Does anybody know what the significance of the title is to the meaning of the work?
shareIt means that the life her mother wants her to live is like water, a plain, everyday thing, when compared to delicious, lush, rich chocolate in the form of her true love.
Which would you rather have??
It's Mexican slang. Consider this:
Guy #1: Did you see that girl in gym class?
Guy #2: no dude, was she hot?
Guy #3 "Like water for chocolate!"
[deleted]
It means, "at the boiling point" not water for chocolate. Mexican hot chocolate is made differently then American Hot chocolate. They add the chocolate mixture to the water when it is at the boiling point. In America we would say at "our angriest point". It's all about the patience and how long one can go on with out saying anything. Tit'a boiling point is when he nephew dies and her mother says not to cry over it. But Tita stands up to her mother which is something she has never really done.
shareHaving read the book, I can say that that wasn't the impression I got at all. Tita is talking to Nacha about losing Pedro, and Nacha says something like a substitute for one's true love will never be the same as having one's true love...i.e. like having water in place of chocolate. Just not the same.
shareI have read the book, and can tell you for sure what the phrase "like water for chocolate" means. It is used actually only once in the entire novel, when Tita is under great pressure to prepare a good meal for John Brown, and his elderly aunt, who is visiting the ranch to meet Tita, then John's fiance. Chencha the maid was not at the ranch, Tita has to take care of Rosaura and her baby daughter Esperanza, as well as Pedro, who was injured. She is very stressed out, with so much to do, and so the novel mentions that she was feeling like water for chocolate, which is, at the boiling point.
shareAs was said earlier, Mexican hot chocolate is made with boiling water (sorry to paraphrase). "Like water for chocolate" is Mexican slang for being really agitated or very sexually excited.
shareIt's on page 151 of the pb Anchor Books English edition:
<quote> Tita was literally "like water for chocolate"--she was on the verge of boiling over. How irritable she was! </quote>
The Spanish idiom 'Like Water for Chocolate', implies passion and sexual desire, refers to the extremely high temperature that water must reach in order to liquefy chocolate.
share[deleted]