Like Water for Chocolate: Symbols: Onions and Tears

In chapter twelve, a lot happens. Esperanza and Alex (John's son) get married. Tita and Pedro respect this idea but Rosaura doesn't allow it because she wants to uphold the tradition as Mama Elena did to Tita. Because of her illness, Rosaura later dies and Esperanza and Alex are free to get married. Rosaura had a funeral but nobody went because the smell of her dead body was to strong. Esperanza and Alex have their wedding and everyone celebrates. After the wedding, it is just Tita and Pedro on the ranch. Since Rosaura and Mama Elena are dead, the can freely express their emotion to eachother. They had an affair on the ranch and Tita finally feels free. During, Pedro dies and Tita begs to go with him. Soon Tita uses the candle to die and she goes with Pedro. Since they are together, a fire is set off on the ranch. There is no symbol of onions or tears in this chapter. The reason for this is because, tears are a symbol of sadness and in this chapter Tita feels free and happie...

Chapter 11: November Onions and Tears were featured together in this chapter much more heavily than in earlier chapters. For one, Onions are included (only a single onion) in this month's recipe for Chile Tezcucana. Onions, in this chapter, are consistent in their featured symbolism of frustrated feelings and sadness, eventually culminating in tears. Tears are prominent in two scenes of this chapter: when Rosaura is taking Esperanza away from Tita (onions are present as this scene ends), and when Tita and Dr. Brown are talking at the dinner table. The most symbolic of these scenes is the first one, in which "the chopped onion is fried in lard... It was hopeless to try to forget Esperanza"(Esquirel, p. 101). This scene is important to my group's symbols because it shows the onion being present in a scene where Tita is devastated (at the loss of Esperanza). The later scene involves Tita and Dr. Brown together as they eat the dinner that Tita prepared, which contained ...

In chapter ten, there's a brief scene in which Tita cries and Gertrudis comforts her. Tita's tears are representing how she's about to enter a new chapter in her life: motherhood. Later, we learn that she's actually not pregnant but in this particular scene, Tita explains to Gertrudis all that's happened between her and Pedro and how she thinks that she's pregnant. "Perhaps, who knows, most likely, it was because she was a little bit pregnant (Esquirel, 189)." This is the first time Tita really talks to someone about what's been going on and it becomes a very real possibility rather than just a paranoid thought.

          In this chapter, no signs of onions or tears were evident. A lot has happened in the life of Tita and her family in chapter nine. Tita thinks that she might be pregnant with Pedro's child and she doesn't know how to tell anyone. She knows how upset Rosaura and John would be if they found out. Especially since Rosaura has begun coming to Tita for advice on her marriage with Pedro. She has begun gaining a considerable amount of weight and her breath is quite foul. Obviously, Pedro is less attracted to her than ever before. To make matters worse, Tita encounters Mama Elena's ghost and her unborn child is cursed. Later, at the party, Gertrudis unexpectedly shows up. She tells all about her adventurous and exciting life. The arrival of Gertrudis seems to be the only good thing in Tita's life currently. This chapter had lots of critical scenes and really has the reader intrigued during the entire thing.

It has stayed consistent. In the beginning, onions and tears were centered around birth, and in the last few chapters, Tita has gone through “rebirth.” “Plumes of phosphorescent colors were ascending to the sky like delicate Bengal lights (Esquirel, 159)”. In this scene, Tita and Pedro are making love in the dark room and "phosphorescent colors" were showing through the cracks in the walls. Tita is is entering a new chapter in her life during this event. Phosphorous is also associated with rebirth because John got Tita to write in phosphorous to tell him why she wouldn’t speak. This was pushing Tita along into her first breakthrough/rebirth. “John interrupted those memories by bursting into the room, alarmed by the stream that was running down the stairs....Tita’s voice stopped him (Esquirel, 125)”. Here, Tita was crying because Chencha had shown up and the tears symbolized her being essentially pushed out of her depressed state and being born again into a new person.

During chapter eight of Like Water for Chocolate , John proposed to Tita and gave her an engagement ring. She was very joyful about this but Pedro told her not to marry John and instead, marry Pedro. The symbol of onions and tears is portrayed by tears of frustration from Tita. In the beginning of the book, the tears were formed out of sadness but now, Tita's tears are simply full of frustration and anger. She has two men fighting over her which is making her frustrated because she has to pick between the two. She isn't frustrated at anyone personally rather than she is just frustrated on how her life is going right now and it is just her emotion. Another way tears and onions were portrayed was through this quote: "As usual. Tita was crying as she chopped the onion." (Esquirel 145). It said that the tears were clouding her vision which means that her emotions are getting the best of her. She isn't in the right place to make the best decision because her emotions ...

To summarize Like Water for Chocolate 's seventh chapter: July: The chapter starts off with Tita in Dr. Brown's house, continuing from her isolation from the outside world in the last chapter. Chencha comes to visit Tita while she is with Dr. Brown, grateful to not be in a madhouse full of lunatics. She brings Tita a gift of ox-tail soup, and this floods Tita's memories as well as lets her recount the recipe for the soup. Through Chencha, Tita also receives word from Gertrudis, who is thankful towards Tita for having been sent clothes. Chencha leaves the residence, and Tita and Dr. Brown's relationship becomes a lot closer, with Dr. Brown planning for the two of them to get married. After Chencha returns home, it is discovered that an attack on the De La Garza ranch leaves her traumatized and Mama Elena paralyzed from the waist down. Tita returns to the ranch in order to fulfill her destiny of taking care of Mama Elena when she can no longer take care of herself. Unfo...

Chapter Six We didn't see any symbolism of onions or tears in this particular chapter. In the chapter, Tita is staying with Dr. Brown because he decided to take her to his house rather than to a mental institute. She is still not in good shape, but Dr. Brown thinks she just needs some time to slowly go back to her proper mindset. While staying with him, readers can almost see the small sparks flying between the two of them. It creates the idea that perhaps they will begin falling for one another. For some reason, Tita chooses not to speak much while staying with him, but he still insists on showing her cool experiments that intrigue her. He even convinces her to write why she won't speak and all she says is that she doesn't feel like it... that's a good enough reason, I guess. Throughout her stay with the doctor, Tita begins blossoming into her own person since she is finally not tied down by Mama Elena and her orders. There's also a character that we're i...

In today's chapter, tears were mentioned, however it was very brief. "'Sit down and get back to work. I don't want any tears (Esquirel, 99).'" Mama Elena was speaking to Tita when she said this and it was because she had just broken the news of Roberto's death. Tita was visibly very upset about it and Mama Elena didn't want to have to deal with her crying. In this book, the attempt to prevent tears represents Mama Elena's dislike for Tita. Tita was born because of someone crying extremely loud and if they hadn't cried(the crying had been prevented), Tita wouldn't have been born so early. This shows how Mama Elena just would rather not have to deal with Tita.

In the first four chapters of Like Water for Chocolate,  the symbol of onions and tears are only written to any significance in two of those chapters. It takes a less prominent role in the last two, and its presence is the largest in the first two chapters. These symbols are based on the conception that onions, when chopped, induce tearing in someone's eyes. This is told on the very first page of the story, with the narrator saying that "the trouble with crying over an onion is that chopping it gets you started and the tears begin to well up" (Esquirel, 1). There are many other symbols of foods and ingredients that represent feelings that show up in her kitchen, with the onions representing tears and sadness. The onions are also very important to Tita's life, as she was born out of labor that was induced by her mother crying so hard over an onion being chopped, "her wailing got so violent that it brought on an early labor"(Esquirel, 1). The tears in the st...

During this chapter, Tita is cooking a meal for Roberto's baptism. Roberto is Pedro and Rosaura's new son. While Tita was cooking, Pedro came in and they had a moment with which their love became stronger. Tita had to help Rosaura give birth because no doctor was in sight. She remembered what Nacha had said so she used that to carry out the process of birth. Rosaura becomes very sick and it was very risky that she gave birth to Pedro. She was very swollen and had gained sixety-five pounds during her pregnancy. She wasn't able to produce milk for her son but Tita was able to. Tita fed Roberto in secret but Pedro knew about it. Mama Elena thinks it would be a good idea to for Rosaura, Pedro and Roberto to move to San Antonio. She claims that she thinks it would be better for Rosaura's health but really she wants Pedro to be away from Tita. She senses a special connection between the tow of them.