Laura Esquivel was born in 1951 in Mexico City, Mexico. She was born the only daughter to a telegraph operator and his wife (Wyoming 1). Esquivel spent eight years as a teacher and a writer and director for a children’s theater. According to “Like Water for Chocolate,” an article by Wyoming Council for Humanities, Mrs. Esquivel wrote screenplays before she wrote novels. Her first screenplay, which she wrote for Alfonso Arau, Chido One, was nominated for the Ariel Award as best screenplay in 1985. Como agua para Chocolate is the first novel by Laura Esquivel. It was published first in Spanish in 1989, followed by an English translation in 1992. The book went o

of longing and desire, become a metaphor for self-expression. The spirits of the dead that appear to Tita throughout the novel, suggest that one’s influence does not disappear after death. Nacha’s spirit gives Tita confidence when she needs it, while Mama Elena’s spirit tries to control Tita, making her feel guilty about her passion for Pedro. “The struggle between Mama Elena and Tita is the axis which the entire novel turns,” stated Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts in Sparknotes on Like Water for Chocolate. Mama Elena is the opposite of a nurturer, never forging any kind of bond with her youngest daughter. Tita, strives for love, freedom, and individuality, and Mama Elena, stands as the prime opposition to the achievements of the these goals.

Like Water for Chocolate has not received a great deal of critical attention because it is “often consigned to the ‘charming but aren’t we moderns above it’ ghetto of magical realism,” quoted Sheryl Ciccarell and Marie Rose Napierkowski in Novels for Students. Esquivel’s unique narrative design is worthy of critical attention. The narrative structure of the novel attests to the female bonding and creativity that can emerge within a domestic realm. According to Maria Elena de Valdes from “Verbal and visual representation of women: Like Water for Chocolate” a verbal image of the model Mexican rural, middle-class woman. She must be strong and far more clever than the men who supposedly protect her. She must exercise great care to keep her private relations as quiet as possible. The major difference between Esquivel’s novel and the film version is that there is a visual intertext that evokes the Cinderella fairy tale by using the ghostly appearance of Mama Elena and making her death the result of an attack by outlaws (de Valdes 7). My personal opinion of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate is that the novel is very well written and deserved more attention than it has received. I believe that everyone could learn a lesson or two from Tita’s experiences throughout the book. She taught me a lot through her love

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