Hi everyone! 

This week we all read “The Shrouded Woman” written by Luisa Maria Bombal. I found this novel difficult and slow to start and understand but it was a very interesting read. It is written from a very obscure perspective in which Ana Maria, the main character, is in a sort of purgatory. It took me a while to realize and understand that. This is an intense novel centered around memory, gender, life, death and love. 

I think the novel was ahead of its time. There are moments in which Bombal is a raging feminist. She exclaims, “ Why must a woman’s nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?” (Bombal 226). She explains my feminist perspective perfectly. That women should not exist purely for the pleasure of men and that the existence of a man is not the center of a woman’s life. However, I found it interesting that she contradicts this idea through her thoughts and actions throughout life. She consistently mentions instances of abuse, objectification and hate for her husband because of his abusive attitude. However, she also mentions her love for him. I think this contradictory is a reality for many people in harmful relationships, as Ana Maria held on to her husband out of fear and necessity but I don’t think she ever actually loved him. She explains, “you made me discover the thrilling, sorrowful delight it could be to have a husband one might adore, detest… (Bombal 238). Her juxtaposition is interesting and I don’t think she loved him because he would have never initially doubted him at all. 

Bombal also discusses important ideas concerning death, biologically humans are born with the need to symbolically live forever and Bombal explains a common human experience, death causes us to examine our own morality and recount our memories and experiences  before we physically cease to exist. We might think about how others react to our death like the character sofia or what we imagine the afterlife to be. Nonetheless, through Ana Maria’s life the reader might realize that life only happens once and while we are living we try to experience it, but it is difficult and we have “already suffered the death of living”(Bombal 259) and do not feel the desire to live again. Although this is quite morbid I believe Bombal’s final message is this: life only happens once, it is a difficult and painful experience, live in the moment because death brings a sense of peace and an ending to the life that one lived. 

Discussion Question: What else do you think Bombal says about death? How does it make you feel or connect to the book?