Bittersweet chocolate
Bittersweet chocolate is the first novel by the Mexican writer Laura Esquivel , first published in 1989 under the original Spanish title Como agua para chocolate .
The story is set in Mexico in 1910. It is about Tita's life and her unhappy love for Pedro; According to the wishes of her traditional mother, Tita, the lastborn of the family, is not allowed to marry, but has to look after her mother until her death. Just in cooking she can express her passion and feelings, so that everyone experiences what they felt while cooking while eating. Since it was first published in 1989, the novel has been translated into 30 languages and has sold more than three million copies worldwide.
Each chapter of the book stands for a month of the year and begins with a recipe, u. a. Quail with rose petals (March) and chillies in walnut sauce (December), but the June recipe describes how to make matches.
The original title is a Mexican saying that can be traced back to the Aztec high culture. The Aztecs made water-soluble tablets from the local cocoa beans . Water was brought to a boil over the fire and the chocolate tablet was only thrown in just before the boiling point was reached. From this production method of hot chocolate the expression como agua para chocolate ( like water for chocolate ) developed, which describes a human state of mind "on the verge of an emotional explosion". This explosion can refer to rage or anger as well as erotic pleasure. According to Alfonso Arau (producer of the novel adaptation ), all of the main characters in the narrative are almost continuously on the verge of such an explosion.
content
Bittersweet Chocolate is about Tita de la Garza, a girl who was born in Mexico at the time of the revolution. She is born on the kitchen table and is raised by the cook from birth. She loves cooking and traditional Mexican cuisine. She is the youngest of three sisters and, according to family tradition, must look after her mother until death. Tita accepts her fate until she meets Pedro Muzquiz and they fall madly in love. From then on she rebels against Mama Elena and tries to defend herself against her destiny. But Pedro marries the eldest sister Rosaura and of course Tita has to cook for the wedding. She cries into the Chebola wedding cake out of grief . At the celebration, after consuming the cake, guests begin to feel bad and vomit.
people
- Tita is the main character in the novel Bittersweet Chocolate and the youngest of the three sisters. In the course of the novel, she developed an inexhaustible love for the kitchen and for cooking. Every time she cuts an onion, her eyes water terribly. This is mainly because she was born on a kitchen table where an onion soup was being prepared. From then on, she spends a lot of time in the kitchen. She is very good at cooking because she has been doing it from an early age. She falls in love with Pedro, but her mother does not allow her to marry him. According to tradition, she has to look after her mother until death. After Pedro marries her sister Rosaura, she still has a relationship with him and he remains her lover for a long time. After Rosaura dies, they show themselves together in public and die a short time later after Alex and Esperanza's wedding.
- Pedro is Tita's lover. He intends to marry Tita and proposes to her, but Tita's mother Elena forbids Tita to do so due to an old family tradition. Instead of marrying Tita, he finally chooses Rosaura, who is the only daughter who is already allowed to marry. However, he only does this to be closer to Tita, since it would not be possible for him otherwise. He keeps giving Tita presents and brings her roses instead of Rosaura, which Mother Elena is not enthusiastic about. After his marriage to Rosaura, he moves further and further away from her, realizing that she cannot make up for his loss. But after she dies at the end of the novel, he and Tita get back together and spend the rest of their lives together.
- Mama Elena is one of the main characters in the novel. She is Titas, Gertrudis and Rosaura's mother and brings up her daughters very strictly. She makes Tita very unhappy by forbidding Tita's wedding to Pedro and instead getting him to marry Tita's sister Rosaura. On the wedding day, she forces Tita to help out in the kitchen, even though she is very unhappy. She insists that Tita care for her until her death, as the family tradition has to take care of the youngest daughter. She then also dies during the novel.
- Nacha is the cook for the Titas family. She is almost deaf and can no longer understand much of what is being said. She raises Tita from an early age by cooking for her and getting her used to normal food as Tita's mother Elena cannot give her breast milk. She teaches Tita to cook, which she then helps her in the kitchen. Furthermore, she becomes Tita's best friend, with whom she can discuss everything. Nacha dies in the second chapter after the wedding between Rosaura and Pedro, but she appears a few more times in the course of the novel, tidies Tita's room and gives her advice.
- Gertrudis is the middle of the three sisters. She has a different father than Tita and Rosaura, José. Unlike her sisters, she inherited a very good sense of rhythm from her father. “'I don't even know where Gertrudis got this sense of rhythm. Mom didn't like to dance and dad is said to have danced very badly. '"She is different from her sisters in every way, a tomboy. Gertrudis stands for revolution and freedom. While Rosaura herself is like Mama Elena and Tita rejects her, she forms her own alternative. She expressly opposes Mama Elena, does not follow traditions and runs away. She follows her desires and lives for some time in a brothel, after which she marries the man she loves and becomes a general in the revolutionary movement. Her role as a woman is also revolutionary. Mama Elena takes on the role of a man but Gertrudis remains a woman. She lives femininity and lives out hers. She is equal to her husband Juan all the time.
- Rosaura is one of the three siblings of the de la Garza family. She is the eldest of the daughters and lives with her mother and two sisters on a farm in Piedras Negras. She is the eldest daughter and according to Mama Elena's tradition she is asked to marry first. Rosaura is married to Pedro in the second chapter of the novel - Tita's great love. Although Pedro has no feelings for Rosaura, he enters into a marriage with her in order to at least live in the vicinity of Tita. Rosaura is callous and quite unconcerned when it comes to her sister's feelings. She is the complete opposite of Tita in that she shows no feelings and follows her mother's traditions. This difference of opinion is particularly noticeable when Pedro and Rosaura father a child and it is to be raised according to Mama Elena's traditions. As the novel progresses, she realizes that Tita's and Pedro's mutual love is too strong to keep their marriage going, but she remains naive and tries to continue to ignore it. When Mama Elena sends her son-in-law and Rosaura to Mexico to separate Pedro and Tita, Rosaura's first child dies of malnutrition. Rosaura then has a second child and dies shortly afterwards of digestive problems.
- Chencha is the second housekeeper of the Garza family and was hired to look after Mama Elena, as Tita is leaving home contrary to tradition. She is one of the few who tries to mess with Mama Elena, which is not very easy. Chencha is Nacha's successor and is also a replacement for Tita. However, she gets on well with Tita and can listen to her and notice when Tita is bad. Chencha takes care of Tita and envies her courage to turn her back on the farm. She sees Tita as a role model, but she would never dare to do the same. "From an early age she had heard how badly it was for women who defied their parents or their employer and left their homes." P. 174/5
- Esperanza is the daughter of Pedro and Rosaura and their second child after the death of their first child, Roberto. Esperanza has a close bond with Tita as she feeds her after Rosaura realizes that she is unable to breastfeed her child. She experienced a childhood similar to that of Tita herself and was quickly drawn to the art of cooking and cooking.
- Alex is the son of John and his late wife. He has been convinced that he will marry Esperanza one day since he was a child. At the end of the novel, after Rosaura has passed away, who, like Mama Elena, has strictly forbidden her daughter to marry, this happens too. However, this is only found out quite late.
Narrator / narrative form
The novel begins around 1910 and ends around 1930; around 20 years pass in the course of history. The narrative form changes in the course of the novel. The beginning and the end are written in first person, while the rest of the novel is told in third person. The narrator is Esperanza and Alex's child, who tells the life story of his great-aunt Tita. The gender of the narrator is not clearly defined here. The novel uses flashbacks in the form of memories that Tita in particular has of the late cook Nacha, or stories from the past, for example when Mama Elena's youth is explained.
filming
The Mexican director Alfonso Arau filmed the book in 1992 with Lumi Cavazos and Marco Leonardi in the leading roles. The film Bittersweet Chocolate , one of the most successful foreign films in the USA, won the Premio Ariel , the film prize of the Mexican Film Academy , in ten categories .
literature
- Laura Esquivel: Bittersweet chocolate. Mexican novel about love, recipes and tried and tested home remedies in monthly installments ("Como agua para chocolate"). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-518-45930-0 .
- Laura Esquivel: Como agua para chocolate. Novela de entregas mensuales, con recetas, amores y remedios caseros . Reclam, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-15-019738-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview with filmmaker Alfonso Arau ; Bonus material from the film version (DVD).