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.