Freedom in Magical Realism: Like Water for Chocolate
The movie Like Water for Chocolate portrays the combination of reality and of non-existing events. This combination is a part of literary writing. We call it magical realism. The purpose of magical realism is to entertain and boggle the mind of the reader with deeper interpretations of the story’s essence. In the movie, magical realism was also used to define the character’s feelings and to live out the freedom that the character has been robbed off of. Tita de la Garza, a daughter of Mama Elena, was selected by her mother to follow the family’s tradition—one member of the family must not marry but grow up taking care of the parents. By the time she was born, she was already deprived of this freedom, to live a life filled with comfort and a life to share with the man she loves. Such deprivation of freedom has caused her to make use of magical realism. Tita grew up in the delicious and fragrant borders of the kitchen. She, like her aunt Nacha, was confined into cooking for the family. However, Tita had something special in her dishes. It was freedom. Mama Elena always restricted Tita from the freedom of deciding and of expressing her love to Pedro. Of every emotion Tita felt while cooking the dishes, family and guests who take it in grasp the same emotion. Instances were when Tita cooked: Pedro and Rosaura’s Chabela wedding cake to express her grief and sorrow for failing to be the bride of his groom; quail with rose petal sauce for family dinner to relay to Pedro her sexual urge/desire of him and of his body; a dish for confronting Dr. John Brown about how she’s lost her virginity with another man and decides on cancelling the engagement; a dish for curing her mother from fatal illness; and a dish for the childbirth of Rosaura to express her anger towards the appointment of Esperanza to follow the family tradition. In all of which Tita cooked dishes, magical realism was a very effective way to exercise her freedom. Not ever has Mama