Magical Realism and Fantastic Sublime in Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate

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Recommended: The portrayal of women in literature

Magical Realism and Fantastic Sublime in Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate

The different elements of the story Like Water for Chocolate are amazing. The feelings that go through a person upon listening, watching, and tasting events that happen during this story of the Spanish family's lives. The customs of this family were so unorthodox. This story is fantastic sublime and magical realism combined. Laura Esquivel wrote this novel in 1992. The nationality of the people in the novel was Mexican. A person can tell by the way expressions were made and the things that were done in the story. The novel has many fantastic sublime elements as well as magical realism. The elements of the story that stick out in a person's mind are the birth of Tita, the feelings of the love that Tita has in her heart for her sister's husband, Tita's cooking, the shower catching on fire, and Tita's sister riding off on a horse.

Upon the birth of Tita, her mother flooded the kitchen table and floor when her water broke. The fluid had turned to salt and had to be swept up off the floor. This type of thing happening in the real world is not going to happen. The fluid turning into the salt was definitely a magical realism element. The fluid from the birth drying up like salt is similar to the sublime. The mysteries of cooking are treated in Like Water for Chocolate. The sublime seems to have a definition of being inhuman, an image that cannot be named. The magical realism has the definition of being magical and unreal.

Tita's love she had for her sister's husband upon their marriage and through out the time of their marriage and lives. Tita's love never changed. It was the magical way Tita felt in her heart about the man she loved and the ...

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...is really hard to distinguish the difference between the two. The hidden mysteries in the story of Like Water for Chocolate seem to never show the real meanings. The novel is interesting and keeps a person on his or her toes. The main point in the story is the boiling point that a person has inside will eventually boil over, given enough time. Emotions run high through out the story as well as the way each and everyone deal with the way the emotions come out.

Works Cited

Arensberg, Mary. The American Sublime. Albany: State University of New York Press, Albany 1986.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. N.Y. Doubleday, 1992.

Faris, Wendy. "Scheherazade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction" Magical Realism Theory, History, Community.

Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durkham, N.C.: Durham: Duke up, 1995: 163-190.

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