Forced Maturity

It is scarily interesting how much Natalia’s nickname Colometa foreshadowed the way her life would turn out to be and how her first husband, Quimet would later treat her.

Pigeons, being wild animals that became domesticated for human usage align much with what the protagonist experiences after marrying Quimet. She is formed into the ideal wife and forced to care for the children and house while he focuses selfishly on his own hobbies and passions. Just like the pigeons that he kept, she too was imprisoned in her own home and later, is abandoned by her husband just as pigeons were when humans no longer found them useful.

The similarity continues after Quimet dies; though left alone, she finds ways to make do with the lack of resources and raises her children without assistance. This made me think of the way pigeons make bare nests with twigs and such because that’s all they have access to in cities, and the only way they know how to make it.

It is enough for them to survive, and somewhat mimics the “bare life” that Natalia also had to experience. Her way of living slowly evolves into the same way of the pigeons that Quimet introduced into their home.

The reason I titled this blog “forced maturity” is also because I saw a stark difference between Natalia’s personality in the beginning as a young woman, and her lines later towards the end of the story. We see her descent into derangement as she struggles to keep herself and her children alive and see how a once pure young woman can shift into a burdened widow. It wasn’t just the war, but also a branch of choices (one being the choice to marry Qimet) that woke her up from her naivety. This can also be seen when she slowly stops connecting herself to the nickname Colometa, and moreso with her given name, Natalia. She becomes her own person instead of following the ideals and expectations of the people that she depends on because she learns to depend on herself.

Other than the thing I’ve already brought up, I found the lecture’s question regarding Natalia’s morality hard to answer. As a woman I think there is a lot of pressure to be the perfect mopther and to put aside their own identity to raise your children and only think of them. However, we struggle to recognize that they are humans too that have their own dark thoughts and pain. With this, I believe she did not do wrong in wanting to save her children from that dark path.

I wonder if you guys would have felt the same in this situation?