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Through these interpersonal tensions, the social dynamics that have come to signify the official discourse surrounding the revolution are displaced onto various inhabitants and events that inform their lives at the de la Garza hacienda, especially the women.īoth novel and film call attention to the temporal dislocation from the Mexican Revolution through the presence of the narrator, the grand-niece of the protagonist Tita, and subjective mediation through an historical document, Tita’s hand-made cookbook passed down to the narrator via Tita’s niece, Esperanza. In the tradition of the revolutionary melodrama in Mexico, the revolution is superseded by the dramatic tension between family members on a Northern frontier hacienda. To paraphrase Andrés de Luna, how has the film sifted Mexican history for what was of interest: situations, characters, and themes? (174) Based upon Laura Esquivel’s fictional novel of the same name (1989), Like Water for Chocolate is an epic historical melodrama that spans three generations of Mexican women from 1985 through to the 1950s. A critical examination of the narrative construction, character development, and cinematography will illustrate how this focus upon the role of women within the era of the Mexican Revolution is more a reflection of contemporary gendered-social roles than an accurate portrayal of Revolutionary ideals. It both informs the spectator that this is at once a historical reenactment of the Revolution at a microcosm level, the family, and through the family constructs a critique of the Revolution as it pertains to female identity in terms of power, economics, and race. At once removed and central to understanding the narrative, this portrayal of the Mexican Revolution valorizes and romanticizes the contributions of women.
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Cheyne Volume 7, Issue 4 / April 2003 19 minutes (4529 words)Īlfonso Arau’s Like Water for Chocolate (1993) can be read as an allegorical examination of the Mexican Revolution, tracing the effects of the conflicting ideologies underlying the revolution through the displacement onto the family structure. Gender, Agency, Memory, and Identity in Like Water for Chocolateīy Leah A.