Having a dead person tell the story is not an entirely original concept. This has happened in “The Book Thief,” where Death narrates the tale. It also happens in “Epitaph of a Small Winner,” where the protagonist narrates his death, funeral, and journey to the afterlife. But has that ever tired me of continuously reading books with similar themes, ideas, and storylines in them?
Absolutely not. What truly matters is the execution, after all.
Personally, I’m impressed with how much information about Ana María’s life was condensed within a relatively short amount of pages. Ana María may have been dead, but her spirit still watches as people she know come and look at her corpse. She can still think and feel, and uses the time to reminisce on her life with a new sense of insight death can provide. Now that her life is over, time can’t go back. There’s nothing she could change even if she has any lingering regrets. As a result, it is fascinating to see how Ana María’s change to her thoughts on love and everyone she has ever loved – ranging from the children she raised and first love Ricardo to her best friend Fernando and her very eventful marriage with Antonio. She also regrets having initially been cold towards her husband, as it had altered the course of their relationship where she experiences plenty of emotional pain.
Though, it is interesting to see how fresh of a perspective death could bring about life. After all, we tend to waste a lot of our time focusing about trivial matters. But Ana María doesn’t do this on her deathbed. Rather, she only focuses on her most important memories. In other words, time is best spent living and laughing in general. We do only get to walk the earth for a few decades before returning to dust.
And even then – even if death happened the next day – you still existed. You are a concept that the laws of the universe allow to materialise. All the beauty that is you is cemented into the fabric of reality. You will die, everyone that knew you will die, humanity will die, the earth will die, the sun will die, the universe will die. But no amount of time will ever negate the fact that your life was real.
So this does bring me to my question: how different do you think Ana Maria’s thoughts about her life would be if this was set in a different moment (ex = when she’s on the verge of dying)?
5 Comments
Hi Arella,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.I also thought it was a very interesting perspective to review the protagonist’s life from the point of view of the remaining soul of a dead person. We as readers are also more intuitively able to bring in the protagonist’s true inner activities and capture the ups and downs of her emotions through the first person point of view. Regarding your question, I think Maria was always a sober person, both physically when she was alive and when she passed away, and it was because she knew the pain of her life when she was alive that she was able to lament her past when she passed away. Because, these lamentations were something she could not express in her living state. Therefore, in my opinion, Maria’s after-death world is also an ideal state where she can really release herself completely.
Hello, Arella:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I really enjoy reading it.
My perspective is that if the story unfolds at different moments, her reflections might vary. When she is on the verge of dying, everything is unknown, and her emotions may be filled with impatience, anxiety, and unrest. This moment could make her sense the urgency of time, prompting a more intense revisiting of her life journey—potentially viewed through a less objective lens.
However, only after her physical death, when she is freed from the real world-she can calmly reassess her life in a more serene setting. At this point, she might approach her past choices, experiences, and relationships with a more composed mindset, experiencing a deeper sense of liberation within herself.
Hi Arella, I wholeheartedly agree with the statement you made, ‘Time is best spent on living and laughing.’ I believe life is fleeting, and whether we spend a day joyfully or unhappily, the day passes by nonetheless. So, why not choose to live each day happily? Although we may encounter obstacles at times, we should strive not to be confined by these challenges and aim to be a joyful person.
“we tend to waste a lot of our time focusing about trivial matters. But Ana María doesn’t do this on her deathbed.”
Well, and she also gets to reassess what was trivial and what was significant, no? And perhaps this is harder when we are still alive? Isn’t that part of what Bombal is suggesting?
Hi Arella, I think if the story is told at the perspective of when Ana Maria is on the verge of death the story would be told differently compared to the one now. Since by is on the verge of death, I feel like she would reflect upon things in a more intense, reflective, and emotionally dependent perspective since as she is on the verge of death time is limited hence no deep reflections can be made and perspective would be more surface leveled.