Robert Xie
ILA (B)-Boyce
November 14, 2004
Commentary – Like Water for Chocolate
The novel Like Water for Chocolate is the story of a woman fighting tradition in quest for love and freedom. The novel has diverse relations of apathy and love between the characters. The author Esquivel illustrates these relations by the use of the colors red and white. Throughout the novel Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel uses the colors red and white to symbolize love and apathy in the relationships between the characters.
Laura Esquivel uses the color red to symbolize love and passion in relationships. In the following quote “Mamma Elena had come to get a sheet or something and had caught Tita red-handed.”(p. 136) The little box that contained mamma Elena’s old love letters with her old love, Jose Trevino. Tita, being caught ‘red-handed’ may symbolize that her hands had been stained and contaminated with the love that was concealed inside the box. Another quote that reinforces the motif red is when Tita asked Nacha is she was to add more food coloring to the icing, “Nacha realized something was wrong with Tita when she asked if Nacha was going to add the red food coloring to the icing.”(p. 35) This quote shows that Tita is unable to see the red, in the icing, which symbolizes that she cannot see the love in the marriage between Pedro and Rosaura since the marriage was arranged. What she sees is the white icing of the cake that represents marriage, but not the red food coloring that represents love. These two quotes both exhibit red being used as a symbol for love and passion.
