Before I read texts for this class, I read the brief descriptions given for the class in the “Which Texts?” section of our course site to get an idea of what I’m getting myself into. The phrase “I think you’ll like it” was definitely an understatement because I really loved it! When I also saw that it was also about gender, memory, and how a life is lived, I didn’t expect the story to be told by a dead woman looking back on her life in a third person point of view.

One of the concepts I liked throughout this story was the concept of looking at our life as an “outsider” rather than seeing it while we’re in the moment. It allows Ana Maria to take a step back and look at the bigger picture instead of being caught up in the moment or current emotions, and really see the moments in life as an experience. An example of this is when Ana Maria recounts how she almost shot herself with a revolver after the failure of her first love with Ricardo. In that present moment, she really wanted to die. However she also recounts how she brought herself back up from that moment, and how she compared it like spring was coming from the cold winter. Even though she regrets not ending up with Ricardo even after death, I think she now sees it as a bittersweet moment of youth and love and loss, rather than the initial unbearable pain that she went through.

I think the story being told after death, rather than just a person looking back at their past gives a slightly different tone compared to ‘appreciate what you have’ or ‘enjoy life’s moments as you live through it’ like many other stories tell. At the end of the story, Bombal writes that Ana Maria “did not feel the slightest desire to rise again”. She went through hardships and pain with Ricardo her first love, Antonio her husband, her children, etc. that rather than celebrating her life, she just looks back and accepts her life experiences as they were. After coming to terms with all these moments in her life, she finally wishes to rest; to die the real death. I think that made this story stand out compared to others filled with hope and promising futures, as it tells a story of pain and acceptance. It’s melancholic, but I think it’s a beautiful sharing of Ana Maria’s life and what she makes of it.

Question: Despite Ana Maria claiming to have made peace with her life and moved on, which part of her life do you think she would have wanted to go back to the most to change the outcome?