An Elephant Vanishes Essay

Explain the role of the kitchen in equal Water For drinking chocolate by Laura Esquivel and The Elephant Vanishes by Murakami. In Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, food and the kitchen is a subject matter of expressing a range of human emotions. Like Water for Chocolate opens with its most important central setting, the kitchen. Onion-induced dolorous quite liter all(prenominal)y sweeps the protagonist, Tita, into the universe of discourse, as she is born in the kitchen, crying, amidst of englut of her mystifys tears.Her mother, Mama Elena, is futile to produce milk (due to shock at the recent death of her husband) and Mama Elena gives Tita almost immediately to the mansion cook, Nacha, who rears the child in the kitchen. Surrounded by the colours, smells, and routines of Nachas kitchen, Tita grows up understanding the world in term of food. She enjoys her isolation in the domain of the kitchen. Thanks to her unusual birth, Tita felt a deep love for the kitchen wh ere she fatigued most of her life from the day she was born page 10, paragraph two.The narrative of Titas entry into the world marks the first fantastical image of Like Water for Chocolate, initiating the reader into the novels wizard(prenominal) realism and illustrating the intensity and improbability that characterise the events of the story. The image of Tita flowing into the world in a flood of tears prefigures the sadness and longing that will pervade her life. After Titas birth, the flood of tears dries to collapse ten pounds of salt to be collected and used for cookery.The practical attitude with which the characters greet this surreal hap helps to establish the supernatural as an accepted part of the characters lives. Nacha swept aside the residue the tears had leftfield on the red stone floor, There was enough salt to fill a ten-pound-sack- it was used for homework and lasted a long time page 10, paragraph two. Outside the kitchen, Tita follows the demanding regime t hat Mama Elena sets for her daughters. Life is liberal of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and prayer. This routine is interrupted one day by Titas timid announcement that a suitor, Pedro Muzquiz, would standardised to pay her a visit.Mama Elena greets this announcement with indignation, invoking the De La Garza family customs that the youngest daughter is to remain unmarried so that she can c ar for the matriarch in the matriarchs old age. Tita is dismayed by this wet tradition. Outwardly, she submits to Mama Elenas wishes, but privately she questions the family tradition and maintains her tinges for Pedro. you dont retain an opinion Tita and thats all I want to hear about it. For generations, not a single in my family has ever questioned this tradition and no daughter of mine is going to be the one to start page 15, paragraph 3This cold hearted appraoch to Titas yearning for marriage is what makes Tita retreat into the safe realm of the ktichen, I think the reason why magic reali sm was applied to food is because of how universal it is. Whereas music and art only apply to somewhat of us, food is in all of our lives. Since magic realism is all about mixing the magic with whats real, food is the ideal choice. Weve all heard of metaphors exaggerating the taste of food, but Laura Esquivels descriptions of the effects of food are much more than elaborate.Its so descriptive that sometimes we doubt our ideals of whats real by reading the effects of the recipes. By using food as the medium the author was able to smoothly meld together the magical and real aspects of each chapter. Her isolated childhood in the kitchen gives Tita an outlook on life different from that of her sisters, Gertrudis and Rosaura, and she comes to develop different ideals for herself as she matures. As a young woman, Tita rebels against the family tradition that trammel her to a life without love.Her insistent questioning (even though she does not petition Mama Elena directly) of her lot in life can be identified as one of the feminist impulses in the novel. This refusal to accept an appoint and undesirable social role marks the beginning of Titas path to self-assertion and freedom. Her love for the kitchen and cooking is a rebelious action against her mother, her realm of the kitchen is the only thing that her mother can not control or do, the kitchen is what keeps her sane from the depressing sitution on the other side of the door. it wasnt easy for a person whose intimacy of life was based on the kitchen to comprehend the out-of-door world. That world was an endless expanse that began atthe door surrounded by the kitchen and the rest of the house, whereas everything on the kitchen side of that door, on through the door leading to the patio and the kitchen and herb gardens was solely hers-it was Titas realm. This quotes proves my point above, the kitchen door acts as a safe guard to the oppressive realm of her mothers. In an Elephant vanishes one of the majo r makeups of the story is the idea of things being out of balance.This theme is introduced when the narrator tells the editor program about the importance of unity in kitchen design, as he states, Even the most beautifully designed item dies if it is out of balance with its surroundings. The narrator later emphasizes the importance of balance between a creature and its environment when he talks about witnessing the change in the elephants size in apprisal to the keepers size. He states that the balance in size between the two has become more equal, because the elephant has shrunk or the keeper has gotten bigger, or both.Following the slicing of the elephant and the keeper, the narrator again expresses the idea that things around me have lost their proper balance. He is no longer able to take action on his receive behalf, as he is haunted by this sense that the urban world is out of balance, and he feels that a kind of natural balance has broken d have inside him. The imbalanc e between Titas kitchen and outside the kitchen can relate to the elephant vanishes. Tita fells safe in the kitchen and at peace with the old kitchen keeps her in balance.Related to the theme of imbalance is the difference between appearances and reality. The narrator points out that the article covering the story of the elephants disappearance is strange, because the reporter tries so hard to maintain that the elephant escaped, when the facts indicate that the elephant had to have almost magically vanished. The characters in the story try to maintain an appearance of normality in the face of an event that defies logic, leading to pointless acts that do not address the nature of the situation.The discrepancy between reality and appearances also arises in the narrators job as he basically just goes through the motions, trying to maintain a professional, practical(a) approach although he does not personally believe that a kitchen has to have unity or any(prenominal) of the other max ims his company invokes to snitch its products. The narrator finds that he cannot reconcile the differences between appearances and reality, and as he questions his own perceptions, he experiences a sense of disorientation and confusion.Throughout the story, Murakami subtly reveals how the vanishing of the old ways leaves people feeling disoriented and how the new ways of being create a sense of disconnection and unease. This can be said about Mama in Like water for chocolate as she is does not alike(p) the idea of Tita marrying . She is scared of modern society perhaps, and is insecure about her future. Mamas death The narrator, for example, performs his job as a public relations executive successfully by espousing the commercial viewpoint that things you cant sell dont count for much. Because in truth he does not necessarily believe this statement, aphorism it and operating from this pragmatic mode seem to confound the narrator, confusing him about his purpose in life. Like ot her Murakami characters, he is also a loner, a single person, living alone with no seeming ties to family or friends also this can be said to Mama Elena, she has distanced herself from her loved ones through the death of her expansive child and of the cruelty committed to Tita .The narrator watches the elephant and the keeper and marvels at their closeness, their special bond. In the wake of the elephants disappearance, the narrator feels despondent, more isolated and alone than ever. As is Tita at the end of the novel after Pedro dies. straightaway it would never again be possible to see that light, because she could no longer feel anything. She would but interweave through the shadows for eternity, alone, all alone.