Synthesis Blog: Onions and Tears

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 story are there to represent a certain sadness that looms over the life of the family and much more importantly Tita's life. At this point, the onions play a very importantly role in showing how Tita was born out of tears, and how Tita was born into a life plagued with sadness and tears, never being able to have a happy ending. This is the large scale that it plays on between chapters.

The onions and tears also have a presence, although not as large as in the first chapter, in the second chapter, playing to the same significance. The onions stay in the backseat this time around, with tears having a larger amount of description than the onions themselves this time. In the second chapter, Tita infuses the cake that she bakes for the wedding of Pedro and Rosaura with the tears she cries over the sadness of never being able to be with Pedro and having to celebrate his marriage to Rosaura. The tears that represent a sadness in Tita's life are extremely significant, and they begin to overpower not only her feelings but the feelings of everyone else. The tears of sadness infused in Tita's cake were extremely powerful, with "the moment [everyone] took their first bit of the cake, everyone was flooded with a great wave of longing" (Esquirel, 39), eventually killing Nacha the cook later that night; this one moment from the text shows the reader how powerful Tita's sadness is, overpowering the cake and the feelings of everyone else who surrounds themselves with her.

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