What we know for sure in this book is that Tita has been under her mother’s control ever since she was born. Her sisters and her were told to cook, clean and pray during their youth in the ranch. Everything in the ranch was under Mama Elina’s control. It’s even harder for Tita as the youngest because even her love life is controlled by her mother. However, after her mother sent her away with John Brown because she thought Tita was not sane, Tita finally enjoys life away from the ranch and wishes never to return. It is in this chapter that we assume Tita has finally escaped her mother’s tormenting. She enjoys her life with John who shows her a recipe to making matches. Tita and John begin to form a great bond with each other.

However, when Tita returns to the ranch to announce her marriage with John, a group of bandits have raged the ranch and raped Chencha and abused Mama Elina. Tita is forced to stay at the ranch to take care of her mother and Chencha. Mama Elina had rejected Tita’s offer and it seems that even her injured mother had control over her. At Mama Elina’s funeral, Tita mourned about her mother’s death but it didn’t stop her from wanting to get married to John while still having feelings for Pedro. The person who controlled her whole life was finally gone. Deep down, Tita was probably relieved. However, Pedro’s attempts to pursued Tita into not marrying John and Rosura’s announcement of not allowing the youngest daughter get married caused Tita to rage. After Pedro takes Tita’s virginity, Tita sees Mama Elina’s ghost who curses the unborn baby and Pedro. Even when Mama Elina was not there, her ghost has still more power over Tita than herself. This makes me wonder if Tita will ever be able to free herself from the ranch and the presence of her mother. Tita has started to rebel from her mother but her mother’s words and actions still have impacts on Tita who is now a grown young lady already. She has not escaped from Pedro, Rosura and the ranch. This makes me wonder if Tita will ever have a “happy ever after”.

After reading half of the novel we are able to see that it’s not hard to find that the narrative is about the world of women. Except for Pedro and the doctor who loves Tita, John, and those revolutionary army in the historical background of the Mexican Revolution. This novel with a narrative theme of cooking naturally surrounds women characters. This also reflects on our daily life normally when we relate cooking with women. In Japan, the mother’s first requirement for a daughter is to do housework, especially cooking. Because letting men do housework harms men’s “masculinity.”Food,now beyond the need for fruit, grows from the rigid demand for survival to the soft obedience of women. But now with the development of the socio-economic and feminist movements women are free from the kitchen.(actually in China someplace man is always in the kitchen) Cooking to women and freedom is like the theme of this novel. Author Laura Esquivel use Tita’s life as a case study to reveal the tradition that influenced Mexican people at that time. Freedom from tradition is a significant theme that Esquivel discussed extensively in the novel. Her examination of this topic is intriguing since it raises several questions in the minds of readers. For example, the audience wonders why the traditions depicted in the novel were mostly applicable to the female gender. moreover, the readers may want to know the captives of tradition beliefs in the story desire freedom from traditions as a thought provoking subject because it compares Tita’s quest for freedom from her mother to Esperanza, her niece’s ,liberty to a happy marital union.
    The author uses Esperanza’s marriage as a case study to discuss the theme of freedom from tradition. Esperanza is Rosaura’s last born child. As a result ,the Mexican tradition forbids her from getting married until the mother dies. However, Esquivel’s presentation of Esperanza’s predicament as the last born child in her family is different from her portrayal of Tita’s situation.For example, while Tita struggles to obtain freedom from the family’s tradition, Esperanza gains liberty without a fight. In this case Esperanza’s mother dies of natural cause and free her from the traditional bondage. Unlike Tita, Esperanza’s life is devoid of humiliation, anger, and ill-treatment from her mother. Therefore, the author reveals contrasting personal experiences of these characters. Moreover, Esperanza’s freedom from the traditional bondage enables her to enjoy a marital life on earth. However , Esquivel depicts Esperanza as a character who achieves freedom effortlessly and lives a happy life.
    While both Tita and Esperanza are born last in their families, the author depict their struggles to gain freedom in distinct ways. Tita fights to obtain freedom to enjoy a marital union but fail when the partner dies abruptly. In contrast, Esperanza attains liberation from the family bondage effortlessly and enjoys her marriage form a longer time. Moreover the author fails to portray Esperanza as a prisoner of the Mexican tradition in the same way she describes the predicament of Tita in the novel.

Starting from chapter May, Tita finally showed all her anger towards Mama Elena, due to Roberto’s death. Tita humiliated Mama Elena in front of everyone by blaming Roberto’s death on her. Mama Elena obviously didn’t take it well and put all her anger on Tita by breaking her nose. In this scene Mama Elena let out all her anger, so angry that she disowns Tita. This was probably the first time anyone dared to blame and humiliate  Mama Elena for anything. She was always a figure that everyone looked up to and never dared to disobey. 

Roberto’s death completely changed the whole story of “Like Water for Chocolate”. I think Esquirel put this part in, in a way Tita escapes her mother. The story can’t always be Tita being scared and always in her mother’s control. Tita has to grow up and change her life. 

Going back to the traumatic incident, Tita is now living free. Even though Tita is now free, she still feels trapped. She is deeply depressed by the incident. I feel like Tita doesn’t have high self esteem. Every time she encounters something “bad” or “sad” she loses hope for everything. For example when Pedro got married and when Roberto moved away, she made it sound like the whole world is falling and loses interest in life. Even when she is free from Mama Elena, she feels so sad and depressed that she almost took her own life. I think when Mama Elena called her crazy, it is half true.

Mama Elena on the other hand  is really crazy. After reading from chapter May to July, Mama Elena is really a bad mother. We heard  a lot about Mama Elena’s story of when she was young. She once also had someone she really loved, but were separated. Their relationship went on a secret for a long time, even when he died. This experience affected her badly, and I think this is the reason she treated Gertrudis and Tita this way. Gertrudis incident is very familiar with Mama Elena. They both tried to run away, but Gertrudis succeeded and Mama Elena didn’t. This is the reason why mama Elena disowned her daughter and even said she was “dead”. This part was really confusing to me because, a mother should always be support their own child, and give them everything they once didn’t have. After hearing that Gertrudis ran away, Mama Elena shut Gertrudis away forever, like she never existed. She did the same with Tita, when she rebelled. 

In chapter July, food once played a significant part in the story. It was the ox-tailed soup that brought Tita back to life again. While taking a sip of the soup she remembered about Nacha again. Even though Nacha died really early in the story, she made multiple appearances in Tita life. These were all Tita’a imagination, but she made it sound like Nacha was never gone. In this book I feel Nacha is the one that truly understands Tita, and that’s why the author keeps bringing her back into the story.

As I read further into Tita’s life and her developing personality as the months go on, I can’t help but wonder if Tita is actually happy with her life. 

Having read up until October, we see Tita develop into a young adult who is more than confused about love, relationships, life, and just making her own decisions rather than having Mama Elena speak for her. Tita’s unhappiness was always a part of the novel, perhaps even the minute she was born as she “… washed into this world on a great tide of tears…” (January pg 6). Tita’s dramatic entrance into the world definitely foreshadows how many more tears she is destined to shed throughout her life. Her unhappiness is announced once again when Pedro marries her sister, which causes her great grief, so much so that she cries magical tears into his wedding cake. However, the climax of her life develops once she stands up to Mama Elena and blames her mother for the death of Pedro’s son. We see Tita having a nervous breakdown as she starts to act crazy and interact with dead people as well as having suicidal thoughts. Regardless, John takes her out of this phase in her life as he confesses his love to her and sparks a new hope for her to live for. 

Furthermore, the death of Mama Elena doesn’t traumatize Tita as much and she doesn’t let it affect her fixing her marriage to John. At this point, Pedro makes a re-entry into Tita’s life and she is swept up once again with her feelings for him. With no Mama Elena around to suspect and stop Tita from her lustful desires, Pedro takes away her virginity. From this point, Tita seems to have changed and the little hope or happiness she was gravitating towards ends too. Tita “… mourns for the Three Kings’ days of her childhood, when she didn’t have such serious problems” (September 167). Tita starts interacting with the dead once again, this time her deceased mother, as she curses her and Pedro’s unborn baby. Tita’s nervous breakdowns begin every time she disrespects her mother or goes against her wishes. This makes me wonder if Tita needed her mother to stay sane even though she was driving her insane when she was alive. Tita’s relationship with herself seems to be at stake now as she has no one left to turn to to guide her and help her find peace and happiness. 

word count: 414

Although we have not finished the entire book Like water for Chocolate, it is seen that Tita grew up and spent her life in a very traditional family. This book was written in the twentieth century and we can assume that majority of the households in many different countries were very traditional in different ways. 

Tita’s biological mother Mama Elena focused on not allowing her last born daughter to marry or fall in love with anyone because she has to take care of Mama Elena until she dies. Tita was also forced to do all the work in the kitchen and do as she was told. Tita never had the chance to go against her mother or disagree with her because she would be physically and emotionally abused by Mama Elena. Mama Elena focused on her older daughters and their well being instead of Tita’s. Mama Elena knew that Pedro and Tita loved each other but she forced Pedro and Rosaura to marry and forced Pedro and Tita to separate from each other. I think what Mama Elena does in the book was common in the twentieth century because people didn’t have much freedom and there were strict rules in  each household. People usually focused on their first borns and gave attention to them so they can succeed and lead the household. 21st century has been a change to society and now we can do more things that we want to and focus on each others well being instead of just one person. Traditional lives still exist today but it’s not as severe as it was before like in Tita’s household. Tita was physically and psychologically abused throughout the chapters but we can see that Tita had harder time coping with psychological abuse by Mama Elena. Mama Elena interfered between her and Pedro and made Tita suffer with her relationships and she also had to see her sister marry someone she loved. The fact that Tita could not express her feelings about Pedro and the fact that she could not go against her mother’s decisions show how she grew up in a family where she is forced to follow whatever decisions her parents make. Tita not being able to marry at all also suggests that her family follows a very traditional way educating their children and the rules as to how to they should live their lives. If Tita was not born into a traditional family she would have had a chance to marry someone she loved and do whatever she wanted to pursue in her life. She would not have been treated like a slave by Mama Elena.

At the beginning I saw “JANE THE VIRGIN” IS NOT A GUILTY PLEASURE “I was confused and surprised when I read the title, so I started reading the article, but I found that the article did not make me understand too much about the emotional fluctuations of the characters Later, I started to find the first episode of “JANE THE VIRGIN”. After watching it, I knew it more and liked it, because this story is good at leaving a trough in the play so that viewers can always watch it and cannot feel without it. And this sudden accident let me want to know how the heroine responded, and its plot went from surprise to desolation to perfection at the end.

    In the story, the heroine was educated by her grandmother to refuse premarital sex, but her mother is also a single mother, an unmarried girl, and a very open person who supports premarital sex. So here are two different thoughts of modern family characters, one is religious beliefs like ancient traditions, and the other is the open mind of modern society. I feel that the heroine should not be influenced by her mother and grandmother to grow up, but have the right to believe in her own judgment in determining her choice of love and future.

    Later, something bad happened. The heroine accidentally used the boss’s sperm to artificially inseminate her. As a result, she became pregnant and complicated her life and marriage. She also faced questions about her career prospects and choosing between the baby’s father or detective boyfriend. Doubtful prospects. Then after meeting with Raphael and hearing from him, she agreed to assume custody of the entire baby and hand over custody to him and his wife Petra, but only if she was sure that her child would be safe and be loved by them. And she later decided to re-establish her relationship with her boyfriend. The story tells me that these sudden blows definitely make the heroine feel pressure, but the heroine showed us how to deal with unexpected events in life, let us understand that we have to face unexpected surprises or surprises. And no matter how much accident and pressure the society brings to you, you must accept and resolve it bravely. No one knows what will happen next, maybe it will be better next.

     In today’s life, everyone has their own plans and future, and unexpected accidents may make us panic or break the status , but this article lets me know that in the event of an accident or surprise, we must be brave to solve and face it, although The unexpected changed our original plan but it was a surprise!

“Like water for chocolate” is a Spanish word that means anger or passion that is on the verge of breaking out. “Like water for chocolate” is a novel by Laura Esquivel’s about food and love. In the story, teta’s main mother, Mama Elena, is a serious, insulting, bossy and marginalized psychoped.it seems to me that her youngest daughter, tita, is more like a slave.

      When a mother treats her daughter, especially Tita, she always asks in a harsh, even scolding way. At the beginning of the story, we see the mother’s request to Tita: as the younger daughter, you can’t get married, and you have to take care of my old age. “The rules have been there for generations,” she said. “no one can question the tradition.” The authority of the mother as a traditional parent deeply frightens the daughters. So when confronted with pedro to propose to Tita, the mother not only doesn’t agree to the proposal, repeating that she wants to keep the little girl as a tool to take care of herself, but also asks to marry another daughter rosaura to pedro on her own initiative, which pedro reluctantly accepts because of the deep love in her heart. His mother created the tragedy of his love. For the rest of her life, her mother not only keeps an eye on pedro, but never allows pedro to have contact with Tita. 

      The mother seems to be the spokesperson of a kind of tradition, controlling the whole family all the time, controlling the daughter’s life and thought, she does not allow anyone to post to her, to her is the so-called post to tradition, against the family. So she has attached her traditions, her stubborn ideas to the whole family and the people around her. She confined Tita to the kitchen, and her life was all about providing for others. She rejects Tita’s personality and tries to force her to suppress her sense of self. Deprived of her right to live freely, Tina has to be a good cook for her mean mother. Her torture of tita was a bit like psychological revenge, a sign of a broken personality. A child who has a grudge against his parents since he was a child may well abuse his life out of revenge on his father (mother), deliberately make his life unhappy, and use his own pain to make his parents painful, to prove them wrong. At this point, tita is the victim of this family. She sacrifices her right of choice, right of love, and circle of life for this family. She lives like an eagle without wings. Her life is like a computer inventory, endless repetition, washing the dishes, cooking, clearning, three point one line of life, no fun, no goal, no ideal life, but because the tita question the family tradition, and maintains its her feeling for pedre, finally he will make a choice between the two, is to continue to be a mother’s victims, or the pursuit of happiness.

The book Like Water for Chocolate uses the emotions fear and love to show the relationship between Tita and the other characters in the book. Fear and love are harnessed under the same hormone in our body, making us think that we use them in the same way; yet these two emotions are complete opposites. Love is an emotion that we want to have and we try and find ways to have it in our lives because it can be comforting. For example, Tita finds comfort and satisfaction by loving Pedro, even though she is unable to physically experience that love because of what is expected of her. Fear is something that we try and run away from because it can cause discomfort. For example, Tita fears Mama Elana and the rules she enforces on her, which cause her to continue living without love. These emotions of love and fear are what cause Tita to act the way she does with those around her. 

Scientifically, since fear and love are controlled by the same hormone, at any point love can turn into fear and fear can turn into love based on our circumstances. If the wrong amounts are added to a given situation, the emotion can change. The same can be applied to cooking. In a recipe, a chef needs exact measurements for their dish to come out right and if something is slightly wrong the entire dish will come out differently. 

Tita is a very skilled chef and runs the kitchen after the tragic death of Nacha. Since she is so good at what she does, Tita is able to be more flexible with her recipes and play around with measurements and ingredients. However, she has to be careful not to add her emotions into the mix for the fear of changing the balance of ingredients and the recipe altogether. The recipes in the book are metaphors for what is going on with the characters during specific chapters. In the chapter of March Tita is given a bouquet of roses from her love, Pedro, but out of fear of her mother she disposes of the roses into her dish and creates a masterpiece. This new recipe she makes changes the dynamic of the household. The rose petals do not only symbolize the heat between her and Pedro, but also the conflict between what she wants (her love for Pedro) and what is expected of her (her fear for Mama Elana). 

I think that it is impossible for Tita to please everyone given her situation and throughout the book this conflict of fear and love will continue to come up. She will have to make a choice between these two emotions and decide what is most vital to her. Is it more important for Tita to focus on the family history and what her mother wants; or is it finally time for the tradition to be broken and time for her to start her own path? 
Word count: 503