Blog 8: Like Water for Chocolate

Within the confining domestic sphere that is Tita's life for much of the novel, cooking is the means she uses to express herself when her mother and the family tradition bottle up everything else for her. Food, as a character, can nurture others where others fail to nurture Tita, acts as a sort of confidant when Tita has no one else to turn to, and manifests her emotions into reality. Food is sort of like Tita's alter ego -- doing things that she would be doing if she had the power to do them. Perhaps that's going a little too far, but this novel does have all sorts of magical realism elements.