blog#10 – the traits of Womanhood —
The first thing that really took my attention while reading Roberto Bolaño’s book Amulet, was the fact that Bolaño himself was writing from a female character’s perspective. I know its quite normal for a male author to write in female voice, but for some reason this is what stuck out for me while reading Amulet. This early detection of curiosity led me to be more vigilant when moments of femineity occurred throughout the book.
The two categories of moments that held the most potent ‘womanhood’ or ‘femininity’, were in fact moments that often surrounded either sexuality or struggle. I found myself drawn to notice ‘femineity’ in scenarios that consisted of Auxilio’s interactions with men, Auxilio talking about sex, vanity (teeth, age, appearance), or in moments of dim but persistent agony. A bit of a sobering thought for me to have; that these moments of sex and suffering are apparently defines what it is to be a woman, and what traits they must endure.
Auxilio often recounts her (often unreliable) memory of her adventures with Mexico’s young poets – she even refers to herself as ‘the Mother of Mexican Poetry’. I’m not so sure if it was just me, but it really stuck out to me whenever Auxilio would talk about a boy’s age, or even her interactions with or around characters like Arturo. Not that it was inherently suggesting anything but it simply felt a bit off. A moment that stand out for me is when Arturo’s Mother and Auxilio first meet and she says something about how she said to her ‘I haven’t slept with your son [yet?]’ and then later talks about how her and Arturo’s Mother are about the same age. This relationship dynamic and pairing is odd to me, but it may also just be that I am experiencing cultural shock.
Another series of moments that I thought fell into the notes of femineity was whenever Auxilio talked about missing teeth, and her vanity. It’s not just the fact she does indeed have missing teeth, but it’s her politeness and bashfulness about it. She always maintains a hand over her mouth when she laughs and she is acutely aware of it when in intimate or sexual moments. To me, these behvaiours of politeness and moments of insecurity felt highly reminiscent of kind of ‘sense of duty’ – perhaps a ‘sense of duty in Womanhood‘?
Did any aspect of Womanhood pop out to any of you? or am I crazy?
3 replies on “blog#10 – the traits of Womanhood —”
Hi Jasmine, you’re definitely not crazy here! I was thinking the exact same thing while watching Professor Beasley-Murray’s video lecture on youtube, while he prompted us to think about her position as a mother. The quote I found that had to do greatly with femininity is on page 24, where the narrator talks about intelligent and brave women who call out in empty places because “she was brought up, like me, to be polite in all circumstances”. I had this highlighted in another colour because I wanted to add it to my blog post, though decided not to as I wanted to comment it here. Great post here, I agree with you 100%!
I think this is a very interesting piece of reading older fiction, as we are given glimpses into ways of thinking which may not be as common now, or at least shouldn’t be. We get to see stereotypes altered, and challenged in older fiction.
Not crazy! I think these are good points! After all, she talks about herself in terms of motherhood, which is a highly gendered role! As I tried to say in the lecture, it might be worth thinking about what it is to be a mother… and she’s not the only mother in the book, either. (There seem to be no fathers! Why not?)