The novel takes us through Ana Mar\u00eda’s memories, which resurface as certain key figures from her life enter the room where her body lies. Each presence unlocks a different part of her memories with that person. Because she speaks from death, there’s a new honesty to the way she looks at herself and others, which makes her feel less like a traditional heroine and more like a real person to me.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
I find her relationship with three key men in her life particularly interesting.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\u201cYou are the most charming woman I have ever known; it\u2019s too bad you are my wife, Ana Mar\u00eda.\u201d (pg. 226)\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Antonio, her husband, admires her, even finds her charming, and yet resents her in the role of \u201cwife.\u201d Despite this, she remains emotionally invested in him long after he has withdrawn from her, which points out how one-sided their relationship has become. Ricardo feels like the central figure who represents her youth. With him, everything is raw and natural. He represents freedom, desire, and also a kind of naivety that only comes with being young and free. That early relationship is less about who he is as a person and more about what he opens up in her, which is why I think he was the first important male character we are introduced to. Fernando, in contrast, belongs to a much later stage in her life, when she is more withdrawn and aware of social expectations. He represents a quieter, more resigned kind of attachment.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0Although her part in the novel was quite short, Sof\u00eda is another important character in Ana Mar\u00eda\u2019s story. Their rivalry is subtle, but it lingers underneath all their interactions, and I think it shows a lot about how women in the novel are often put against each other. Likewise, if Sof\u00eda and Ana Mar\u00eda are defined by their inner lives and emotions, Mar\u00eda Griselda is defined first by how others see her. Honestly, we never really get to see her side of anything. With Ana Mar\u00eda, Sof\u00eda, and Silvia, we at least understand what they are feeling, or why they react the way they do. Their choices are tied to emotions we can see. With Mar\u00eda Griselda, it\u2019s the opposite. We mostly see what her presence does to other people, but we never really know what any of this feels like for her. She isn\u2019t given the same chance to think for herself. That silence turns her into some sort of \u201ctrapped dove\u201d\u00a0 (which is really ironic since later on, her own husband kills her pet doves)\u2014a woman whose beauty makes her visible but also strips her of any kind of depth, as if being that beautiful disqualifies her from being seen as a full person with thoughts of her own.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
This was probably my favourite read so far! Mostly because, compared to Proust and Breton, I feel that this novel was much more my style. My discussion question for the week would be: How does telling her story from her deathbed change the way we judge her relationships and choices, compared to if the same events were told while she was still alive?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The novel takes us through Ana Mar\u00eda’s memories, which resurface as certain key figures from her life enter the room where her body lies. Each presence unlocks a different part of her memories with that person. Because she speaks from death, there’s a new honesty to the way she looks at herself and others, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,11,10,8],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bombal","tag-death","tag-identity","tag-memory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fwidja07\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}