Morning Light/ “The Old Indian Woman”/ “The Kikapu” Character Analysis in Like Water for Chocolate

Morning Light is the grandmother of Dr. John Brown. She comes from an indigenous tribe called the Kikapu. As a young woman, she is taken captive by John’s grandfather, who brings her home as his wife. She faces prejudice from her husband’s family, who call her “The Kikapu.” Morning Light studies and uses plant-based medicine and passes her knowledge onto her grandson. She is wise and has many well-developed philosophies about the soul. She appears only as a ghost to Tita and in John’s stories from the past.

Morning Light/ “The Old Indian Woman”/ “The Kikapu” Quotes in Like Water for Chocolate

The Like Water for Chocolate quotes below are all either spoken by Morning Light/ “The Old Indian Woman”/ “The Kikapu” or refer to Morning Light/ “The Old Indian Woman”/ “The Kikapu”. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Anchor Books edition of Like Water for Chocolate published in 1995.

You must of course take care to light the matches one at a time. If a powerful emotion should ignite them all at once, they would produce a splendor so dazzling that it would illuminate far beyond what we can normally see; and then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origin we had lost. The soul ever longs to return to the place from which it came, leaving the body lifeless.

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Page Number and Citation: 117

Explanation and Analysis:

Morning Light/ “The Old Indian Woman”/ “The Kikapu” Character Timeline in Like Water for Chocolate

The timeline below shows where the character Morning Light/ “The Old Indian Woman”/ “The Kikapu” appears in Like Water for Chocolate. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...the yarns John bought her. One day, she wandered into a room outside, where an old Indian woman was making tea. She went each day to sit with the old woman, who reminded... (full context)

...perception of reality. John tells Tita that his interest in science came from his grandmother, Morning Light , a Kikapu Indian who loved to study the medicinal properties of plants. During battle,... (full context)

While teaching Tita to make matches using phosphorous, John explains the philosophy of Morning Light . Everyone has a box of matches inside their soul. A loved one’s breath is... (full context)