relationships – RMST 202 BLOGS

I really enjoyed this week’s novel of The Shrouded Woman. I was looking forward to this week’s novel since it is the first one with a female author and I was intrigued if there was a noticeable difference between the previous books. One thing I noticed was a difference through the characters as the women were portrayed as more than just an object for the male gaze and actually showcased female characters with personalities.

I was really intrigued with the choice of the narrator being dead. It reminded me of a diary as it was a reflection of Ana María’s life. It revealed moments in her life that were happy, lonely, and regretful through a detailed perspective of each relationship which made it easy to engage with. A quote that really stood out to me was, “must we die in order to know certain things”? (pg. 176). It made me wonder about deeper aspects of death. Especially as Ana María had her siblings, her father, her first love, her husband, and her children visit her as she is deceased. I couldn’t imagine the feeling if she wanted to say something to them. It made me curious about the afterlife and the possibilities of what we may think or reflect. It also made me realize how short our connections can be and how we may fail to notice until it’s too late.

I found it interesting how the author captured Ana María’s relationships, especially her first love Ricardo. This quote also stood out to me, “I never knew. I only know that period following your departure was the most disordered and tragic in my entire life. Oh, the torture of first love, of the first disillusion! When one struggles with the past instead of forgetting it”! (pg. 167). This showcases how this first relationship truly affected her from ever moving on to having a successful relationship. Ricardo left her because he chose to pursue his career but she offered to move with him to remain together. This left me wondering was it a one-sided love and she was blinded by love to recognize it.

This was the type of novel I was expecting for this course and it went beyond my expectations. I am looking forward to this week’s discussion after skimming and noticing most of my classmate’s enjoyment of this read too! The question I pose to my classmates is since this is the first female author we’ve read so far, did you notice any differences in comparison to our last reads? Or do you think there was a purpose to make the main character a female?

I find reading digitally really challenging sometimes and tend to read but not actually absorb all the themes the narrator is trying to convey. I kept that in mind as I started to read this, I put away all other distractions and just read which was a really nice change. I found the beginning a little confusing to keep track of what’s happening, although, I found this read really kept me engaged. I was intrigued by the narrator’s detail reflecting upon their memories considering sometimes memories lose detail over time. Maybe that was purposeful of the author to showcase the significance of these moments? The part that clicked for me was on page nine when the narrator said “generally I would not try to go back to sleep right away; I would spend the greater part of the night remembering our life in the old days, in Combray at my great-aunt’s house…” (pg.9). I think this part clicked because this is where the setting switches to the narrator living in his memories with his family, while before that it was briefly mentioned such as on-page six, “immediately, I would say to myself: ‘Why, I went to sleep in the end even though Mama didn’t come to say goodnight to me’…” (pg.6). Now, rereading the part after completing the whole thing, I understand the importance of this memory highlighting the relationship between the narrator and his Mama.

Throughout this read, the theme of relationships really stood out to me. Of course, the narrator and his mother and father, but also the grandmother and her sister really stood out to me. This relationship stood out to me due to the great-aunt interfering with her sister’s marriage by intentionally trying to make her frustrated by giving the husband liqueurs. It also stood out to me how the author detailed the grandmother’s reaction to smiling to conceal her emotions. Now, the relationship between the son and his mother showcased emotional attachment to their ritual of a goodnight kiss. I found the passage where the narrator is told by his mom to not get caught still awake by his father really shocking. I wasn’t expecting the father to react calmly and argue that he was more worried about his son being upset/anxious rather than worrying about this as a habit like his mother did.

I was also intrigued by the passage about the garden. Is there a correlation between why the father would send his son to read in his room when it rained too much and the father’s interest in the weather? The grandmother on the other hand argued that “especially that boy, who so needs to build up his endurance and willpower” (pg.11) leads me to wonder why the father didn’t believe the same position considering the novel was written in the early 1900s.

Tag: relationships

The Shrouded Woman by María Luisa Bombal

Combray by Marcel Proust