Like Water for Chocolate Chapter 7: July; Onions and Tears
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. Unfortunately, all of Tita's best attempts to take care of her other fail, including the same soup that Chinch brought to her. Mama Elena believed that Tita was poisoning her, and she began to take medications because of it that eventually killed her. After her death, Tita begins to feel great sorrow, especially after learning that of a love affair that Mama Elena had in her youth which ended in her true love of her life being killed. At the funeral, Tita discovers the silhouettes of Pedro and Rosaura, and Pedro's shape begins to get close to Tita, as if to signify that he is meant to be with Tita.
As for our group's symbols within the chapter, Onions and Tears have had a larger significance than in previous chapters. This month's recipe for ox-tail soup calls for a chunk of onion. When Chencha brings the soup to Tita at the beginning of the chapter, the soup brings back a flood of memories, and this flood of memories induces a literal flood of tears from Tita that takes three people to work to dry up. The flooding of the tears is a conglomeration of all of the sadness that has been held back in Tita's severe depression and unwillingness to shed tears while she was hidden away at Dr. Brown's house. The Onion symbol in the book is indicative of sadness and bitterness, and the tears are the conduct for that both of those feelings. The onion in the soup brings back memories to Tita, memories of Nacha, the mother-like figure for Tita who has been dead for several months if not years. These become sad memories that cause Tita to cry. "As always, throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began."(PDF, page 55). The soup and the onions bring Tita back to her old life at the ranch, a life of sadness that acts as a cure for Tita's intense depression she suffers from while at Dr. Brown's house. The sadness is what reminds her of her of life.
- Sebastian
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. Unfortunately, all of Tita's best attempts to take care of her other fail, including the same soup that Chinch brought to her. Mama Elena believed that Tita was poisoning her, and she began to take medications because of it that eventually killed her. After her death, Tita begins to feel great sorrow, especially after learning that of a love affair that Mama Elena had in her youth which ended in her true love of her life being killed. At the funeral, Tita discovers the silhouettes of Pedro and Rosaura, and Pedro's shape begins to get close to Tita, as if to signify that he is meant to be with Tita.
As for our group's symbols within the chapter, Onions and Tears have had a larger significance than in previous chapters. This month's recipe for ox-tail soup calls for a chunk of onion. When Chencha brings the soup to Tita at the beginning of the chapter, the soup brings back a flood of memories, and this flood of memories induces a literal flood of tears from Tita that takes three people to work to dry up. The flooding of the tears is a conglomeration of all of the sadness that has been held back in Tita's severe depression and unwillingness to shed tears while she was hidden away at Dr. Brown's house. The Onion symbol in the book is indicative of sadness and bitterness, and the tears are the conduct for that both of those feelings. The onion in the soup brings back memories to Tita, memories of Nacha, the mother-like figure for Tita who has been dead for several months if not years. These become sad memories that cause Tita to cry. "As always, throughout her life, with a whiff of onion, the tears began."(PDF, page 55). The soup and the onions bring Tita back to her old life at the ranch, a life of sadness that acts as a cure for Tita's intense depression she suffers from while at Dr. Brown's house. The sadness is what reminds her of her of life.
- Sebastian
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