When reading the “Lieutenant Nun”, I was astonished at the journey Catalina de Erauso took. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that the protagonist rarely describes they’re emotions, except for when she meets her brother, and when she kills him. It almost seems as if she doesn’t change at all through the length of her memoir.

I’d say that Catalina de Erauso was a rebel as she did something that was not of the norms of her society. Although she doesn’t seem to have a particular cause for what she did such as empowering women, she went ahead and did as she pleased in a society where she was meant to stay in the convent. Although it may not have been a “big deal” to others at the time, as seen when she doesn’t receive a punishment or face any consequences, I still think that because she did go against the standards of her society.

Thinking of Catalina de Erauso as “ahead of her time”, as the translator of her memoir Michele Stepto says “It would be a misreading to see her as anything other than the perfect colonialist, manipulative, grasping, and at moments out and out bigoted. To align Catalina, as a cross-dressing “other,” with the victims of colonialism is to miss the truth that the rewards of her transformation were gained almost wholly at their expense.” I think this means that it would take away from what she was really trying to do and that her main goal was to gain from being a man, instead of being beaten in the convent she spent 15 years of her life in.