First Draft of Midterm Essay

Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate (1992) and Alfonso Arau’s Like Water for Chocolate (1993)

Laura Esquirel’s novel, “Like Water for Chocolate,” is about a protagonist named Tita de la Garza, who faces various of hardships personally while maintaining the kitchen as Head cook for the family. With the abuse and intimation from her mother, the first antagonist, Mama Elena, and her desired lover, the second antagonist, Pedro, she finds difficulty finding the middle ground of it all. With every chapter, follows up with each month of the year and delicious recipes that correlates with the plot. In the film, Like Water for Chocolate by Alfonso Arau, it is very similar to the novel, however, it shows the main points of the story of Tita. According to Linda Cahir’s literature-to-film translations, traditional translation can be identified when comparing and contrasting the two versions. From watching the film after reading the novel, it maintained the overall plot, settings of the novel, but reconstructed certain details that filmmakers sees as necessary and fitting for the viewers.   

Every main character in the novel plays an important role in Tita’s life. She is the youngest daughter of the 4 sisters. She loves cooking and creating recipes with the cook of the house, Nacha for the family, due to her being born in the kitchen. She’s denied marriage because of Elena’s “family tradition:” the youngest child must not be married and take care of the mother until she dies. Although she follows this tradition, she’s introduced to a young man name Pedro who he seeks interest in marriage and unphatom love starts to create. Mama Elena is the mother who belittles and abuse Tita for the most simplest thing. Shes the head of the household and struggles to find peace with herself. Elena is the hardest roadblock for Tita to be with the man of her life. Pedro is seeks interest in Tita but marries Rosaura, Elena’s eldest daughter. He’s often becomes selfish, jealous, and possessive of Tita, in efforts to regain Tita’s love assurance. 

When comparing and contrasting, I will be using some terms when analyzing the film and novel: Tension, Backlighting, Transition, etc

• The filmmaker and author uses different tension to illtrsute the important drama that occurs in Tita’s life.
• In the film, filmmaker uses a lot of backlighting when showing romantic scenes between P and T. 
•  The film uses a lot of choppy transitions when going into another event.