Magical realism is also a way for Tita to express her emotions, especially when food is involved. When she is baking the wedding cake she cries into it because Pedro is marrying Rosaura instead of her. These tears in the wedding cake make everyone feel the sadness she feels. “The moment they took their first bite of the cake, everyone was flooded with a great wave of longing.” Every person feels the pains of a lost love, and the feeling is so great that it makes them sick. This continues the magical realism, as the vomit so much that Rosaura was “swept away in a raging, rotting river for several yards; then she couldn’t hold back any more, and she spewed out great noisy mouthfuls of vomit, like an erupting volcano, right before Pedro’s horrified eyes.” In this way Tita is using her control over the food to her advantage, though it is probably not intentional. She is so upset over Pedro and Rosaura’s marriage that her tears in the cake make everyone sick, ruining the wedding for Rosaura as punishment for her marrying Pedro. In reality, this could never happen, but through magical realism we can see the intense longing that Tita feels, and her anger against Rosaura. It is also a fairly comical image of a woman in a wedding dress being swept away by a sea of vomit; the humour lightens up the powerful messages conveyed.
Another time magical realism is used is when Tita goes out to feed the chickens just after she has had an argument with Rosaura. The chickens get into a mad fight for the food, “Soon the chickens were inescapably trapped by the force they themselves were generating in their mad chase; they couldn’t break loose from that whirl of feathers, blood and dust that spun faster and faster, gathering force at every turn until it changed into a mighty tornado, destroying everything in its path”. This reflects Tita’s anger, as she was tearing up the tortilla she fed the chickens while she was having her argument with Rosaura. Once again, the magical realism is being conveyed through food. The whirlwind the chickens make is a metaphor for her anger; it will get wilder and wilder until it sucks her in completely, unless she is careful. The chickens’ blood is splattered all over Esperanza’s diapers, showing how Rosaura and Tita’s argument has stained her innocence.
Later, magical realism is utilized to show the major themes of the novel. The first is passion. This is shown first by when Tita prepares the Quails in Rose Petal Sauce, using the roses that Pedro has given her and that have soaked up her blood. These roses express the passion that Tita and Pedro feel for each other, and this is passed through Gertrudis, who is also eating the meal. She inherits this passion, and it is so intense in her that she causes the shower to burst into flame. “Her body was giving off so much heat that the wooden walls began to split and burst into flame.” The magical realism was continued, when Gertrudis began to sweat a se scent, and it is carried all the way down to the town where Juan, a man she had seen the week before. He smells this and rides to her and carries her away while they make love. This not only shows passion, but also shows one of the main symbols of the book, which is fire. As fire is often used in describing passion, it is a fitting image here.
This same image of heat and passion is used later in the novel, when Pedro spies on Tita in the shower; his passion causes the water in the shower to reach almost boiling temperatures. “Suddenly the water started to feel warmer and it kept getting warmer until it began to burn her skin…Alarmed, she opened her eyes, afraid that the bathroom was on fire again, and what did she see on the other side of the planks but Pedro, watching her intently.” Tita and Pedro’s love has always been passionate, and heat has always been used to symbolise it ever since they first met. “It was then Tita understood how dough feels when t is plunged into boiling oil. The heat that invaded her body was so real she was afraid she would start to bubble”. The magical realism conveys their passion, but also relates Tita’s emotions to food, as food is the thing that she is most comfortable with. Food is also one of the recurring themes in the novel, so magical realism again helps to emphasize this.
So we can see that magical realism is a powerful tool for Esquivel, it helps to convey all the main points, my making them more noticeable and more humourous. She uses it to show the emotions of the characters, and to demonstrate the themes of the novel.
