Mother-Daughter Relationship in Laura Esquivel's Como agua para chocolate

Abstract

By confronting Terrible Mother in order to move beyond entanglements of mother/daughter relationship, and by claiming her as a metaphor for sources of our own creative powers, women are creating new self-configurations in which mother is no longer necessary comfort but seed of a new being, and in which we are no longer protected child but carriers of new woman whose birth is our own. Karen Elias-Button: 205 LAURA Esquivel's Como agua para chocolate --novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores y remedios caseros is a contemporary Mexican novel first published in 1989 that can be analyzed in various ways. The use of recipes and cooking as a means of expressing feelings and causing different reactions on people, use of recipes to begin each chapter, forbidden love, love triangle formed by Pedro, Tita, and Rosaura, roles of women in Mexican society, Mexican Revolution and other issues are certainly food for thought. However, I am particularly interested in relationship between Tita and her mother, Mama Elena, as I believe this sort of relation is crucial to a person's development and behavior. I intend to investigate relationship between Tita and Elena, applying theory of some critics concerning issue of motherhood-daughterhood. Tita is entrapped in a situation of not being allowed to marry man she loves and by whom she is loved because of tradition her family follows of not permitting youngest daughter to marry. As youngest, Tita was meant to look after her mother until she died. Laura Esquivel states that outer reality (in Tita's case, reality of being youngest daughter and having to fulfill her destiny) and inner desire (Tita's desire to marry Pedro) is something that interests her. Esquivel says: Tradition is an element that enters into play with destiny, because you are born into a particular family--Jewish or Islamic or Mexican--and your family determines to some extent what you are expected to become. And society is always there attempting to determine role we will play within And these expectations are not always in good relationship with our personal desires. I am always interested in that relationship between outer reality and inner desire, and I think it is important to pay attention to inner voice, because it is only way to discover your mission in life, and only way to develop strength to break with whatever familial or cultural norms are preventing you from fulfilling your destiny. Tita's destiny is sad, but she never quits fighting for a reversal of Esquivel, in same interview, states that [destiny] is a path you must follow, or travel, and it is up to you to decide how you are going to travel it. Sara Castro-Klaren points out that woman in Latin America is often portrayed as chaste when she is a Further, Castro-Klaren maintains that the idealization of female values, Catholic of Virgin Mother Mary (10) are explanations given by social analysts and historians for cult of mother. In Como agua para chocolate, however, Mama Elena is portrayed not as an idealized mother but as a tyrant. Her reaction on occasion that Tita first tries to express her opinion is an example of her character: Nunca, por generaciones, nadie en mi familia ha protestado ante esta costumbre y no va a ser una de mis hijas quien lo haga (9) [For generations, not a single person in my family has ever questioned this tradition, and no daughter of mine is going to be one to start (11)]. Furthermore, Mama Elena is later discovered to have betrayed her husband with her true love, her lover who was father of one of her daughters, middle daughter Gertrudis. Elena's bitter temperament is to some extent understood and forgiven by Tita when she finds out her mother's secret. Nevertheless, fact is that Mama Elena preaches something and behaves in a different manner. …