In Like Water for Chocolate Tita and Pedro fall helplessly in love at a very young age. They are seen about town holding hands. Everyone around them sees how happy they are when they are together. This magical time ends abruptly when Pedro is given the answer "no" to his request for Tita's hand. When made aware of the despicable tradition of forcing the youngest daughter to never marry and always be the caregiver of the mother, Pedro makes a rash decision. He believes if he cannot be with Tita then he will at least be near her if he marries her sister. While this is a noble idea, I believe it was a very bad decision. Elena, Tita's mother, was cruel to even suggest he should marry the sister. In addition to being cruel to Tita and Pedro, this was also unkind to Rosaura. The movie is not about Rosaura, but I feel she was also a victim of the situation. She thought Pedro would grow in love with her but this was never to happen and she lived a life of loneliness and unhappiness. I would want Pedro and Tita to stand up to Elena in the first place. Running away and getting married would have been far better. Pedro's father should have stopped him from marrying Rosaura. This is a good example of why you should not do something just for traditions sake.
Magic Realism was very prevalent throughout this movie. Tita transfers her love to her food she cooks. This love becomes magic in those that eat the food. At the wedding it makes everyone cry after eating cake with her tears in it. Later her sister is consumed with the passion put into the rose petal meal. She runs away with the revolutionary fighters. Elena keeps reappearing to Tita, tormenting her even after death. Finally Tita stands up to her and she is gone once and for all.
After reading everyone's blogs, it appears we all agree the tradition of the youngest daughter not being allowed to marry and having to care for her mother until she dies is absurd and creul. I can't even phathom such a thing. You bring up an interesting point about Rosaura being a victim as well. At the beginning it didn't seem that she wasn't a very nice sister to Tita. She could have refused to marry Perdo, but I think rather liked the idea of marring him. Later we see that she really did come to love him and really wanted him to love her. She even asked Tita to help her lose weight, freshen her bad breathe, and help her with her flatulance issue so that he would be more attracted to her. Although this was pretty nervey of her to ask Tita to help her. Mother Elena truely was an awful person. She made everyone around her miserable. She was a very unhappy person and didn't want to see anyone else happy. She seemed to be of the philosophy "misery loves company".
ReplyDeleteI feel the same you do about Tita and Pedro's choices. I agree that if they had just run away and got married, then every character in the film would have benefited. Tita, Rosaura, Pedro, and even the doctor would have been saved much heart ache if Tita and Pedro would have left and married eachother. I though it was sad that they didn't get to be together for almost 22 years and then they both die at the end of the movie... how tragic. I think it portrays the idea that people need to live their life to the fullest, because we only get one chance. I also think it shows that we should not allow others to tell us how to live or who to love because in the end it doesn't change anything except for heart ache.
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