Why why why… again

Throughout the story Like Water For Chocolate, Laura Esquival uses imagery such as cold to represent sadness and heat to represent love and passion. Then, once again, I had to ask why.

Let me pull you back to my previous post, How does this Relate to us? (http://10tops.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/how-does-this-relate-to-us/), by noting that this imagery is not exclusive to this book. If you look at any of the works we studied, and many more that we didn’t, you’ll find this type of imagery. So the question arises, why is this imagery so common? Obviously, there must be a universal understanding of these images.

Let me pull you out of my previous post so that we may explore these images in more depth. What is it that makes the relation between cold and sadness so logical? I suppose that being cold is bad and so is being sad: a distant relation at best. However, there are people who have never expeirienced cold, yet they still understand this metaphor. It seems that this is another thing that people are born understanding… but why?

It is my own personal belief that everything has a purpose; when you look at nature, you see developments that all have purposes: long necks to reach high branches, patterned skin to blend in with surrounding plants, the list goes on. But what I don’t understand is, what possible purpose could such an understaning of heat and passion have? Could nature have made a mistake? It’s not likely. So what is the root of this understanding?

I believe the answer to this question lies in the lymbic brain: the part that deals with instinct. Scientists believe that the lymbic brain used to be much more developed than it is today, however, as humans developed speech and higher concious thought, the lymbic brain was lost and much of our instinct with it. All that remains is that funny feeling that someone is watching you, or that gut feeling you get when you first meet someone. But that leaves us with yet another question; how did people communicate before speech: back when the lymbic brain was more developed?

If we look at our friends the animals, we can tell that they are communicating, yet we can detect no form of communication through speech. This is where my theory lies. I believe that, back before humans had speech, communication was much more rudimentary. In this system, thoughts and ideas were conveyed through emotions and feelings. How these emotions wer transported remains a mystery, however it probably has something to do with the inuition that still remains with us today. This system of communication became obsolete with the development of speech and slowly disappeared, however our innate sense of whichc ideas are related to certain emotions stuck with us.

This may seem a little far fetched, but it certainly explains a lot. I thought about this for a while, and this is the answer that makes the most sense to me, but if you disagree, then please, tell us all what you have to say on the matter: I am intrigued as to what people have to say on this matter. So, as usual, have at it!

 

Food and Magic

            Throughout this book there have been many instances of magic realism, most of which are associated with the food Tita creates. As Tita’s rebelliousness began to grow her strong emotions were reflected in the food she cooked. Before she had the courage to directly stand up to Mama Elena the food she cooked was the medium to express her feelings. This brings up the question: why food was subject to so much magic realism?

I think the reason why magic realism was applied to food is because of how universal it is. Whereas music and art only apply to some of us, food is in all of our lives. Since magic realism is all about mixing the magic with what’s real, food is the ideal choice. We’ve all heard of metaphors exaggerating the taste of food, but Laura Esquivel’s descriptions of the effects of food are much more elaborate. It’s so descriptive that sometimes we doubt our ideals of what’s real by reading the effects of the recipes. By using food as the medium the author was able to smoothly meld together the magical and real aspects of each chapter.

Apart from magic realism food is also used because it is very appealing to the senses. While music can only affect the ears food makes use of many senses. Mentions of sizzling oil and crumbling crusts (bad examples I know) are always able to light a few senses.

 

Apart from the reasons I said why else do you think the author chose food?

 

Fire and water

Whew. Getting through the blog… Oh my goodness… A week’s worth of posts… Wish me luck!

Anyway. To business. As seen in past posts, there’s a great deal of fire imagery going on. Some examples. On p.55, we have red-hot fiery Gertrudis up in flames. Her passion evaporates hundreds of gallons of water. She feels her body burning up; she is luminous and glowing with energy. She’s desperate for a man to quench the fire raging inside her. Chapter six, June, is all about fire. The recipe is making matches. What a change. The recipe isn’t even edible! Something must be going on… I’ll continue with this example later. Finally, on p.244, a fire burns so intensely it kills Tita and Pedro, burns down the house, and leaves everything in ashes. Not an image we’re likely to forget.

On to water. Even though the whole book has so much intense imagery of fire fire fire, what is the first image we see? Water water water. Onions and tears and crying and Tita washing into the world in a wave that spills over the table and floods the kitchen. Hm… On p.30, Tita cries so much because of Pedro marrying Rosaura that the cake batter won’t thicken. On p.125, Tita breaks down finally after her insanity attack. The ox-tail soup Chencha makes Tita cry. She must be crying torrents, because there’s a stream running down the stairs!

So what’s this all about? Here’s my view.

Back to the June example, up in the fire paragraph. On p.115, we have the matches of our soul. They are ignited by emotion, and dampened by the lack of nourishment. The matches must be lit to keep the soul alive, yet this lighting cannot be overdone, or the explosion would be so dazzling it would light the path for the soul to return to where it came from.

I think the key thing is balance. The matches must be lit not too fast, not too slow. Tita, Pedro, and Nacha died of the former. Did Mama Elena die of the latter? The matches can be on fire, or full of water. When there is a lot of intensity, love, and emotion, fire imagery is apparent. When Tita’s matches are in danger of dying out, we see water in the form of tears. Even conflict happens because of imbalance of fire and water. Mama Elena is too watery (cold and non-feeling), and Tita is too fiery (in the sense of her love towards Pedro). Because of this clash, they can’t get along. This reminds me of those Elizabethan humours. The point is, so many of the events seem to revolve around this recurring match business. Remember how the recipe is special because it’s not edible?

I think this is stretching the balance concept a bit far, but even the match chapter is right in the center of the book. June is the sixth month, half of twelve…

What are your opinions?

 

Ghosts, or are They?

Several other people, especially Kelly, have skirted around this one, but it’s a big topic, so I think it deserves it’s own thread.

If you have ever watched a Warner Bros. cartoon, it is very likely that you have encountered that little angel and devil that stand atop characters’ shoulders. Maybe not in that exact form, but if you watch TV, you’ve probably seen this used before. The shoulder angel and shoulder devil, are somewhat of a convention that are used to represent the concious of the character in question. You often hear arguments or other dialogue that represent what the character is thinking. Basically, it’s just another way of letting the audience know what people are thnking. In Like Water For Chocolate, the use of ghost is representative of the characters thoughts. (yes, that’s right, it’s in essay format)

We see this for the first time when Tita is at Dr. Brown’s house. When Tita is in the kitchen, she sees a Native woman, with a long black braid. This woman is cooking various dishes, which remind Tita of home. Later, we find out that this woman is, indeed, a ghost. We know from the context of the story, that Tita is troubled about leaving the ranch, and that she misses the food back home. The author is using this ghost to show us how, while Tita does not want to go back to Mama Elena, she misses the home that she left behind. This could be done through simple explanation, but the use of the paranormal makes the story much more interesting.

More importantly, you see this with Mama Elena’s ‘ghost’, when she curses Tita. Again, we know from the story that Tita is feeling very guity about her affair with Pedro. When the ghos of Mama Elena appears, it shames Tita for what she has done, and curses her baby. This feeling of shame, is probably what Tita is feeling at that moment; after all, she is an engaged woman, who just had sex with her sister’s husband. Again, the author is using a ghost to convey a message, instead of just telling us what’s goig on.

The point I’m trying to get across, is that I don’t believe that the ghosts are actually ‘ghosts’, but a way of representing something else. I say they represent the characters inner thoughts, but that’s just my opinion. What I want to know is, what do you think the ghosts in this story represent. Remember, this is one of those open ended questions; there are no whong answers, so have at it!

 

Ghosts and Light

In “Like Water for Chocolate” the ghosts of people help move the story forward, and adds problems or gives solutions to other characters. John’s Grandmother came to Tita as a ghost. She helped Tita heal from her broken heart and soul by being a silent friend who appeared to understand what Tita needed. She also “looked a lot like Nacha” (p.110) which must have brought even more comfort to Tita.

It wasn’t Nacha’s ghost (p.243) nor the grandmother’s ghost that had real importance. It was mama Elena’s ghost which really had a lot of influence on the events of the book. She was the only ghost in the book that knew how to talk. Her first visit as a ghost on p.173 confirms for us Tita’s pregnancy. She curses the baby, but that wasn’t important; it was the fact that she came and created more worry for Tita by confirming for Tita that she’s pregnant with Pedro’s child.  Then on p.199, when Pedro was singing a love song under Tita’s window, Mama Elena came again to critisize her daughter. This time, Tita had already found out about Gertrudis’ father, and told Elena as much. In her fiery and anger at being told that she was hated by her own daughter, she became a light and tried to kill Pedro. In some sense, she also killed Tita’s unborn child (maybe?).

The light is another thing. It seems to be connected to ghosts in  the story. When Chencha saw lights in the dark room which was caused by Tita and Pedro, she had thought it was Mama Elena’s ghost. This light represented happiness and joy. (p.158-9)
Then, when mama Elena’s ghost disappeared, she became a tinny “speck of light”(p.199). That light had been an angery light.
When Nacha’s ghost appeared at the end of the book, she was lighting candles, and disappeared after she lit all of them (p.243). It was a light of support.
John’s grandmother, as we find on p.111 is called Morning Light. In this case I think that the light meant hope and a new begining; like the first sign of light in a morning after a night of rain and storms.
On p.54 Gertrudis gave off so much heat that she lit the wooden walls of the bath on fire. Fire is another imager of light, and this time, it represents the heat of passion.

The light is a recurring imagery, but it represents many things. The only thing that is constant is that whenever there is mention of light, we know that something is going to happen or that change is comming. The ghosts as well bring a different mood when they come, and change seem to follow in  their wake.