship, people tend to do one of two things: give up, or fight to overcome their problems. The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, is a memoir that tells the story of a young girl who fought to overcome obstacles throughout her childhood. Jeannette spends most of her childhood in the Southwest, then later moves to Welch, West Virginia. The Walls family rarely lives in suitable conditions, often living in abandoned houses, with inadequate food, water, and finances. They move often to avoid the police and bill collectors.. Finally, the Walls children make their way to New York, where, for once, they can live comfortably. Throughout this heartwarming and heart-wrenching story, Jeannette Walls draws the audience to a few main themes. Walls demonstrates throughout The Glass Castle that people will always make mistakes, that there is more to a person than what one observes, and that one can overcome hardships to find success, using many literary techniques.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book Like Water for Chocolate, the author, Laura Esquivel, uses the literary element of magical realism to suggest that love cannot be oppressed. Tita and Pedro were destined for each other, but Tita had to uphold the tradition of the De la Garza family, which prohibited the youngest daughter from getting married. As a result, Pedro is forced to marry Rosaura, Tita’s sister, to remain close with Tita. Throughout the book, Rosaura and Mama Elena, Tita’s mom, try to suppress the love Tita and Pedro has for each other, but their efforts are unfruitful as Tita’s feelings for Pedro still prevail. Esquivel utilizes magical realism to show how uncontainable Tita’s love is by showing the magical effects Tita’s food has on her audience. She…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this passage from this memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls explains how Welch was a place full of people who liked to fight due to the harsh nature of the town. Walls illustrates this explanation by describing the reasoning behind people’s rough attitudes in Welch, and why these attitudes evolve into fighting. Walls purpose is to show how Welch was a place of negativity and obscurity in order to justify how she and her family had to survive and live in a town like Welch.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Flowers by Alice Walker, Myop’s innocence is emphasized by many literary devices, such as, symbolism, metaphor, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, tone, and imagery.…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Different stories that combine realistic and unrealistic events that are related to the real world. Events that happen in stories and seem unrealistic could be understandable to readers in the real world. Unlike fantasy and fiction magical realism has a sense of truth to it and moral meaning behind its stories. Also the structure of the story could be realistic through the events that occur in the story through characters and the narration of the story. Magical realism is strongly used such as, Gabriel Garcia’s novel love in the time of cholera. It combines the realistic and unrealistic events that evolve the real…

    • 1052 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Magical realism captures the fantastic side of reality ,and it achieves its effect by mixing elements associated with realism and elements related with fantasy. These two worlds undergo a merging and become one. The term “magical realism” was first introduced by German art critic Franz Roh who considered magical realism an art category. Roh influenced many writers around the world ,and one of them is Lois Lowry. This paper will discuss some major characteristic of magical realism which appeared in "The Giver" by Lois Lowry such as; fantastical elements, real-world setting, authorial reticence , and hybridity.…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In Kitchen as Mikage is in her pursuit of happiness, she finds herself escaping reality in a dream where she is cleaning the kitchen with Yuichi it is an allegory, as they both clean the kitchen they are cleaning their worries and past away and also the sorrows and grief’s of the deaths surrounding their lives. Surprisingly when they meet the next day, Yuichi informs her that he too also had the same dream. Likewise in Like Water For Chocolate Tita’s recipes have paranormal effects like when she cries a literal river of tears and spirits appearing. The spirits that surround Tita symbolise the lasting effect of those who impacted our lives and our own feelings of duty and responsibility. The use of magic realism has helped convey the work in different outlook on society and its standards different from an objective…

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays