The novel Like Water for Chocolate, published in 1989, was written by Laura Esquivel, of Spanish origins. He lives in Mexico and Like Water for Chocolate was his first novel. I feel that in the story Laura Esquivel provides many magical elements that are treated as real to evoke emotions about love, but she also employs many characteristics of sublime literature. In Like Water for Chocolate, a girl named Tita is born. When she was born, it is said that she was literally swept into this world by a great flood of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded the kitchen floor (6). This event appears to be magical rather than sublime. A child cannot be brought into the world. Therefore, I feel it is magical. Another magical-realist element is that when Tita was born, Nacha swept away the residue that the tears had left on the red stone floor. There was enough salt on the floor to fill a ten-pound bag that was used for cooking and lasted a long time (7). This element is more magical than sublime because this event cannot occur. However, it is a good example of sublime literature because it illustrates Longinus' notion of accumulation as a characteristic of sublime language. The salt of Tita's birth definitely has to do with accumulation. Furthermore, in Like Water for Chocolate, while Tita was preparing her sister Rosaura's wedding cake, a magical element occurs. She was preparing her sister's wedding cake and, at the same time, she was thinking about Pedro with whom she was in love and who was about to marry her sister. As she thought about Pedro, she began to cry. As she cried, a tear entered the cake and she was afraid it would ruin the meringue. The moment... at the center of the card... elements. I didn't notice many realistic elements in the story Like Water for Chocolate. However, the realistic elements did not relate to the sublime as well as the magical elements did. That the sublime is not used much in writing. I feel that the sublime needs to be realized more for people to understand it better. There are many articles a person can find about the sublime, and it would be a new and pleasant experience to learn some information about something new in life. Works Cited Esquivel, Laura. Like water for chocolate. New York. Doubleday, 1989.Simpkins, Scott. "Sources of Magical Realism / Supplements to Realism in Contemporary Latin American Literature." Magical realism. Theory, history, community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durkham, NC: Duke UP, 1995, 150.Longinus. On the Sublime. Cambridge. Harvard UP, 1995.