Like Water For Chocolate
The story Like Water For Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel, uses great symbolism.  The book's twelve chapters, a chapter for each month of a year, is being told by Tita’s great niece, whose mother was Esperanza.  In each chapter, there is a new recipe, there is a new dramatic event (or experience for the reader), and there is new terminology to make a person think.
Esquivel uses a language that makes one think. Not only about the story, but about one's own life, about someone elses, about world problems and household problems.  Esquivel can make someone see things from a bigger spectrum, from a wider focus, from a larger view.  Esquivel’s style of speech wiggles it’s way into someone's unguarded mind, unloosing thoughts wedged in the outskirts of the brain in the tight crevices.  Things and ideas that had been shoved away for safe keeping and then forgotten about are again released to be explored. New ideas and thoughts, complex and colorful, are born in the centre of the mind, and the poor person can’t help but lose themselves in this ocean, the ocean that used to only be a lake at best.
Esquivel’s language does not create a river, where the words come and go.  Esquivel’s words create an underwater exploration. However, one cannot have all of this wonderful inspiration and have these cacophonies of thought without a voice.
Just like Tita’s homemade Hot Chocolate [p. 177] will quickly fill one's head, Esquivel’s voice is thick and creamy and rich.  No one  likes a whiny voice. Anyone could fall asleep to a monotone voice. Everybody hates unrelenting rapid speech or ceaseless lethargic talk.  No need to worry though because Esquivel uses a comfortable flowing paced voice.  Esquivel uses voice thick with emotion which has a natural richness like the fertile ground of Mexico.  Esquivel’s voice can gently rock you into a dream, or, it can crash you into reality with the speed of lightning and the impact of a meteor hitting the moon.
Unfortunately, it takes a little more than a language and voice to speak it, to keep a person bewitched.  It also takes a good storyline to be created for the kaleidoscopic language, and an enjoyable storyteller to keep a reader captivated.  This, and even a bit more, is what Esquivel provides.  Tita, the main character in the story, can transfer emotion through her cooking.  An example would be Pedro’s and Rosaura's wedding cake.  Pedro, who is Tita’s love, married Tita’s sister Rosaura.  What she didn’t know, was why.  As Tita and the cook, Nacha, made the batter for the wedding cake Tita cried and cried.  And because of this consistent crying the batter wouldn’t thicken (for the tears fell into the batter).  Finally Nacha got her to stop crying and the they were able to finish the cake.
The next day at the wedding, everyone had a twenty course meal courtesy of Tita and Nacha.  Everyone kept complimenting the food and asking for the recipes, that is, until the cake.  When it came time to eat the cake everyone was expecting a delicious masterpiece.  Indeed they were not disappointed.  The thing they did get without asking was the after effect.  They were  not expecting to cry for lost love, they were not expecting to rush to the bathrooms and any other occupiable space to vomit.  And no one was expecting the death of Nacha, who died with a picture of her deceased husband.
Everyone but Tita felt these effects, and everyone but Tita was unhappy.  Before Nacha died, she told Tita what she had overheard Pedro and his father arguing about.  They had been arguing over Tita.  For Pedro only married Rosaura to be close to Tita for he still had an undying love for her.  If he could have married Tita he would have, just like he was planning but unfortunately Tita was the youngest daughter, and so was condemned to taking care of her “Mami” until she died and therefore unable to marry.
Another symbol is Tita being very fragile to onions.  For whenever there were onions being chopped she would cry.  They said that this was true even when she was still in the stomach.  That when mama Elena would chop onions, even Nacha, who was half deaf, could hear her crying.  Then one day when mama Elena was chopping onions, Tita cried so hard that she was born premature on a great wave of tears.  And when the water was dried from the sun it left enough salt behind to fill a ten pound sack which they bagged and used for cooking and it lasted them a long time [p. 6].
When Tita was in the kitchen helping to prepare food and there were onions being chopped she would cry and cry and it became a source of a joke.  And Nacha would laugh and Tita would laugh and it was so regular that Tita didn’t distinguish tears of joy and tears of sorrow.
Of course, I could give you ten different more examples and summarize the entire book for you.  But, my words would not entertain you like the words that flow from Esquivel’s fingers.  In saying this, I think it a good idea to explore the wonderful world and creative mind of this masterful author through her words, in her story, Like Water For Chocolate.