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Candidate Number: 0847-000-0000
Michelle R. Thomas
Language A1
World Literature Paper 1, HL
9 March 2006
Magical Realism in The House of the Spirits and Like Water for Chocolate
Need help with your problems? Just consult the spirits of the three-legged table. Having
trouble getting the tamales to cook? They are probably angry because people are arguing, so just
sing to them and it will make them feel better.
These things are not possible in real life, and yet seem to be conventional in these two
novels. This effect is accomplished by Allende and Esquivel because both The House of the
Spirits and Like Water for Chocolate incorporate magical realism into their plots to enhance the
characterization of the protagonists as well as the antagonists in their stories.
Talks about Clara here…
One antagonist who is especially evident in The House of the Spirits is Esteban Garcia.
His character is the epitome of evil; this becomes obvious when he agrees as a young boy to aid
Esteban Trueba in his attempt to murder Pedro Tercero Garcia for a large cash reward. Although
he merely guides Esteban Trueba to Pedro’s location, this can nevertheless be seen as an act of
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Candidate Number: 0847-000-0000
malice and greed. Also, Esteban Garcia later becomes involved in the secret police and
eventually captures Alba as his prisoner. However, he did not treat her like the rest of the
prisoners. He saw her everyday; “at times he appeared to be genuinely moved, personally spoonfeeding soup into her mouth, but the day he plunged her head into a bucket full of excrement
until she fainted from disgust, Alba understood that he was not trying to learn Miguel’s true
wherabouts but to avenge himself for the injuries that had been inflicted on him from birth, and
that nothing she confessed would have any effect on her fate as the private prisoner of Colonel
Garcia” (411). He also rapes her and beats her repeatedly during her time in the prison. The
strong antagonism of Esteban Garcia’s character is developed by his wordly actions. Unlike
protagonists such as Alba and Clara, Esteban Garcia lacks magical realism. It can be observed
that during the period of political crisis and during Alba’s time in the prison, magical realism
diminishes; however, it comes back strong as the spirit of Clara helps Alba to regain her mental
and spiritual strength.
Laura Esquivel also uses magical realism in Like Water for Chocolate to enhance the
strong protagonism which characterizes its central character, Tita. The foundation for Tita’s
protagonism is the pity that her character evokes from the reader. Even from the minute of her
birth, “Tita [is] literally washed into this world on a great tide of tears that [spill] over the edge of
the table and [flood] across the kitchen floor” (Esquivel 6). During the rest of the novel, it seems
as if Tita never really stops crying; “sometimes she would cry for no reason at all, like when
Nacha chopped onions… but [Nacha and Tita] didn’t pay them much mind. They made them a
source of entertainment, so that during her childhood Tita didn’t distinguish between tears of
laughter and tears of sorrow. For her, laughing was a form of crying” (7). Of course, Tita’s tears
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Candidate Number: 0847-000-0000
throughout the rest of the novel have significance and emotion to them, but this permanent
characterization of Tita also strengthens the conveyed mood of pity. Another instance where one
is compelled to feel pity for Tita is, ironically, when she ruins her sister’s wedding. While she
cries about the fact that she could never marry, a tear drop falls into the wedding cake, and she
fears that it ruined the consistency of the meringue. The cake was fine, however, “the moment
[the guests] took their first bites of cake, everyone was flooded with a great wave of longing”
(39). It is also because of this spell that Nacha dies, grieving for her long-lost lover from her
past. This is a prime example of how Tita’s emotions are reflected literally in her cooking, and
how they create spells which have very consequential effects on others. This certainly could
never occur in the real world, however this magical realism aids in the symbolic imagery which
constitutes the plot of the novel as a whole.
The established fact that Tita’s magical cooking greatly affects the lives of others is also
especially evident in the character of Gertrudis. After she eats the delicious quail in rose-petal
sauce that Tita had prepared from a rose that Pedro had secretly given her, Gertrudis “began to
feel an intense heat pulsing through her limbs… her sweat was pink, and smelled like roses, a
lovely, strong smell” (52). Her symptoms grew so extreme that she had to run to the shower
outside, where she encountered unexpectedly the man of her dreams. Juan “put his arm around
her waist, and lifted her onto the horse in front of him, face to face, and carried her away” (56).
This is a major turning point in Gertrudis’s life, and she does not return to the ranch for a long
period of time. Tita and Pedro are also affected by this enchanted meal. Upon eating, “it was as if
a strange alchemical process had dissolved [Tita’s] entire being in the rose petal sauce, in the
tender flesh of the quails, in the wine, in every one of the meal’s aromas. That was the way she
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Candidate Number: 0847-000-0000
entered Pedro’s body, hot, voluptuous, perfumed, totally sensuous” (52). It is evident that
magical realism supports the sublime language which describes this sensation between the two
lovers. Esquivel ventures to unveil one of the mysteries of the spiritual subconscious, as she
states that “it seemed they had discovered a new system of communication, in which Tita was
the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis the medium, the conducting body through
which the singular sexual message was passed” (52). It can be observed from this described
event that Esquivel incorporates philosophical sublimity into this instance of magical realism,
which gives the story a spiritual and mystical charm, as opposed to Allende’s use of magical
realism to portray eccentricites as merely conventional daily occurences.
In dealing with antagonism in Like Water for Chocolate, Esquivel’s method for the
characterization of evil characters differs from that of Allende. Instead of the purposeful lack of
magic which Allende demonstrates in these characters, Esquivel’s antagonists still retain their
magical realism. For example, even after her death, Mama Elena haunts Tita as a ghost, verbally
repremanding her for her undiminishing love for Pedro. Tita stands up against the ghost of Mama
Elena and firmly declares that her love will never go away and that she hates and had always
hated Mama Elena. These “magic words [make] Mama Elena dissappear forever”, but first the
ghost becomes a “little light… [which begins] to spin feverishly” (200). It approaches Pedro,
“whirling crazily, with enough violence to make the lamp closest to him explode into a thousand
pieces. The oil quickly [spreads] the flames onto Pedro’s face and body” (200). Mama Elena is
most clearly identified as an antagonist in her spirit-form, since even as a ghost all she wanted
was to haunt Tita and wreak havoc on her and Pedro’s relationship. This instance of magical
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realism is literally involved in the plot and does not have as much of a symbolic effect as in The
House of the Spirits.
In conclusion, both Allende and Esquivel utilize magical realism in their novels to
develop the protagonism of their main characters, although at the same time they convey
different ideas. In The House of the Spirits, antagonism is portrayed through the absence of
magic, while Esquivel consistently uses magic throughout the plot of Like Water for Chocolate.
Moreover, Allende attempts to make the supernatural become natural in her novel, while
Esquivel maintains the supernatural in order to create a myth-like anecdote.