Like Water for Chocolate Reader Response

Like Water for Chocolate

            Deep, dark, romantic, and delicious were a few words that came into my head while reading “Like Water for Chocolate”. Not only is this a passionate yet torturing love story, it also appeals and pleases the reader’s appetite, leaving one hungry. I loved this novel, when I began reading it, I could not hardly put it down. I will admit when the novel had me confused in the beginning with the recipes, but after I started thinking of how Esquivel was incorporating them with the emotions of the characters everything was clear.

            Tita was the character that I related to the most, but I found Gertrudis to be the most interesting and exciting. Not only for her brave naked escape, but for her tough girl attitude and power over men by leading an army, this astonished me because normally in society and different cultures, women aren’t supposed to have that kind of power. From the novel, I decided that on a certain societal level that in order to be happy in life, one would need to be a mixture between Tita and Gerturdis. When it comes to love I can relate to Tita through how passionate she is with many things in her life such as cooking, Pedro, and being in love, except I am passionate more about writing and love. I also liked that I could relate to Gertrudis because she is a leader who in my opinion is a strong independent woman, which is what I in the end hope to be. The characters I despised and couldn’t relate to were Mama Elena and Rosaura, both had different views and opinions on life and how to act that I was not used to, but I can see where they were coming from.

            This novel was so enjoyable, every chapter was described in so much detail that it was hard to not feel as though I was one of the characters myself. Each chapter was laid out and detailed to where it was easy to picture the dishes that were being made or what was going on in that point in time. My favorite part of the novel was the chicken tornado, not only is it crazy and random, but while reading I actually could picture the feathers going everywhere, and see the chickens fighting. Another well detailed part of the novel was when the soldiers came to raid Mama Elena’s home, I could actually envision her standing with the gun and standing her ground to make them leave.

            Overall if I had to pick another love story that relates to the one in “Like Water for Chocolate”, I would choose “Romeo and Juliet” because both can relate in different ways. In “Romeo and Juliet” both families did not like each other and didn’t want Romeo and Juliet together, in “Like Water for Chocolate” Mama Elena did not want Tita marrying Pedro or else she would lose her life servant. In Romeo and Juliet, both would secretly visit one another, just as Pedro and Tita would do. In the end, both sets of characters though not in the same way ended up with their lovers in the end. I think it is uncanny how closely the two love stories can be related, yet how culturally different the views are that makes both different.

            This was one of my favorite novels that I have read in a while, the detail, point of view the story was told through, and characters make it interesting and very enjoyable. I would strongly recommend anyone who is not ethnocentric to read “Like Water for Chocolate” in order to get an idea of Mexican cultures and to view what is going on in the novel through a different perspective.