The Use Of Food To Enhance Charecterisation
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Title: “Tell me what you do with what you eat and I will tell you who you are” — The Use Of Food To Enhance Characterisation And Relationships, In Like Water For Chocolate And Zorba The Greek.
Texts: Zorba The Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis
Like Water For Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
Word count: 1499
“Tell me what you do with what you eat and I will tell you who you are” — the use of food to enhance characterisation and relationships, in Like Water For Chocolate and Zorba The Greek.
Food is intricately linked to our lives, as we consume food and it becomes part of us. Hence, it is unsurprising that Nikos Kazantzakis and Laura Esquivel use their characters’ approach to food to represent and give insights into their disposition. Both Like Water for Chocolate and Zorba the Greek utilize this link between “what you do with what you eat” and “who you are” to enhance characterisation and character relationships. More abstractly, Kazantzakis and Esquivel’s depictions of food highlight thematic exploration of passion and making the most of life.
In the very beginning of Zorba the Greek, food is used to reflect the relationship between the two main characters, as Zorba pleads to accompany the Narrator to Crete “Well, take me, shall we say, as cook. I can make soups you’ve never heard or thought of…Soups pleased me too…We’ll eat and drink together” . These “soups you’ve never heard” of accurately illustrate the nature of the relationship between them. The philosophical ideas about life exchanged between the Narrator and Zorba throughout the novel are embodied in this interaction as the Narrator will “never tire of listening to” Zorba who “has thoroughly explored the earth and the human soul” . In a reciprocal way, Zorba is influenced by the Narrator’s philosophical teachings and altered perspective on life. “You must forgive me boss… I can’t turn out beautiful sentences and compliments” . These “soups” give the reader an insight into the influences the characters exert on each other and provide a metaphor for the nature of their connection.
Likewise, Esquivel uses food to represent Tita’s relationship with Pedro. Rosaura’s inability to breastfeed Roberto meant Tita was left to “take over his feeding” as she notices she can lactate. “The baby, instead of driving them apart, actually brought them closer together. It was as if the child’s mother was Tita, and not Rosaura” . This maternal love for Roberto embodies the aspect of Tita and Pedro’s love; it is respect and an emotional bond that “brings them closer together”. Esquivel also uses food to explore the purely sexual aspect of their relationship through Tita’s preparation of Quail in Rose Petal Sauce. The quail literally passes Tita’s sexual desire for Pedro into the dish, allowing Tita to enter “Pedro’s body, hot, voluptuous, totally sensuous …Pedro didn’t offer any resistance. He let Tita penetrate to the farthest corners of his being” . This releases the “passion, the lust, that leapt from her eyes, from her every pore” of Gertrudis’s “virginal body” . The quail creates a human manifestation of Tita and Pedro’s mutual sexual desire in Gertrudis.
The driving forces behind the Narrator and Zorba are gleaned through their approach to food. While the narrator “realised that eating was a spiritual function and that meat, bread and wine were the raw materials from which the mind is made” Zorba turns what he eats “into work and good humour” . While the narrator’s food was “calmly chewed in the sun” Zorba “ate voraciously, tipped up the calabash; and the red wine gurgled down his throat…Zorba clicked his tongue; he was satisfied” . The narrator’s over analytical mind sustained through calmly chewed food, is in stark contrast with Zorba’s impulsive eating, used as a means to simply live. The reader is shown the logical contemplative nature of the Narrator; whereas Zorba is a passionate character who uses his food to enable him to enjoy himself, as he crams his food down and, more symbolically, life. This juxtaposition of the way characters consume their food is a reflection of the characters themselves, helping to penetrate each character’s persona.
Food is used in a similar manner in Like Water for Chocolate whereby a character’s attitude towards food is utilized as a metaphor for them. Mama Elena’s mistrust in Tita’s food and her rejection of it is highly accurate analogy for who she is. “She took a swig of syrup of ipecac…to counteract the effects of the bitter poison that according to her was dissolved in the food” . When the forbidden relationship between Mama Elena and JosД© TreviД±o, Gertrudis’s “mulatto ” father is later revealed in the novel, her motives of rejecting Tita’s food and resenting her daughter become apparent. Mama Elena’s similar experience of love, with JosД© TreviД±o, kept suppressed all her life, builds an emotional barrier around her heart. The “bitter poison” of denied romance destroys Mama Elena’s capacity to be loved or to allow Tita to love. Her rejection of food gives the reader the key to understand the driving forces behind Mama Elena throughout the plot.
This literary effect can also be seen in Rosaura in the opening of the novel. While Tita dazzled her sisters with a cooking display, “Rosaura was cowering in the corner” . When she does join, in she uses her hands “gingerly” and “resisted and …struggled for control”