Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate opens with a Mexican proverb as the epigraph, the words highlighting the plight of women as caregivers: “To the table or to bed. You must come when you are bid” (2). By beginning with this idea, Laura Esquivel roots the story in the roles that women play in society. The archetypal structure of the “Virgin’s Promise” features a protagonist who makes a vow to her community or family to refrain from sex, her chastity viewed as a sacrifice for the greater good. This promise often finds the female character forced to live up to unrealistic expectations and to exist in a perpetual state of repression. Mama Elena forces Tita into a virginal promise, upholding the family tradition of the youngest daughter remaining unmarried. Tradition forces Tita into a cycle of abuse. She is also coming of age as the Mexican Revolution rages across the land. The author layers Tita’s rebellion against her mother’s authority with the country’s sociopolitical uprising. Through both struggles, the author exposes the dangers of repressing natural desires.

Repression of desire begins with repression of the body. Just as soldiers are physically kept at bay by weapons, Mama Elena wields a sword of shame against her youngest. Tita must keep her body covered lest she stir desire in a man, and she must also conceal her emotions to maintain a socially acceptable outward appearance. Her body is valued only for its ability to serve Mama Elena, and when she is removed from the ranch by Dr. John Brown, she barely recognizes her own hands: “Now seeing her hands no longer at her mother’s command, she didn’t know what to ask them to do, she had never decided for herself before” (79). She has lived in submission for so long, she doesn’t know how to relate to her body outside of it. Gertrudis’s release contrasts with Tita’s bondage, as the older frees herself from her mother by first freeing her body. Free to explore her desires, Gertrudis returns to her community to serve as a general in the revolution and to start a family of her own. The author uses Gertrudis as the intersection for both rebellion plotlines. Gertrudis symbolizes the power of female agency when it is not repressed by forced obedience to familial or patriarchal standards.

As the novel progresses, the author explores repression in other characters too. White people forced John’s grandmother Morning Light to repress her passion for plant medicine, and they physically banished her to a solitary room of the house. Mama Elena’s mother prevented Nacha from getting married, and Mama Elena herself kept her passion for her Black lover concealed. Even Rosaura is oppressed in her coercion to marry Pedro. She is given no agency in the choice, no opportunity to express her true desires. When Mama Elena dies, Tita realizes the consequences of the generational suppression of women in her family: “During the funeral, Tita really wept for her mother. Not for the castrating mother who had repressed Tita for her entire life, but for the person who had lived a frustrated love” (99). The novel serves as a cautionary tale, criticizing systems of power that would repress female desire. Liberating a woman’s spirit and sexuality allows her to earnestly serve her community—if she so chooses.