Blue Beach and Like Water for Chocolate

A detailed Summary of Blue Beach and Like Water for Chocolate

In both the play, Blue Beach by Victor Hugo Rascon Banda and the novel Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquirel symbolism plays a vital role throughout the central ideas. In both of these pieces of literature the symbolic objects are a hotel with everything in it and the use of cooking respectively. These objects reflect the families. In the play Blue Beach, the hotel portrays the breaking down of the Garza family, while in the novel Like Water for Chocolate, the use of cooking by Tita gives the reader the idea that the Tita is being held against living her own life, and instead living the life which her mother wishes to put upon her.

Throughout the play Blue Beach, the reader gets the idea that the family is very broken down and is being held by a very thin string. The members of the family seem very bitter towards each other and very resentful toward each other. Within the play the author gives numerous examples of how the family is bitter and not caring. The Garza family is anything but normal. It seems that the son, Sergio and the mother, are the most unemotional out of the whole family. One example that shows how bitter Sergio can be is when he asks Matias to bring him a coconut. Matias gives Sergio the coconu

t drink and instead of Sergio being satisfied with it he says, "Crazy Bastard. What's this?" (65). He spits out his drink because he believes it to be sour, but when he asks the others to drink it to prove himself right they see nothing wrong with it. I believe that this is showing that no matter what Sergio touches it seems foul and disgusting. This is due to what he went through when he was younger.

The author takes it upon himself to direct many of the symbolic objects within the play toward the mother. This includes when the mother asks Matias to bring her flowers, and when he does this she is anything but satisfied. Matias asks her how the flowers are, and she says that they are beautiful, but as soon as she smells them she says that they are rotten. (70). Also, the mother asks Sergio to come look out the window at what she sees, but he sees nothing. When Sergio asks his mother what she sees, she replies, "Balls of fire. They're jumping around and chasing each other" (77). The son assumes that the mother is crazy, and continues to warn her about an unstable beam that she keeps leaning against. The beam is another example of symbolism the author tries to use to show how the mother is hurt. After several times of the family warning the mother to stay away from the beam, it breaks and in the process of the beam breaking a picture of the general on the wall breaks al!

Finally, I think one of the most important symbols within the story is when Dr. Brown teaches Tita how to make matches. During the process of making these matches he states an analogy that his grandmother once told him. This analogy is reflected in the very ending of the story. Dr. Browns' grandmother believed that every person is born with a box of matches. These matches light the happiness to ones soul. Dr Brown states,

Another example of how Tita expresses her saddened life was when Pedro had bought her flowers when she was morning Nacha's death. Tita did not want to put those roses to waste, so she decided to make a dinner out of it, Quail in Rose Petals. This takes place during the third chapter or the month of March. When Pedro and Tita's sister, Gertrudis ate the quail they experienced the

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Approximate Word count = 1481
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels