In The Shrouded Woman the story of our protagonist Ana-Maria is one of reflection on her life through the eyes of her corpse. She walks the reader through memories with people close to her throughout her life. Unlike our previous texts, I really found myself getting lost in the text. Right from the beginning, I felt transported into Ana-Maria’s shoes by the narrator with the eerie feeling prose. The way the author described the simplest things like opening your eyes with two or three lines of incredible figurative detail was captivating and made me want to read more.
I found it really refreshing to see death written differently as Ana-Maria is accepting and reflecting on the people around her saying their final goodbyes. “…she takes delight in submitting herself to the gaze of all, so perfectly still, serene, and beautiful.” (page 158) I found this closing sentence of chapter 2 a lovely example of this. Instead of presenting death as a dark disruption and chaos, through Ana-Maria’s eyes it’s seen more as a calm acceptance of life and reflection. Although she never seems quite content and faces hardship, conflict, and feelings of jealousy, this perspective gave me more insight into Ana-Maria because it seems as if she was able to somewhat accept death. Because she is also writing as a dead narrator, everything she says seems more intimate and personal. Perhaps she knows that her words will not be heard by anyone else which provokes genuine retrospection and emotions not censored by judgement from those around her. This made me wonder how the text would differ if she wasn’t writing as a corpse and had the opinions of others at her disposal. How do you think the thoughts expressed would change (or if they would at all) if Ana-Maria was writing as a living person? Because after all, books are written to be read, right?
When Ana-Maria begins talking about the men in her life she gives them a lot of space. I think this speaks to the role of woman at the time and how their worth and ability to take up space was determined by the men in their life. The women in the story were often pit against each other through envy. This archaic idea of woman constantly being jealous of one another was frustrating to read and I could feel that frustration coming from the author. No ones seems to be happy in their life which adds more significance to Ana-Maria narrating as a dead person.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this read and I can’t wait to hear everyone else’s thoughts! 🙂
That’s an amazing way to put it. Would Ana-Maria maintain her empathy as a corpse if she revisited these memories when she was alive? I genuinely believe not. I think she wants to forgive herself and others simply because she acknowledges that these reminiscing thoughts are conclusions. Her conscious corpse is thinking back to what could have been done and how she sees her loved ones now but its a bit naive ? I don’t know if I want to submit to her lenience or pay more tribute to the thought processes she had as a living person. But then again that would take away from her regrets in the here-after so I really can’t tell. It’s so rewarding reading and thinking and rethinking. To agree with ourselves then read blog posts and contradict our own opinions is a vulnerability Ana showed and we are showing and deserves commending. 🙂
Hi Anna!
First, two technical things: I have added your great question to the list of in-class questions for discussion, and I see you have used one tag here. I encourage you to use more (in this post or the future) as there are many meaningful concepts that you discuss.
And, to answer your question: If I think about the theme of “space” that you bring up, I think that it is in death that the narrator finally has the space to make these reflections. We are, after all, talking about a stifling existence. So yes, I do think if we had a living narrator the thoughts expressed would be different, in a way that they may not have been expressed at all!
“No ones seems to be happy in their life.”
Yes, this certainly seems to be true… neither the men nor the women are satisfied. I think the point here is that patriarchy is pictured as damaging everyone, even those who apparently benefit from it.
Hey Anna, I really liked your take in this post.
I also found myself captivated by this text very quickly. We wrote about similar themes in the way that Ana navigates death and coming to peace with it. I think that if Ana would have been alive for the narration of the text, it would not have been as reflective. Because she is deceased, she is able to look back on her life without as much resentment and bitterness as she might have if she was still alive. I believe a lot of the lessons of the story come from the fact that she is looking at her life through a different perspective.