This week I read “the Time of The Doves” by Merce Rodoreda. I found this book to be a great read. Throughout the novel I felt a sense of deep empathy for Natalia the main character. Without her mother around and with an unsupportive father, Natalia was lead/forced into many decisions throughout her life time due to lack of guidance and support around her. I feel deep empathy for her because one can only imagine the way she must feel after being pushed into decisions her whole life rather than feeling capable of making her own decisions and deciding her own interests and journey to happiness.
After the death of her husband Natalia was influenced to believe that due to life circumstances such as the war surrounding her and the fact that she is female she isn’t capable of talking care and providing for her and her family alone. She was persuaded to believe that she needed a man to take care of her and her kids. This leads her to ultimately end up with Quiment even though he is clearly very unreliable and has many issues that only hurt Natalia and her children rather than help them like he was supposed to be able to do. Because Quimet was unstable he often found himself without a stable job meaning that Natalia had to find employment to help make ends meet. Natalia having to choose to be with Quimet instead of Pere is a huge and obvious example of the main issue that Natalia struggles with in life. she has immense difficulty making her own decisions and doing things that she believes will make her happy. Natalia lives her life for her kids rather than living her life for herself, the causes Natalia to miss out on many things and lead her down the wrong path many times.
Natalia had a very hard and challenging life which often caused her to make the wrong choices based off of the way that people made her feel about herself and her abilities. Although Natalia made many mistakes through ought her life, her motive was seemingly always to help the children and her family. Although her life was spent making mistakes she always had the best and most selfless intentions in mind.
My question for the class: do you think Natalias life would’ve been easier/better if she hadn’t chosen to be with Quimet? Or do you think she would’ve experienced such hard times no matter who she chose?
“her motive was seemingly always to help the children and her family.”
And what about when she plans to kill the children (and herself) and so do away with the family?
Plus I wonder about the kind of family she comes up with at the end.
[Meanwhile, please add categories (“Rodoreda”) and tags (“family”? “agency”?). Thanks!]
Hi Jon, to reply to your question about the times when Natalia was planing on killing her family, I still believe that she went about this with the best intentions and it was her circumstances that drove her to irrational conclusions. although she had planned to kill her family and then herself, she did this because she felt that there were no other options. Her children and her were starving and her husband had made it nearly impossible to get a job due to his political beliefs. Although killing her children is extreme and irrational, her motives came from love and her deep care for her children, she was led to a place where this seemed like the only solution.
Hi Daelyn, nice blog post! I think without choosing Quimet, Natalia would simply choose someone else, as it’s not some characteristics from Quimet that attracts Natalia, it’s more about the fact that Natalia only goes with the flow. Without the ability to take charge of her own life, her destiny is probably only about living around with men and live up to their standards.
I really liked your commentary on Quimet and Natalia’s relationship as it’s something I was thinking about throughout my read of the novel. I agree that Pere would have likely been a more emotionally supportive husband than Quimet was, who was often controlling and unreliable and I found that it didn’t often seem that Natalia loved him (at least at first before they had children and built a longer life together) rather that his insistence upon marrying her almost chiseled away at her until she gave in and agreed to marry him. Of course the hard times of the war would have come regardless, but I do believe that she very well may have been happier with Pere, despite the fact that he may well have been a very passive, unexciting man