Tita De La Garza Character Analysis

Improved Essays
To Love or To Work, That Is the Question If you had to pick between your true love and your mother, and only have one for the rest of your life, who would you choose? For Tita De la Garza, the struggle is very real. As the youngest daughter born into a demanding household, Tita was bound by custom to serve her mother’s every needs for the rest of her life. Unfortunately for her, the boy next door, Pedro Muzquiz, is determined to make Tita his. This puts Tita in the awkward position of having to choose between lover and mother. On one hand, you have a strict, overbearing, dictator-like parent. On the other, you have a passionate man unfaltering is his love. As you can see, the choice is quite difficult. Nonetheless, Tita is virtually trapped, and she has to learn to try and balance her life. In a classic installment of love versus responsibility, Laura Esquirel delivers a gratifying novel in which she proclaims love as the victor. Early on we are introduced to the efficient and domineering rule of Mama Elena, Tita’s mother. Due to the fact that Tita is the youngest daughter, she is bound by a generations-old custom that obligates her to take care of her mother until she dies. This inevitably means that Tita is prohibited from marrying and having a family of her own. Tita argues against this tradition numerous times; however, Mama Elena quells …show more content…
The couple is finally able to be together and be free from ever having to worry about anything coming between them. In this way, this novel successfully describes a classic battle between love and responsibility that is an example of something that happens in everyday life. It is beneficial to understand this, as you never know when it could be you that is faced between love and responsibility. It is not a straightforward struggle, but in the end, the reward is worth the

Related Documents

  • 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 first step they are trying to approach in their life if marriage. As soon as Mama Elena had heard about this, she had furiously rejected this idea. “ For generations, not a single person in my family has ever questioned this tradition, and no daughter of mine is going to be the one to star” (Esquirel 11). Tita had undergoes a conversation with her mother about Pedro coming over to have a “talk” with Mama Elena. Tita’s mother knew what was going to happen and was not excited about that idea.…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, the two stories, “A Temporary Matter” and “This Blessed House,” illustrate how the differences between two people can ruin the relationship in the long run. The first story in the collection is about a couple who lost their baby after birth. This traumatic event causes them to drift apart and to not feel the same love for each other that they once had before. The second story is about a newly married couple who, after buying a house, learn that they can not cooperate with each other. The couples’ personality differences are brought out when dealing with challenging situations.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to the FDA love is not an ingredient however, emotion still plays a large role in cooking. In the novel Like Water for Chocolate by Esquivel the main protagonist Tita faces many challenges in life. A narration by Esperanza, Tita’s granddaughter starts every chapter with a recipe. The recipes may seem like just a tradition being recorded but, they actually correlate with the emotions and challenges Tita faces in the chapter.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Tita starts the book conforming to her mother’s tradition. Once she realizes her love for Pedro, she decides to rebel against her mother. As she cooks throughout her life, she realizes she only cooks to express herself and her love for Pedro. This book makes evident that responsibilities show our true character behind all the work. Esquivel explores jealousy, love, passion, and commitment to show that love always conquers no matter the situation.…

    • 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

    For me? Or for you?" "(paragraph 34) This shows that the narrator in Tortilla Sun is skeptical of whether her mother's choice was made for the her mother's gain, not her's.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 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.…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Every young relationship starts out with the same mindset that they will never break up and will stay together forever which is not the case. Like Romeo and Juliet, their love was thought to be eternal yet everything out of their control caused their so-called love to break. All in all, this marriage is blinded by the infatuation of the two lovers who upon seeing each agreed to be married, convinced of their eternal…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Rubin. If the individual reveals their feelings to the one they love whether it is through physical contact, eye contact, or verbally, it usually draws the person to feel the same towards the other. However, there are those few reward that by not being liked from the person they are drawn to. This is called unrequited love, the individuals become even more attracted to the person because they like the challenge of trying to receive those feelings in return (Devault 135). As an example, Shakespeare for a visual of the appealing.…

    • 2295 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is a fictional novel focusing on the women of the De La Garza particularly the conflict between Tita and Mama Elena her mother. Right away the conflict between traditions of what a woman should be, Mama Elena telling Tita she could not marry until she died, and Tita desiring to be with the man she loved. There are many other relationships important in the story for example Tita and Rosaura pointing out the difference between desirable and undesirable woman. The novel also goes into male roles and the difference between the roles they possess and how they are different and at times similar. The main male roles are that of Pedro, Dr. John Brown, and the soldiers in the revolutionary army.…

    • 1303 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Mamacita sits by the window all day mainly because she has nothing better to do or look at. Mamacita dreams of a better life, moving out of Mango Street and a husband that does not make her cry. Mamacita misses her home, culture, and language in her country. “Mamacita, who does not belong, every once in awhile lets out a cry, hysterical, high, as if he had torn the only skinny thread that kept her alive, the only road out to that country.” Mamacita does not fit in with the people on Mango Street, on top of that is tortured by her husband, and has a child to take care of.…

    • 1624 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A women’s role in society and family has extremely changed throughout the years. “A Rose for Emily” and “Eveline” was two short stories that showed two characters playing roles that showed negative impacts. Rose and Eveline had similar but different lives, they both had very strict fathers, but they could never neglect their families. Emily’s father was very well known in her community, she was the only child and grew up in a beautiful home. Eveline lived in a small apartment with her father and her siblings, her father was known as the alcoholic.…

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “A Temporary Matter” readers are introduced to two characters Shukumar, a student as well as a teacher and Shoba, a proofreader. A short but simple story “A Temporary Matter” focuses heavily on the theme of lost love between the two protagonists. As the story progresses layers about each character is revealed in a chain of events. Lahiri demonstrates in “A Temporary Matter” how the loss can affect a relationship and showcases it with the techniques of setting and pacing. Setting and pacing are key to any story and can affect the credibility of the story.…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays