Like Water for Chocolate

Most people are familiar with the sensation of crying while chopping an onion. Though the body produces tears for many reasons, they most often signify a reaction to grief. Like Water for Chocolate opens with Mama Elena shedding tears as she prepares onions for a dish, however, the onions also affect her unborn child. The first time Tita cries, she is still in the womb—yet her tears provide enough salt for the family’s food for years. Both this salt and Tita’s spontaneity season her dishes with powerful emotions.

Mama Elena forbids Tita from crying, seeing her emotional reactions as a sign of weakness. Crying is often seen as a distinctly female response and is often used to criticize women’s sensitivity. Thus, Tita does most of her crying in private or in the sanctuary of the kitchen. As Tita grows, she allows those whom she trusts to see her cry. When she convalesces at Dr. John Brown’s house, she does not speak, but tears fall down her cheeks as he teaches her about rekindling her spirit. When Chencha visits with oxtail soup, the two women cry so much that their tears flood down the stairs of the house. Tita weeps at the dinner she holds for John, and his Aunt Mary remarks, “How wonderful to see a woman in love weeping with emotion” (160). Aunt Mary’s reaction is a stark contrast to Mama Elena’s hatred of showing emotion. Under her mother’s rule, Tita must suppress her grief and hide her tears, but once her mother is gone, she learns to show vulnerability. As the novel closes, Tita and Pedro share a dance and he proposes. Tita’s grief turns to happiness, as “The tears slowly rolled down her cheeks. Her first tears of joy” (170). Tears symbolize the importance of and lack of shame in freely showing one’s grief or joy through weeping.

Blankets provide warmth and comfort to those wrapped in their folds. In the past, it was more common for a woman to sew or weave a bedspread for her trousseau, a treasure chest full of linens for use in her marital home. Tita begins crocheting a bedspread for her hypothetical matrimonial bed, but when Mama Elena’s curse dashes her hopes, she continues to crochet to keep her dream of marriage alive. Denied her mother’s love, Tita often covers herself with her blanket—in the warmth of her own hope. Tita not only channels her feelings into food, but her bedspread; her crocheting becomes like a prayer or meditation. Though Tita’s circumstances turn dire, her hope never fades, symbolized by the blanket’s continued growth. By the time Tita and Pedro finally come together, the bedspread covers the entire ranch, symbolizing her love for him. Her love began as teenage desire, but over time, it melds with her love for her family and the ranch. In the end, Tita wraps herself in the hopeful threads she so tenderly wove to reunite with Pedro after his death.

Tita’s colorful bedspread contrasts with Rosaura’s white wedding sheet. The sheet is intended to cover the bride, with one hole to expose her genitals, symbolizing chastity and restraint. The concealment of Rosaura’s body represents societal shaming of the female body. Tita fears the color white, feeling her mother has cursed her to eternal virginity. If she were allowed to marry Pedro, she would not cover her body with such a sheet. The couple would relish in the beauty of their bodies without shame, swaddled in the multicolored bedspread made with her own hands.