First off, I was so drawn in as Rodoreda’s style focused on the day to day working life and how it became shattered. Natalia’s focus on getting through each day in poverty and starvation really stood out to me as we could understand what exactly she had lost since the war. Her husband, her stability, her strength, everything seemed to be lost with the war. This story was one of reclaiming one’s self identity in a way as Natalia endures so much change through hardships she faces in the story. I found her husband Quimet to be quite annoying as well since many times he just seemed to impulsively do something and shut her out of the decisions. Their relationship moved too quickly as it seemed they were focused less on the long term compatibility and more the attraction and superficial things. Later, Quimet’s unreliability and disregard for Natalia’s choices is just terrible. I mean calling her Colometa as an endearing term maybe once or twice (if had she liked it) could fly and come across lovey dovey, but the first time Quimet called her Colometa, she told him she didn’t like it. After that, he just outright replaced her name with that term.
As the war progresses, death after death (such as Mateu and Cintet), famine and struggle continue to grow in the everyday life. At the limit states, we see how Natalia becomes driven to the point of considering killing her children with the funnel and some acid, which goes against her maternal instinct. However, in this type of time, she experience so much pain and suffering it’s influenced her in such a way to contemplate this horrific plan. The instability has rocked Natalia’s world and her sense of self. We see her struggle with mental terrors as in the church, or fleeting moments of remembering the eggs she shook to death of the doves. It’s almost as though, the doves symbolized the entrapment of Natalia within her own home. Killing the babies of the birds and thinking of killing her own babies, I was kind of in shock. The reality of the struggles depicted are just real. Natalia’s come to earth was regaining stability with the grocer whom she bought acid from. This itself is wild, as had she not set out for the acid, she may of not met the grocer who provided her the stability. For the discussion, At the end of the book, how does Natalia’s nighttime scream in the plaza and peaceful morning with birds splashing in the puddle stand out to you? What does it represent?
“…which goes against her maternal instinct.” To be honest, this part of the sentence leaves me with several questions. I don’t really know what that maternal instinct would consist of, firstly because I’ll never experience it, but also because the novel presents us with an extreme case. But, in any case, I find it uneasy to argue from the point of view of “natural instincts”…
“calling her Colometa as an endearing term maybe once or twice (if had she liked it) could fly and come across lovey dovey, but the first time Quimet called her Colometa, she told him she didn’t like it.”
Lots of you have commented on this renaming. And I’d add (as I mentioned in class way back in the first week) that another translation puts “Colometa” as “Pidge,” which to my ears is even less endearing.
On the other hand, at some point I feel she takes ownership of the name, not least when she says “I took off. Higher, higher, Colometa, fly, Colometa . . . with my face like a white blotch above the black of mourning. . . higher, Colometa, all the world’s sorrow is behind you, get free of the world’s sorrow, Colometa” (151). Here, she does imagine herself as “dove-girl,” but now with positive connotations.