Wild Card: “Gertrudis Burns Down the Shower”

“Her body was giving off so much heat that the wooden walls began to split and burst into flame.” Thus remarks the narrator in Laura Esquivel’s 1991 Like Water for Chocolate.

Laura Esquivel uses magical imagery to create surreal situations such as this one. The novel, Like Water for Chocolate, is described as magical realism. Magical realism is, as defined by Maria Rave in her master’s thesis, as, “The free expression by objective means of the subjective feelings of an individual or group.” This quote helps to show how Esquivel’s novel can be connected with the term magical realism. Magical realism was a very common style of expression for many Latin writers and artists. This style of writing comes from the discovery of the Americas and the way the explorers described this new world as surreal and mystical. It could have also come from many legends and fairy tales. Regardless of the origin, magical realism has become a major part of Latin writing and art. Like Water for Chocolate is the embodiment of this major part of Latin culture. Through Esquivel’s descriptions of emotions and situations in unique, abstract ways, the normal world begins to become abnormal and surreal and the reader begins to be transported to a world very, very similar to our own, but slightly different as well. One where magic and mysticism are a very minor, but existent, part of everyday life.

This novel has many examples of magical realism. One scene in particular, the scene from which the initial quote comes from, exemplifies traditional magical realism and can act as a basis from which to discuss Esquivel’s use of magical realism throughout the rest of her novel. In this scene, Gertrudis has just eaten some of Tita’s Quail in Rose Petal Sauce. Tita’s true love, Pedro, had just given her roses as a gift for her becoming the ranch’s chef. However, Mama Elena, persistent in her quest to deny Tia’s and Pedro’s love requires Tita to get rid of the roses. Tita does not wish for the roses to go to waste, so she decides to cook to roses into a rose sauce for quail. The imagery describes the roses as having cut Tita and begun to drink the blood of her wound, turning from pink to red. Tita’s love for Pedro has been cooked into the Quail, perhaps from the blood that seeped into the roses’ petals, and Gertrudis is physically reacting to this forbidden love. She is acting as a conduit for their love, living out the intimacy and passion they are denied to one another. The imagery becomes particularly mystical as Gertrudis, continuing to be under the spell of the Quail in Rose Sauce, goes out to take a shower in their outdoor shower. As the quote mentions, she appears to be releasing such heat from her body that, “the water evaporates before reaching her.” Gertrudis’ heat becomes so intense that it literally starts to catch the shack on fire. At that same moment another mystical event is occurring. A soldier that Gertrudis had fallen in love with the other day suddenly feels a strong calling occur that pulls him away from his battle and brings him to the bewitched Gertrudis. They then ride off on the soldier’s horse while making love, leaving behind the ranch, forbidden love, and burning shower.

All in all, this scene is quite an odd one. So much happens so quickly that it’s hard to follow what exactly is going on. It’s so bizarre and surreal and that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. It shows the strength of Tita’s and Pedro’s love that it is capable of causing Gertrudis to release so much heat that it burns down a building and then run off from home with some unknown soldier, going completely against her mother. Tita and Pedro are so passionately and madly in love, but are at the same time so hopelessly separated from one another by Tita’s curse as the youngest daughter. The only way they can communicate is through the food that Tita prepares. However, it ends up having an effect on everyone else at the table due to its intensity. Gertrudis is a medium for their love. She becomes the embodiment for their lust and passion so that she has a major character shift here, changing from the obedient, good middle daughter to a woman driven by lust and sexual tension. It is found out later that Gertrudis in fact runs off and becomes a prostitute, possibly to continue through with the amount of lust that has built up inside her thanks to Tita’s and Pedro’s lust for one another.

Referring beck to the definition, this scene is most certainly an “objective means” to express “subjective feelings.” The objective means is the transference of Tita’s feelings in the Quail in Rose Sauce to Gertrudis and her subsequent burning of the shower through sheer heat off her body alone. The subjective feelings would be Tita’s and Pedro’s insatiable and unobtainable love for one another that goes against the families tradition of the youngest daughter being forced to stay around to take care of the mother and never get married. The magical properties of the quail symbolize the strength of the feelings. The feelings are so powerful that they transcend mere thoughts and looks, but instead flow into the foods Tita creates. Esquivel chooses the style of magical realism to act as an over exaggeration of sorts. It over exaggerates the lust between Tita and Pedro to cause the reader to better understand how these two lovers, denied their feelings by tradition, feel passionately drawn towards one another.

Esquivel’s theme of magical realism through food is seen throughout the novel. This is just one example, but another would be the wedding cake from Claudia’s wedding with Pedro. This cake caused everyone to start to cry uncontrollably and then get incredibly sick. This cake was a physical representation of Tita’s sadness for losing Pedro seemingly forever. In this case, it was Tita’s tears in the batter that transferred her feelings to the cake, just like it was her blood that transferred her passion to the quail. All of the foods in the novel, but particularly the ones that have major, noticeable effects on people, such as the quail and the cake, are all physical manifestations of Tita’s feelings with the power to pass on these feelings to those who have eaten it.

Bibliography

Rave, Maria Eugenia. Magical Realism and Latin America.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. First Anchor Books Edition, 1989. Print.