Although different understandings of love are presented in this comparison essay on “Like Water for Chocolate” by Esquivel and “The Stranger” by Camus, mothers figure prominently in both “Like Water for Chocolate” by Esquivel and “The Stranger” by Camus. Both novels, “Like Water for Chocolate” and “The Stranger” end with the death of the central character because of the relationship with the mother figure. In the case of Tita in Like Water for Chocolate, Tita’s feelings for her mother oscillate between a desire for her mother’s love, a rejection of it, and actual love itself. Strangely, she inadvertently aids in her mother’s death since Mama Elena became convinced that Tita was poisoning her and took her life through rejecting this caring. There is no stable ground in this relationship and the demise of both the mother and daughter are intricately connected. Although there are thematic unions between Esquivel’s novel and The Stranger, Mersault’s mother is almost invisible throughout the novel as a central character. The main action of the novel is centered on Mersault’s reaction (or lack of it) to his mother’s death and this is made more confusing because she is too narrowly developed for the reader to gain any understanding of Mersault’s ambivalence.

By the end of each novel, mothers have created the circumstances for each central character’s downfall, although in drastically different ways. In Tita’s case, the years of abuse, both physical and mental, coupled with the constant sense of oppression she felt because of her mother, lead her to become so emotional that she has an often destructive impact on the world around her. He end is only a relief because she is finally free from the watchful and suspicious presence of her mother and is free to be with the man she loves. In Mersualt’s case, however, his mother is only the catalyst for a host of judgments to fall upon that will eventually lead to his execution. Throughout the novel he is passive to the point of absurdity, and his reaction to his mother’s death is just a manifestation of his blasé personality, not necessarily because of the hate or dislike he felt for his mother. Despite these differences, mothers are the cause of the downfall of each main character and their presence is felt until the last pages, despite their absence from the actual text.

Each novel begins with great sadness that is connected to the mothers of both Tita and Mersault. At the beginning of The Stranger, for example, the reader learns in the first lines that Mersault’s mother has passed away, but the reaction shifts away from sadness to a more general sense of shock or confusion about his lack of reaction. Despite this fact, the death at the beginning sets the melancholy tone for the rest of the book and Mersault’s reaction only serves to heighten the need for understanding or explanation. For instance, the book opens with the striking short lines, “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: ‘Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.’ That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday” (2). It is clear that Mersault has no feelings about his mother’s death and the fact that he is not able to even remember what day she died is alarming

. Furthermore, we are left wondering why their relationship was good, which remains an unanswered question throughout the novel. Although this question is not answered, we find that the problem lies with Mersualt’s relationships with people in general, not just his mother. For example, shortly before his death he has the only true epiphany in the entire text, and the only one that might explain his reaction to his mother’s death. I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone…” (141). In the end, it seems, it was not Mersault’s feelings about his mother that brought so much criticism upon him, but his ambivalence about the whole world. In some ways, not feeling deeply about his mother’s death was only the most obvious symptom to the world of his supposed hatred, which was in actuality, mere indifference.

In Esquivel’s novel, the tone of sadness is felt is immediately as well, but for a host of different reasons. Because of the onions and the presence of her mother, the opening of Like Water for Chocolateintroduces Tita’s mother as both grief-stricken and oppressive. For example, it is clear that Tita’s childhood was marred by the presence of her mother when we learn that she was brought into the world with great sorrow. The narrator tells us in one of the important quotes from Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, “Tita was literally washed in this world on a great tide of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded across the kitchen floor” (6). These tears are later gathered together, dried, and yield ten pounds of salt, which foreshadows the sadness that will continue to the plague the novel. The reader also quickly learns that her mother has a melancholy history when we are told, “When she was only two days old, Tita’s father, my great-grandfather, died of a heart attack and Mama Elena’s milk dried up from the shock” (8). This short passage is important for two reasons. First of all, it lays some of the groundwork for understanding Mama Elena, even if we are encouraged to view her as a tyrant. Secondly, the fact that he breast milk dries up indicates that she was unable to form a bond with her daughter and that she was, even from the beginning, unable to nurture her. These early descriptions of the mother/child relationship form the basis for our understanding of Tita’s ambivalent feelings about her mother and allow us to understand the depth of her feelings when the narrator likens the killing of the quail to Mama Elena’s slow killing of her daughter, saying, “She had been killing her [Tita] a little at a time since she was a child and still hadn’t quite finished her off” (49). This quote is especially important because it connects to theme of food with Tita’s thwarted attempts to both gain, reject, and beg for her mother’s love, only to have it likened to the slow death of a lower creature.

There are many instances of Mama Elena’s cruelty and oppression of Tita and one always gets the sense that she is always present and watching after her death. Even her ghost appears to admonish Tita and although she is eventually cast out, her presence seems to linger and have an effect on the outcome of the story. At one point, the narrator states, “Pedro happened to be nearby, and they [Pedro and Tita] looked at each other for a fraction of a second, like conspirators, remembering when Tita had been bent over the grinding stone: the eagle eye of Mama Elena saw the spark that flew between them from twenty feet away, and it troubled her deeply” (79). Mama Elena is always vigilant and watchful, which her daughter finds very stressful and unpleasant. Interestingly, this idea of the “watchful mother” is also present in The Stranger. The only time, aside from that which was stated above, that the reader is given a clue as to why Mersault seems to have a troubled relationship with his mother (or any woman for that reason) is that he feels as though he is being watched. For someone as deeply affected by unpleasant sensations as Mersault is, this is just one theory about why he put her in the home. At one point he states, “When she was at home with me, Maman used to spend her time following me with her eyes, not saying a thing” (5). While in the case of Tita, her mother’s constant gaze was oppressive, for Mersault it was irrituating. For both of these characters, however, their final reaction to life and death can be summed up in their attitudes and experiences with their mothers.

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Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Stranger New York: Vintage International, 1988

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

Strange, Alice J. “Camus’ The Stranger.” Explicator 56.1 (1997): 36

Valdés, María Elena de. “Verbal and Visual Representation of Women: Como agua para chocolate/Like Water for Chocolate.” World Literature Today: A Literary Quarterly of the University of Oklahoma 69.1 (1995): 78