Like Water For Chocolate Feminist Analysis

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How impressive it would be to read a book all about feminism. A quick glance over Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, and one may miss all the power women have, but let’s take a closer look and see what we find. Like Water for Chocolate, is a satirical story following a woman named Tita. She struggles through the constraints of her family's traditions, battling with feelings of love and unfamiliar empowerment. This theme connects throughout the book with other characters such as Gertrudis and Esperanza. The author was able to achieve satire, as she brought a new light to feminist power, by reversing the stereotypical roles often found in a romantic plot, such as ‘The Little Mermaid’. Throughout the story, Tita is shown as a strong …show more content…

The long held tradition is that the youngest daughter is not allowed to get married, she must stay home and take care of her parents. Throughout the book, Tita and Mama Elena argue about Tita’s future and who is in charge of making the choices. In the midst of an argument, Tita exclaims ““I know who I am! A person who has a perfect right to live her life as she pleases”” (Esquivel, 199). The fact that Tita so blatantly rebels against her mother makes other romantic stories seem like a meaningless joke. The instance with Tita and her mother is contradictory to The Little Mermaid’, where it is made evident that women are there to support men, and look pretty. Right from the beginning the viewer can see that the mermaids, or women are dressed very provocatively, wearing bombshell bras and plenty of accessories to catch attention to their looks. Not to mention the insane bodily proportions, that if attempted to achieve by a real human, they would find themselves dead. As the waists of the mermaids are almost the same size as their necks. Nonetheless, the men are portrayed as strong and masculine, all the men on the boats are fully dressed and are of proportional human size. Tita is portrayed as a strong …show more content…

Esperanza is the youngest daughter, and she gets married to Alex, Dr. Brown’s son. Rosaura didn’t want to accept this, she wouldn’t, but “Tita knew that Alex and Esperanza would be bound together forever” (Esquivel, 238). Esperanza completely broke tradition. By getting married, she would no longer carry on the tradition of the youngest daughter caring for her mother. This is an example of the author poking fun at the fact that men are typically the ones who disobey and rebel, however in this case Esperanza disobeyed. While contrast to this, Ariel keeps the family tradition of marrying royalty, because, she is a princess and she marries prince

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