¶ … Water for Chocolate' is a movie based on the popular novel of the same name which was written by Laura Esquivel, a Mexican novelist. The novel was published in the year 1989 and is based on the life story of a young girl called Tita. The entire plot of the movie revolves around the life of Tita and her desire to marry Pedro, her lover. Tita can never get together with Pedro because her mother upholds their family tradition of not letting the youngest daughter marry because she has to take care of the mother in her old age. According to this tradition, Tita can only marry once her mother dies. Another aspect of Tita's personality that has been highlighted in this movie is the fact that she is able to express her feelings through her cooking. Magical realism has been used to combine the ordinary with supernatural, and that is what makes this movie and novel outstanding pieces of arts[footnoteRef:1]. [1: Dennard, "Like Water for Chocolate," 2010] The plot of Danzon, a short and subtly beautiful movie directed by Maria Novaro of Mexico, revolves around the quest of a woman for spiritual and sexual renewal. The lead character, Julia, effectively depicts the personality of a strong Mexican woman. She is a single mother of a teenage girl, a telephone operator and a passionate practitioner of danzon. Danzon is actually a very old, ballroom style dance, born and popular in Cuba, that was derived from the French cotillion. Julia portrays the character of a modern, working-class and independent woman in Mexico, who falls in love with Carmelo, her danzon partner. It is depicted in the movie how sensual but restrained dances can lead to romantic fixes. Even though she is in her late 30s, Julia's personality has an expression of innocence, and a feeling of regretful nostalgia that she tries to escape through danzon[footnoteRef:2]. [2: Maslin, "A Melodious Variation on Feminist Awareness," 1992]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the characters of Julia and Tita in detail. Since both the women faced life changing events throughout the movie, it will be discussed what decisions made by them led to these changes, and whether or not these choices and decisions were beneficial for them.

Like Water for Chocolate

Tita was the youngest of the three daughters in the De la Garza family. The movie starts with Mama Elena giving birth to Tita while peeling onions in the kitchen. This event is important since Tita develops great love for cooking and even has the power to transfer and express her feelings through the food that she used to cook. Her father passes away when she is only two years old. The death of her father shocks her mother to the extent that she is no longer able to produce breast milk, and hence nurse Tita. Therefore, her cook Nacha takes the responsibility of taking care of the little girl. As she grows up, she falls in love with her neighbor, Pedro. The two of them confess their love for each other when Tita is only 15 years old. On the De la Garza ranch, when every woman has to play her role in sausage making, Tita announces that Pedro will be coming with his father to ask for her hand in marriage[footnoteRef:3]. On this announcement, Elena tells Tita that the family tradition does not allow her to marry and that she is bound to take care of her mother until her death. Tita tries to rebel against this tradition but is soon silenced by her mother's sharp stare. Because of this argument, the relationship between Tita and Elena becomes strained, and the mother and daughter do not talk to each other for the entirety of a week. A week later, when Pedro and his father come to ask for Tita's hand in marriage, Elena offers Pedro to marry her older daughter Rosaura instead, explaining their family tradition. Pedro agrees to the match because he believes that this is the only way he can stay close to his true love, Tita. However, when Tita hears this news, she feels devastated...

She suddenly begins to feel hatred towards Pedro since she thinks that he chose to marry her sister over her. Nacha tries to console Tita by telling her that the only reason that Pedro agreed to the match was so that he could stay close to Tita. It is shown in the movie that when Tita is growing through this entire situation, all she does is cry because she feels very helpless[footnoteRef:4]. [3: Kempley, "Like Water for Chocolate," 1993] [4: Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate, p.221]
Pedro and Rosaura get married, and this is when Tita decides to let go of her desire to get married to Pedro since he is now married to her sister. Despite this decision, she finds herself unable to stop loving him. The reason why she makes this decision is that she believed that she could not protest against the family tradition that bound her to take care of her mother and not marry. She became aware of the fact that she does not have a choice but to accept this as her destiny. On the other hand, she does not give up on her passion for cooking. Tita keeps making use of her amazing supernatural sixth sense of cooking. It cannot be said that this decision was a good choice since it only brought sorrow to her. However, another perspective is that her decision to not rebel against her own family brought happiness and peace to the house.

A few months after Pedro and Rosaura have a baby, they move out to Texas because Elena starts suspecting that Tita might be having an affair with Pedro. While they are in Texas, their family doctor, John Brown, comes to see Elena since her mother believes her to be mentally unstable. Dr. Brown and Tita develop a close bond borne out of his sympathy for her and mutual friendship. It is not much later that Dr. Brown falls in love with Tita and asks her to marry him. However, soon he has to go on leave and so, does not meet Tita for some time. While Dr. Brown is still on leave, Elena gets attacked by some soldiers, and she succumbs to her wounds. Pedro and Rosaura come to Elena's funeral. During their visit, Tita and Pedro have sex with each other, and Tita loses her virginity. The reason why she decides to sleep with Pedro is that she still loves him, and she believes that this is her only chance of making love with him. This decision was a good one since it deepened her love with Pedro, and also gave her a valid reason to turn down the proposal of Dr. Brown, who she did not want to marry to begin with. On the return of Dr. Brown, she tells him that she is not a virgin anymore, and so she cannot marry him.

Twenty years pass by, and Tita's love for Pedro stays the same. During this time, Pedro and Rosaura have a daughter, after the death of their first child. Moreover, Rosaura also dies because of some digestive disease. Pedro returns to Mexico and asks Tita to marry her. Tita gets overwhelmed and decides to marry his long lost love. She finally feels that she has gotten the love of her life. During this outburst of emotions from Pedro and Tita, they start making love in the kitchen. However, in the middle of his sensual orgasm, Pedro dies, consumed with passion. Once again, Tita feels devastated and thinks that she has lost the very purpose of her life. This is when she decides to eat match sticks, after which the kitchen catches fire, and she dies. It can be said that she takes this decision because this was the only time she thought that her life was about to be complete since she had longed for Pedro for years. Thus, when she sees that there is nothing left of her life, she decides to kill herself.

Danzon

The specialty of this movie is that it has brought into the limelight more than one aspect of feminism. The movie revolves around a woman, Julia, whose routine is based on a triad of tasks. She is a telephone operator by profession and does her job with dedication so that she is able to make good money. Her second task is to take of her teenage daughter as she is a single parent. The third perspective of Julia's personality is her passion for danzon. The movie demonstrates how it takes so long for modern-day Mexican women to explore themselves, how the independent women are so caught up with their duties and work that they have almost no time for romance and their own happiness[footnoteRef:5]. [5: Carr and Staff, "Danzon: Feminism meets femininity," 1992]

The basic plot of the movie is that Julia goes to practice danzon every Wednesday. She is paired with…