Shannon Wong
April 5, 2009
Chapters 9-12
Because of her night with Pedro, she fears that she may be pregnant and she isn’t sure what to do or who to tell. She misses Gertrudis and wants to ask her for help, but she isn’t sure where she is. She also knows that she has to cancel her engagement with John because she’s lost her virginity. While Tita’s baking bread, Rosaura asks her for advice, she’s become fat because of her digestive problems and she has stinky breath, which causes Pedro to avoid her. Tita prepares special soups and food to help her lose weight but feels guilty about her encounter with Pedro. Mama Elena’s ghost appears, and scolds Tita for being a shame while cursing the baby in Tita’s stomach. That night a party was held for the Three Kings festival, Gertrudis returned to the ranch for a visit with fifty troops. She had become the general in the revolutionary army and a veteran of many battles. The rest of the night they spend listening to Gertrudis’s stories.
Gertrudis and her army stay for more then a week, and Chencha is tired of doing so much work. Tita longs to share her problems with Gertrudis, she’s very supportive and she urges Tita to tell Pedro about the expected pregnancy. At first Pedro is very happy and he wants to run away with Tita but he remembers about his daughter. The ghost of Mama Elena appears again to order Tita to leave the house, Tita refuses and responds by telling her that she’s always hated her and she has a right to stay at the home. The instant Mama Elena’s ghost turns into a spinning light, Tita’s swollen belly eases and her breasts are soothed, and her menstrual cycle began. The spinning light flies through Tita’s window as a fireball and land on and oil lamp on the patio, making Pedro’s whole body catch fire. Everyone runs to him, Rosaura runs out to him and he calls for Tita not to leave. She holds his hand and Rosaura is humiliated. She stays in a room for a week, while Tita cares for Pedro. That night, Gertrudis and her army have to leave, that same day John is returning from America.
After a week of exile, Rosaura looses 65 pounds. Tita nurses Pedro back to health and she’s afraid and nervous to tell John. Rosaura and Tita have an argument and Rosaura no longer wants Tita to care for Esperanza. Meanwhile, the chickens outside are fighting and they tore each other’s feathers everywhere. Feathers and blood stained Esperanza’s embroider diapers on the clothing line. The fight created a whirlwind, which voided the chickens into a hole in the ground. When it was safe, Tita went back in the house to see that the tamales were still not yet cooked. She remembered that Nacha told her that they could never be cooked if there was anger, so you must sing to them. Once John and his aunt arrived they were ready to be served. During the meal, John senses that she’s disturbed but they cannot converse about it while his Aunt is there. She’s deaf but she can read lips, so they speak in Spanish. Tita tells John of her encountering and he’s disappointed but still willing to marry her. He asks her to choose who she wants to spend her life with.
Tita and Chencha are busy preparing for Esperanza and Alex, John’s son, wedding. The years have past since the ranch with Rosaura, Pedro and Tita were silent. When the question of Alex and Esperanza’s marriage came up, it formed an argument with Tita and Pedro pleading for Esperanza’s wishes respected. After days of arguments Rosaura died with a terrible stench, very few attended her funeral for that reason. Esperanza was free of her wishes and everyone was overjoyed to celebrate their wedding. Everyone left after eating the cake, with a strange effect. Gertrudis once again was the first it affected, arousing her in sexual desire. Her and her husband with many more couples and people left with an excuse while Esperanza and Alex packed their suitcases and left to a hotel. Leaving Tita and Pedro free of sharing their emotions and they made love the first time without worrying of interruption. Tita and Pedro went into the dark room, but it was no longer dark. The furniture was rearranged and there were 250 candles lit. Tita was amazed that Pedro had worked so hard for that night, and Pedro felt impressed that Tita had done that for him, they didn’t even notice Nacha’s spirit lighting the last candle in the corner. Tita could see that a spiritual tunnel lead her to a death, but she calmed to stop herself from ending the glory. Pedro’s heart was pounding fast against hers until it stopped. She realized that he was dead and she devoured luminous candles to meet her tunnel once again. She saw Pedro through the end of the tunnel and whens he left to join him. Their body’s joined to create a fire and sparkling fireworks; the townspeople thought that it were to celebrate Esperanza’s wedding. But the fire burned for a week, and when Esperanza and Alex came back to the ranch, everything was burnt down except for a cookbook with different recipes.
Literary Elements:
Personification: “Now she admired the way they opened their skin and allowed the water to penetrate them fully, until they were split asunder to make way for new life. She imagined the pride they felt as the tip f the first root emerged from inside of them, the humility with which they accepted the loss of their previous form, and the bravery with which they showed the world their new leaves.” (Esquivel 198)
“In a case like that, you have to sing to them, which makes them happy, then they’ll cook” (Esquivel 219)
Metaphor: “Seeds didn’t have that kind of problem, they didn’t have a mother to be afraid of or a fear of those who would judge them.” (Esquivel 198)
“It was definitely true, Pedro had turned into a monster of selfishness and suspicion.” (Esquivel 212)
Simile: “It went through the window and shot out onto the patio, like a firecracker out of control” (Esquivel 200)
“They were dancing like a pair of love struck teenagers by the glow of one of the many oil lamps set up on the patio to light up the party.” (Esquivel 200)
“She felt completely empty, like a platter that held only crumbs, all that was left of a marvelous pastry.” (Esquivel 210)
“Tita couldn’t understand Pedro’s attitude; he was behaving like a child throwing a tantrum. He talked as if he was going to be sick for the rest of his days, but it wouldn’t be that long-in a little while he’d be completely healed.” (Esquivel 211)
“Tita tried to save a few diapers, but when she went to get them, she found herself being swept away b the force of the incredible whirlwind, which lifted her several feet off the ground and took her on three hellish orbits within the fury of beaks before flinging her onto the opposite end of the patio, where she landed like a sack of potatoes.”
(Esquivel 218)
“She fought with everything she had, she fought like a lioness to defend what affording to the tradition was her right- a daughter who would stay with her until she died.”
(Esquivel 239)
Hyperbole: “Her heart burst into a seething passion” (Esquivel 219)
“The house became a battlefield. Slammed doors were the order of the day.”
(Esquivel 239)
Theme: The theme of the story still hasn't changed from what i said before. Most of it is just stay committed and don't renounce love. True love can backfire and more importantly, to respect those around you and not to act impulsively.
Thoughts: Overall, this had a very good story line. Strange ending, and this book is not a book for everyone to read. I enjoyed it a lot and there are a few things that people can learn from this story.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Like Water for Chocolate 2
Shannon Wong
April 5, 2009
chapter 5-8
Tita is in a very depressed state, and she doesn’t do much but tend for a baby pigeon as a pet. She begins to ignore her duties at the ranch, and she doesn’t put any more effort to please Mama Elena. Federal troops come to raid their ranch and take chickens. With the shotgun she’s hidden in her petticoats, Mama Elena confronts them, and shot the chickens they tried to take from her ranch. They carefully hid their valuables and livestock. Word arrives from San Antonio that Roberto died unable to consume anything he was fed. Tita screams at Mama Elena saying it’s her fault that Roberto died. Mama Elena strikes her with a wooden spoon and breaks her nose. She returns to her dovecoat at a catonic state. Chencha, the new helper goes to retrieve her, and Mama Elena orders to send Tita to an asylum. Dr. John Brown comes to rescue her and Chencha brings her the enormous bedspread that she started crouching. By then it was a kilometer long.
Numb and cold, from the care of Dr. Brown, Tita is still isolated by a cold shell. She comprehends her new life away from Mama Elena’s shell. Tita encounters a figure reminding her of Nacha, an old Native American by the name of Morning Light, turning out to be the ghost of John’s grandmother. John’s house is full of experiments and medicines that fascinate Tita. She remains silent and a caring bond forms between her and the doctor. He teaches her the recipe for making matches and his theory. “My grandmother had a very interesting theory; she said that each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves; just as in the experiment, we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights on e of the matches.”
(Esquivel 115) Eventually John asks her to write with a phosphorous stick on the wall the reason she’s not talking. It turns to be that the phosphorous glows in the dark, and when he came in the lab at night, it says, “Because I don’t want to.” That was her first step of freedom.
Chencha visits Tita and brings her ox tail soup, which finally restores Tita to stability. She remembers all the recipes and different food that Nacha used to make and misses her dearly. Chencha tells Tita that a letter from Gertrudis, she’s living and working in a brothel and Tita tells Chencha to return the news to the ranch that she’s never to return. After Chencha leaves, Dr. John Brown proposes to Tita. She’s looking forward to spending her life with him. A group of bandits attack Mama Elena’s ranch and rape Chencha, defending Chencha, Mama Elena suffered a strong blow to her spine and was paralyzed from the waist down. Mama Elena had to allow Tita back to the house until she fully recovered. Tita served her ox tail soup confident that it could cure her but Mama Elena rejected her, certain that her food was poisoned. She only allowed Chencha to serve her food. One day, Chencha was unavailable and Tita prepared her food for her. Mama Elena detected a bitter taste in Tita’s food and angrily fired Chencha for trying to trick her. They hired all the cooks in the village until no one could serve Mama Elena. Within that month, Mama Elena dies from doses of ipecac she took when she feared poisoning. When dressing Mama Elena’s body, she sees a necklace with a key. Tita knew exactly which lock that key was for, remembering how she hid in Mama Elena’s dresser and seeing a box with a lock. She went to get the box and unlock it to find love letters; Mama Elena was in love with a mulatto man. Her parents forbid it and forced her to marry Tita’s father, but she continued her affair, which lead to the birth of Gertrudis. She planned to run away with her lover but he was murdered. At her funeral, she mourns Mama Elena’s love and swears to never renounce love and to marry John Brown as her companion. Without a dictate to forbid Tita to marry, Pedro was determined to have Tita.
Rosaura and Pedro had their second child, whom Tita named Esperanza refusing to let Pedro name his child Josefita. (Tita’s name) She wanted for Esperanza to have hope and she didn’t want her child to suffer from the wretched family tradition. Tita nurses Esperanza feeding her teas and gruels that Nacha did for Tita. Rosaura is bedridden due to complications of delivery and she grows jealous of the bond between Esperanza and Tita. Rosaura even confirms that Esperanza will take care of her until the day she dies. Tita is raged by the childish confrontational acts of Pedro asking for her not to marry John Brown. Tita’s anger causes her heat and the things that surround her aggravate her saying her feeling “like water for chocolate.” Chencha arrives back to the Ranch happily married. As Tita takes a break in the shower, Chencha cooks for John’s arrival. Tita feels a steam and standing outside the shower Pedro is watching her with lustful eyes. When she get’s out, she sees that Pedro and John are arguing about politics. John brings a diamond ring to confirm their wedding and leaves to America to bring his only living aunt. Tita cleans the kitchen and is confronted again by Pedro in a small room. Without any words, he takes her to the bedroom and takes her virginity. Strange phosphorous pumes were coming from the room, Rosaura and Chencha refuse to go near it from the fear that it is Mama Elena’s ghost.
Literary Elements:
Simile: “Her arrival there was like a dream/” (Esquivel 108)
Metaphor: “It was as if Mama Ellena’s spot had landed dead-center on a fire that was about to catch and had put it out. Onside she felt the effects of snuffing the flame; smoke was rising into her throat, tightening into a thick knot and clouding her eyes and making her cry.” (Esquivel 131)
“Tita was literally “like water for chocolate”-she was on the verge of boiling over. How irritable she was! (Esquivel 151)
Theme: The theme is still very similar to the first, but now it's self pleasure vs. respect of commitment and trust. Tita tries to tell herself not to renounce love, and that John is her faithful companion but she's lying to herself, and to John.
Thoughts: I think this book is a little bit inappropriate for school. Also, Tita keeps doing things that throw her off, she should stand up for the truth and face the reality and what she's doing.
April 5, 2009
chapter 5-8
Tita is in a very depressed state, and she doesn’t do much but tend for a baby pigeon as a pet. She begins to ignore her duties at the ranch, and she doesn’t put any more effort to please Mama Elena. Federal troops come to raid their ranch and take chickens. With the shotgun she’s hidden in her petticoats, Mama Elena confronts them, and shot the chickens they tried to take from her ranch. They carefully hid their valuables and livestock. Word arrives from San Antonio that Roberto died unable to consume anything he was fed. Tita screams at Mama Elena saying it’s her fault that Roberto died. Mama Elena strikes her with a wooden spoon and breaks her nose. She returns to her dovecoat at a catonic state. Chencha, the new helper goes to retrieve her, and Mama Elena orders to send Tita to an asylum. Dr. John Brown comes to rescue her and Chencha brings her the enormous bedspread that she started crouching. By then it was a kilometer long.
Numb and cold, from the care of Dr. Brown, Tita is still isolated by a cold shell. She comprehends her new life away from Mama Elena’s shell. Tita encounters a figure reminding her of Nacha, an old Native American by the name of Morning Light, turning out to be the ghost of John’s grandmother. John’s house is full of experiments and medicines that fascinate Tita. She remains silent and a caring bond forms between her and the doctor. He teaches her the recipe for making matches and his theory. “My grandmother had a very interesting theory; she said that each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves; just as in the experiment, we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights on e of the matches.”
(Esquivel 115) Eventually John asks her to write with a phosphorous stick on the wall the reason she’s not talking. It turns to be that the phosphorous glows in the dark, and when he came in the lab at night, it says, “Because I don’t want to.” That was her first step of freedom.
Chencha visits Tita and brings her ox tail soup, which finally restores Tita to stability. She remembers all the recipes and different food that Nacha used to make and misses her dearly. Chencha tells Tita that a letter from Gertrudis, she’s living and working in a brothel and Tita tells Chencha to return the news to the ranch that she’s never to return. After Chencha leaves, Dr. John Brown proposes to Tita. She’s looking forward to spending her life with him. A group of bandits attack Mama Elena’s ranch and rape Chencha, defending Chencha, Mama Elena suffered a strong blow to her spine and was paralyzed from the waist down. Mama Elena had to allow Tita back to the house until she fully recovered. Tita served her ox tail soup confident that it could cure her but Mama Elena rejected her, certain that her food was poisoned. She only allowed Chencha to serve her food. One day, Chencha was unavailable and Tita prepared her food for her. Mama Elena detected a bitter taste in Tita’s food and angrily fired Chencha for trying to trick her. They hired all the cooks in the village until no one could serve Mama Elena. Within that month, Mama Elena dies from doses of ipecac she took when she feared poisoning. When dressing Mama Elena’s body, she sees a necklace with a key. Tita knew exactly which lock that key was for, remembering how she hid in Mama Elena’s dresser and seeing a box with a lock. She went to get the box and unlock it to find love letters; Mama Elena was in love with a mulatto man. Her parents forbid it and forced her to marry Tita’s father, but she continued her affair, which lead to the birth of Gertrudis. She planned to run away with her lover but he was murdered. At her funeral, she mourns Mama Elena’s love and swears to never renounce love and to marry John Brown as her companion. Without a dictate to forbid Tita to marry, Pedro was determined to have Tita.
Rosaura and Pedro had their second child, whom Tita named Esperanza refusing to let Pedro name his child Josefita. (Tita’s name) She wanted for Esperanza to have hope and she didn’t want her child to suffer from the wretched family tradition. Tita nurses Esperanza feeding her teas and gruels that Nacha did for Tita. Rosaura is bedridden due to complications of delivery and she grows jealous of the bond between Esperanza and Tita. Rosaura even confirms that Esperanza will take care of her until the day she dies. Tita is raged by the childish confrontational acts of Pedro asking for her not to marry John Brown. Tita’s anger causes her heat and the things that surround her aggravate her saying her feeling “like water for chocolate.” Chencha arrives back to the Ranch happily married. As Tita takes a break in the shower, Chencha cooks for John’s arrival. Tita feels a steam and standing outside the shower Pedro is watching her with lustful eyes. When she get’s out, she sees that Pedro and John are arguing about politics. John brings a diamond ring to confirm their wedding and leaves to America to bring his only living aunt. Tita cleans the kitchen and is confronted again by Pedro in a small room. Without any words, he takes her to the bedroom and takes her virginity. Strange phosphorous pumes were coming from the room, Rosaura and Chencha refuse to go near it from the fear that it is Mama Elena’s ghost.
Literary Elements:
Simile: “Her arrival there was like a dream/” (Esquivel 108)
Metaphor: “It was as if Mama Ellena’s spot had landed dead-center on a fire that was about to catch and had put it out. Onside she felt the effects of snuffing the flame; smoke was rising into her throat, tightening into a thick knot and clouding her eyes and making her cry.” (Esquivel 131)
“Tita was literally “like water for chocolate”-she was on the verge of boiling over. How irritable she was! (Esquivel 151)
Theme: The theme is still very similar to the first, but now it's self pleasure vs. respect of commitment and trust. Tita tries to tell herself not to renounce love, and that John is her faithful companion but she's lying to herself, and to John.
Thoughts: I think this book is a little bit inappropriate for school. Also, Tita keeps doing things that throw her off, she should stand up for the truth and face the reality and what she's doing.
Like Water for Chocolate 1
Shannon Wong
April 5, 2009
Chapters 1-4
The narrator begins by telling us his/her experience with chopping onions and confesses that when they’ve chopped onions that they can’t help but cry. “Mama used to say it was because I was especially sensitive to onions, like my great aunt. Tita” (Esquivel 5) The protagonist of this novel, Tita, is swept into the world on a tide of tears. Tita’s father died two days after she was born, and Mama Elena’s breast milk dried of shock. With teas and different remedies, Nacha, the house cook, took care of Tita in the kitchen, where Tita was culinary educated. Tita grows up in the kitchen, and creates her realm of isolation from her older sisters Gertrudis and Rosaura. Mama Elena demands a steady routine of cooking, sewing, cleaning and prayer at her Ranch, also a family tradition that the youngest daughter has to take care of her mother until the day she dies. Pedro Muzquiz, a suitor comes to pay the De La Garza family a visit, to ask for Tita’s hand in marriage, and being that Tita is the youngest daughter, Mama Elena offers her second daughter, Rosaura’s hand instead. Privately, Tita questions her family’s traditions and maintains her relationship with Pedro. Nacha overhears a conversation with Pedro and his father, to agree that he will marry Rosaura to be closer to Tita in the house. Tita’s favorite food, Christmas Roll couldn’t cure her sadness. Suffering from insomnia, Tita works on a bedspread.
Tita and Nacha are to prepare a Chabela Wedding Cake for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding, requiring 170 eggs, and 200 roosters to be served as capons. Tita begins to hallucinate from shock and depression and even Nacha began to breakdown. When Mama Elena leaves the kitchen, Tita is encouraged to let her emotions release her emotions before she does at the wedding, and she cries while Nacha continues to cook. The next day, Tita runs into Pedro in the garden after picking apricots. Pedro tries to explain himself, but Tita refuses to listen to him. Tita and Nacha continue preparing the cake, Tita’s tears soak the icing, so Nacha insists that she get’s rest, then she tries the icing to taste if it has become salty, the flavor is unchanged, but suddenly she feels emotional and remembers her own lost of youthful love. She becomes sick, and cannot attend the wedding. At the wedding, Tita is harassed by the guests of their comments about how her love married her older sister. She is forced to face Pedro, and he confesses to her that he still only desires her, and she is then filled with warmth. She takes a piece of cake and leaves the party. Then every one at the wedding party was feeling of heartbreak and longing, like Nacha before. People began vomiting and the wedding party was ruined. Mama Elena and Rosaura were furious and convinced that Tita had poisoned the cake. Tita could not seek defense finding that Nacha dead with a portrait of her lost lover.
With Nacha dead, Tita inherits the role of the ranch cook. Pedro secretly gives Tita roses, and she prepares a meal of qual in rose petal sauce. Nacha transmits secrets and gives her the recipe. The family is ecstatic about this dish, and pedro give a good response by always complimenting her cooking. Rosaura get’s very self conscious because he doesn’t pay her much attention or affection. The dish takes extreme effect on Gertrudis, as a aphrodisiac, arousing her for sexual desire. The emotion pulses to Pedro and Tita and they become in a trance at the dinner table. Afterwards, Gertrudis goes to take a bath from the pink rose aroma sweat that she emitted. Her heat and passion caused the water to evaporate and the contact set the structure on fire. She fled from the bath completely naked and was taken away on a galloping horse with a soldier in the revolutionary army drawn by her scent. They rode off, leaving Pedro and Tita envious that they couldn’t make love freely and run away together like Gertrudis.
Pedro and Rosaura are expected to have a baby and Tita prepares a special meal for the baptism of her nephew. She has unexpected joy and her faith in her relationship with Pedro is restored. The narrator tells about how during Rosaura’s labor the federal troops were occupying the village and there were no doctors around. Pedro left to fetch a doctor and Tita stayed with Rosaura to birth the baby. It was a difficult delivery, but Nacha’s spiritual voice guided her through the steps. Rosaura’s body didn’t produce milk for the hungy child, Roberto, so Tita tries to nurse him with milk. He rejected. She offers him her breasts, as a pacifier, and somehow she was full of milk. Pedro discovers Tita’s secret ways of nursing Roberto and they keep it from the family, making a stronger bond between the two of them. Mama Elena senses a connection from the two of them and she becomes suspicious. For the party to congradulate the birth and baptism of Roberto, Doctor John Brown has an attraction to Tita, seeing that she's grown up. Mama Elena tells him that she cannot break the family tradition. She tells new about sending Roberto, Rosaura and Pedro to San Antonio, saying that there will be better medical attention there for Rosaura. It’s devastating news for Tita to be away from her nephew and Pedro. "Meanwhile, Mama Elena had managed to ruin the party for her. The first party in her life that she had enjoyed." (Esquivel 81)
Literary Elements:
Foreshadowing: “Tita had no need for the usual slap on the bottom. Because she was already crying as she emerged, maybe that was because she knew then that it would be her lot in life to be denied marriage.” (Esquivel 6)
Metaphor: “The way Nacha told it, Tita was literally washed into this world on a great tide of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded across the kitchen floor.” (Esquivel 6)
“Tita liked to take a deep breath and let the characteristic smoke and smell transport her through the recesses of her memory” ((Esquivel 8)
“Their voices grew less and less audible, drowned out by the crackling of dried leaves beneath their feet.” (Esquivel 15)
Hyperbole: “Yes, a thousand times. From that night on she would love him forever” (Esquivel 25)
Simile: “Isn’t that something? Your ma talks about being ready for marriage like she was dishing up a plate of enchiladas!” (Esquivel 14)
“in one sharp, quick blast she was so cold and dry her cheeks burned and turned red, red as the apples beside her.” (Esquivel 14)
Personification: “She felt she had the best chance of “educating the innocent child’s stomach,” even thought she had never married or had children.” (Esquivel 6)
“But once, Tita managed to convince them to join her in watchin the dazzling display mad by dancing water drops dribbled on a red hot griddle” (Esquivel 8)
Alliteration: “she didn’t speak a single word to her.” (Esquivel 12)
“The eggs are place in a cask containing crumbled sheep fodder” (Esquivel 25)
Symbolism: “That world was an endless expanse that began at the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house, whereas everything on the kitchen side of that door, on through the door leading to the patio and the kitchen and herd gardens was completely hers-it was Tita’s realm.” (Esquivel 6)
Theme: The theme for the beginning of the book is the about self pleasure/ needs vs. respect to your family. Tita, as anyone would, in this situation sneaks around and lies to her family. She is very connected and dependent on Pedro, and that may harm her for any future evens that may happen.
Thoughts: This novel started out pretty well, I was enjoying it until i got to the middle of the book, Tita has a very tragic life, being the youngest daughter of the De La Garza family.
April 5, 2009
Chapters 1-4
The narrator begins by telling us his/her experience with chopping onions and confesses that when they’ve chopped onions that they can’t help but cry. “Mama used to say it was because I was especially sensitive to onions, like my great aunt. Tita” (Esquivel 5) The protagonist of this novel, Tita, is swept into the world on a tide of tears. Tita’s father died two days after she was born, and Mama Elena’s breast milk dried of shock. With teas and different remedies, Nacha, the house cook, took care of Tita in the kitchen, where Tita was culinary educated. Tita grows up in the kitchen, and creates her realm of isolation from her older sisters Gertrudis and Rosaura. Mama Elena demands a steady routine of cooking, sewing, cleaning and prayer at her Ranch, also a family tradition that the youngest daughter has to take care of her mother until the day she dies. Pedro Muzquiz, a suitor comes to pay the De La Garza family a visit, to ask for Tita’s hand in marriage, and being that Tita is the youngest daughter, Mama Elena offers her second daughter, Rosaura’s hand instead. Privately, Tita questions her family’s traditions and maintains her relationship with Pedro. Nacha overhears a conversation with Pedro and his father, to agree that he will marry Rosaura to be closer to Tita in the house. Tita’s favorite food, Christmas Roll couldn’t cure her sadness. Suffering from insomnia, Tita works on a bedspread.
Tita and Nacha are to prepare a Chabela Wedding Cake for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding, requiring 170 eggs, and 200 roosters to be served as capons. Tita begins to hallucinate from shock and depression and even Nacha began to breakdown. When Mama Elena leaves the kitchen, Tita is encouraged to let her emotions release her emotions before she does at the wedding, and she cries while Nacha continues to cook. The next day, Tita runs into Pedro in the garden after picking apricots. Pedro tries to explain himself, but Tita refuses to listen to him. Tita and Nacha continue preparing the cake, Tita’s tears soak the icing, so Nacha insists that she get’s rest, then she tries the icing to taste if it has become salty, the flavor is unchanged, but suddenly she feels emotional and remembers her own lost of youthful love. She becomes sick, and cannot attend the wedding. At the wedding, Tita is harassed by the guests of their comments about how her love married her older sister. She is forced to face Pedro, and he confesses to her that he still only desires her, and she is then filled with warmth. She takes a piece of cake and leaves the party. Then every one at the wedding party was feeling of heartbreak and longing, like Nacha before. People began vomiting and the wedding party was ruined. Mama Elena and Rosaura were furious and convinced that Tita had poisoned the cake. Tita could not seek defense finding that Nacha dead with a portrait of her lost lover.
With Nacha dead, Tita inherits the role of the ranch cook. Pedro secretly gives Tita roses, and she prepares a meal of qual in rose petal sauce. Nacha transmits secrets and gives her the recipe. The family is ecstatic about this dish, and pedro give a good response by always complimenting her cooking. Rosaura get’s very self conscious because he doesn’t pay her much attention or affection. The dish takes extreme effect on Gertrudis, as a aphrodisiac, arousing her for sexual desire. The emotion pulses to Pedro and Tita and they become in a trance at the dinner table. Afterwards, Gertrudis goes to take a bath from the pink rose aroma sweat that she emitted. Her heat and passion caused the water to evaporate and the contact set the structure on fire. She fled from the bath completely naked and was taken away on a galloping horse with a soldier in the revolutionary army drawn by her scent. They rode off, leaving Pedro and Tita envious that they couldn’t make love freely and run away together like Gertrudis.
Pedro and Rosaura are expected to have a baby and Tita prepares a special meal for the baptism of her nephew. She has unexpected joy and her faith in her relationship with Pedro is restored. The narrator tells about how during Rosaura’s labor the federal troops were occupying the village and there were no doctors around. Pedro left to fetch a doctor and Tita stayed with Rosaura to birth the baby. It was a difficult delivery, but Nacha’s spiritual voice guided her through the steps. Rosaura’s body didn’t produce milk for the hungy child, Roberto, so Tita tries to nurse him with milk. He rejected. She offers him her breasts, as a pacifier, and somehow she was full of milk. Pedro discovers Tita’s secret ways of nursing Roberto and they keep it from the family, making a stronger bond between the two of them. Mama Elena senses a connection from the two of them and she becomes suspicious. For the party to congradulate the birth and baptism of Roberto, Doctor John Brown has an attraction to Tita, seeing that she's grown up. Mama Elena tells him that she cannot break the family tradition. She tells new about sending Roberto, Rosaura and Pedro to San Antonio, saying that there will be better medical attention there for Rosaura. It’s devastating news for Tita to be away from her nephew and Pedro. "Meanwhile, Mama Elena had managed to ruin the party for her. The first party in her life that she had enjoyed." (Esquivel 81)
Literary Elements:
Foreshadowing: “Tita had no need for the usual slap on the bottom. Because she was already crying as she emerged, maybe that was because she knew then that it would be her lot in life to be denied marriage.” (Esquivel 6)
Metaphor: “The way Nacha told it, Tita was literally washed into this world on a great tide of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded across the kitchen floor.” (Esquivel 6)
“Tita liked to take a deep breath and let the characteristic smoke and smell transport her through the recesses of her memory” ((Esquivel 8)
“Their voices grew less and less audible, drowned out by the crackling of dried leaves beneath their feet.” (Esquivel 15)
Hyperbole: “Yes, a thousand times. From that night on she would love him forever” (Esquivel 25)
Simile: “Isn’t that something? Your ma talks about being ready for marriage like she was dishing up a plate of enchiladas!” (Esquivel 14)
“in one sharp, quick blast she was so cold and dry her cheeks burned and turned red, red as the apples beside her.” (Esquivel 14)
Personification: “She felt she had the best chance of “educating the innocent child’s stomach,” even thought she had never married or had children.” (Esquivel 6)
“But once, Tita managed to convince them to join her in watchin the dazzling display mad by dancing water drops dribbled on a red hot griddle” (Esquivel 8)
Alliteration: “she didn’t speak a single word to her.” (Esquivel 12)
“The eggs are place in a cask containing crumbled sheep fodder” (Esquivel 25)
Symbolism: “That world was an endless expanse that began at the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house, whereas everything on the kitchen side of that door, on through the door leading to the patio and the kitchen and herd gardens was completely hers-it was Tita’s realm.” (Esquivel 6)
Theme: The theme for the beginning of the book is the about self pleasure/ needs vs. respect to your family. Tita, as anyone would, in this situation sneaks around and lies to her family. She is very connected and dependent on Pedro, and that may harm her for any future evens that may happen.
Thoughts: This novel started out pretty well, I was enjoying it until i got to the middle of the book, Tita has a very tragic life, being the youngest daughter of the De La Garza family.
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