{"id":20,"date":"2022-01-31T23:59:26","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T06:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/?p=20"},"modified":"2022-01-31T23:59:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T06:59:26","slug":"week-four-killing-convention-in-bombals-the-shrouded-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/2022\/01\/31\/week-four-killing-convention-in-bombals-the-shrouded-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Week Four: Killing Convention in Bombal’s “The Shrouded Woman”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe Shrouded Woman,\u201d for all its experiments in structure and style, is perhaps most notable for its show of just how far perspective can go by providing the most unorthodox viewpoint: that of a body in a coffin, briefly suspended between life and death. The piece is comprised of social commentary, including but not limited to the woman\u2019s role in the home, effects of social ostracism and living as the \u201cother\u201d in society. By its finale, in showing death as the great equalizer through the protagonist, mirrored is the breaking down of literary convention\u2013and in this same fell swoop, unequal power structures\u2014found in Bombal\u2019s idiosyncratic writing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Starting off with the reanimation of a dead woman, there is a grim element to the tale which extends far past the grisly nature of the scene. Flashbacks provide clues as to her pitiful lot in old age, including a myriad of \u201canxieties\u201d and \u201csorrows\u201d (pg. 157). In death, she is finally at peace from these demons; in this brief limbo, she appears to welcome the admiration of onlookers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 The funeral home has made her presentable. As a result, the people have not decided to attend to <\/span>Ana Mar\u00eda <\/span>in the final days of failing health and sickly physique, where they might be needed, but for ogling when she is made beautiful again. The cruel irony of the situation is that this sudden uptick in popularity is only made possible in death. With the benefit of fiction, Bombal shows how the societal view of women is not so different\u2014that all the value is placed on the appearance, and little for the soul within.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Similar is the focus on friends and past loves in the context of the \u201cend.\u201d There is a meditation which transcends not just the situation <\/span>Ana Mar\u00eda<\/span> has been placed in by odd fortune, but life as a whole when viewed as an ethereal spectator. When we live from day to day, we are creatures of the present; we rarely think forwards, but are almost always considering lessons of the past to inform our each and every decision. It takes until inaction\u2014in this case, coming in the ultimate form of lifelessness itself\u2014to think on what every choice means for the grand scheme of life. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 At one point, <\/span>Ana Mar\u00eda <\/span>asks herself, \u201c[m]ust we die in order to know certain things?\u201d (pg. 176). The answer is surely meant to be rhetorical in the context of the story. For when considering the effects of social rejection and living as an outsider, Bombal proves that its effects are felt after death, old wounds ostensibly healed after the individual has passed. Literary convention is not spared from this fate, and in the writing of Bombal appears to undergo the same treatment\u2014a modernist enlightenment, therefore, is only realized when rules are metaphorically dead and buried.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe Shrouded Woman,\u201d for all its experiments in structure and style, is perhaps most notable for its show of just how far perspective can go by providing the most unorthodox viewpoint: that of a body in a coffin, briefly suspended between life and death. The piece is comprised of social commentary, including but not limited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90018,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,13,12,14,11],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entries","tag-bombal","tag-convention","tag-death","tag-life","tag-modernism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstotheromanceworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}