Passion

I think the ending of Like Water For Chocolate was fitting to the story line. The idea of how their passion was too much for the living world to handle seems to hold true to the book. The entire story is building up this intense passion between them that is never fully satisfied. They did have affairs but I don't think it was an adequate outlet for the romance between them. They could never fully release all the pent up feelings for each other in a guilt free way until the ending. Which obviously, ignited such a passionate response that it resulted in Pedro's death and then followed, by Tita's.

I liked the symbolism with fire throughout the course of the novel. She uses it in many different ways, to symbolize the different intense emotions. The fire at the end seems to be a finale of all these different aspects of symbolism. The intensity of Tita's passion for Pedro is enough to ignite the matches and set flame to the entire ranch. I thought this was an eloquent way to mark an ending of a story that was always rich with symbolism and magical realism. The followup with the analogy of the matches was a great way to tie up that important moment in the middle of the book with the ending. I wouldn't necessarily call this ending a true tradegy, because there is no real sense of loss. Regardless of personal spiritual or religious beliefs, in the sense of Tita's mind, her and Pedro were going to be together. So it must of been the author's intention for this to be a love that will live beyond death. Personal beliefs aside, in the realm of fiction, I think this was a truely eloquent way to end the story for their love.

I surprised myself with this book, at the beginning of the semester this was one of the books I really didn't think I would like. I really enjoyed this novel, much more than Pride and Prejudice especially. I loved the magical realism of the story, since I love fantasy books so much, especially when they are combined with a romance story. I'm very happy that I took this course, it has opened me up to different types of novels that I normally would not have read on my own.