Monthly Archives: February 2024

The Women, War, and Doves – Mercy Rodoreda

Posted on by under Mercy Rodoreda

 

The Time of the Doves by Mercé Rodoreda is a novel that allows readers to understand a war from a woman’s point of view. The novel is set in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, but there are hardly any fight scenes, and it’s more about the story of this woman Natalia, with her struggle. 

At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes his husband Quimet. Interestingly, while Natalia herself already has a fiancé, she t is attracted by Quimet and married to him. What I didn’t understand is that Quimet seems to have a violent streak, which should warn Natalia to end this relationship, however, she chooses to continue. He is jealous, and suspicious, and demands that everything be done his way. Meanwhile, he also likes to call Natalia “Colometa”, and in Catalan can also mean “pigeon”. While pigeon means peace and love, under this context,  calling her pigeon seems more like a symbol of weakness, obedience, and need of protection. Such a name gives Quimet enough control, and satisfaction of masculinity.

Later on, Quimet gained the idea of raising pigeons on the roof of his apartment. He gradually brings more pigeons into the house, and Natalia has to take care of the pigeons, carrying food, and water, as well as cleaning up after them.

Parallelly, the Spanish Civil War breaks out, and Rodoreda intersperses many descriptions of death, starvation, and suffering among ordinary people. “Young and old, everyone to the war, and the war sucked them in and gave them death in return.” (p. 140) 

Here, Quimet went to war and was also dead. It is never known where his body is, only his overwatch is left to Natalia. She has a touch of sadness, but more importantly, she and her children are starving after not eating for days. “I had two mouths to feed and nothing to put in them. I can’t describe how sad it was.” And it was here that she planned to kill his children and then suicide to end everything. When a mother is considering killing her own flesh, readers can feel her desperation deeply. Day by day, all of the doves are gone and seems the doves symbolize her internal state, and hope for life.

After the war ended, Natalia and her children survived, and she remarried to a kind of wealthy man Antoni.  Unlike Quimet， Antoni seems to love her and cares about her. “How he hadn’t married me to wash his clothes but to have a family like he’d said, and he wanted to see his family happy.” (p.167) However, Natalia seems to be still in a nightmare where she can’t walk out of the time. She still thinks about the doves, and how she killed the chickens in the egg. My question is, Natalia has a sad and pitiful life where she cannot walk out of the dark. In your opinion, whose fault is this, is it Quinet, the war, the doves, or her own choice of marrying Quinet?

Week 5 What about rest of youth in “Black Shack Alley?” –JOSEPH ZOBEL

Posted on by under JOSEPH ZOBEL

This week’s novel Black Shack Alley by Joseph Zobel talks about the life of the main narrator José who lives with M’man Tine. This novel uses a linear narrative to tell the story of his experiences in Black Shack Alley and pursuing education to address the problem of colonialism, racialization and class inequality. I wanted to spread into two parts to discuss this story. 

Part 1.

In the first part of this story, Jose is still as an innocent boy who likes to fool around and play with his friends, despite the dire circumstances. M’man Tine worked day and night in the sugar cane field, but still never seemed to be able to escape poverty. 

From Zobel’s narration, Jose lives in very harsh conditions, where they have no opportunity to eat eggs. Despite this circumstance, M’man Tine still tried to give Jose a better childhood experience. To the best ability, she would add sugar to his coffee to express her love. She would punish Jose after he made trouble in the hope of him becoming a better man.

What also was a highlight was that when Jose was in the church with M’man Tine, he saw the statue of Jesus dying on the cross. He thinks Jesus is in a tragic position, but interestingly. he is not black. (p. 80). At this stage, Jose is still very young and he doesn’t understand the concepts of racialization, but he truely did witness the tragic experiences of black people.

Part 2 and Part 3

Over here, Jose was able to go to school with the support of M’man Tine. 

It seems that over here, his future and fate had become different from the other kids who joined the gang, and this is where the theme of education that Zobel is trying to put forward. As you can see from the narrative, Jose is somewhat gifted, and he enjoys reading. 

With effort, he was successfully admitted by lycée, and this is where his mother unconditionally supported his education, despite of high costs.  “Tell me! How will it all end if the blasted fathers place their sons in those things, in the same misfortune?” (74) His mother recognizes that this may be the only chance to change her child’s destiny, so he tries to remove this misfortune by betting on her own life.

When Jose enters lycée, he further enters a world dominated by high-status and white people, which is seen to expose him more to inequality. From his description of this boy he meets, Serge. We can imagine his comparison with self and life. 

However, with time, Jose is gradually becoming mature and internally powerful. M’man Tine’s illness and death greatly awakened Jose. By seeing her black swollen, crakced hand, he realizes exhaustion from working in the fields. As he learns more, the more he feels bitter and injustice. All he could do was show the world with such reality of Black people. 

 It seems that the story is telling Jose’s story, but in reality, Zobel is reflecting on the hardships and injustices experienced by millions of black people. Jose, as a special case, has the opportunity to receive an education, but can this eliminate inequality, what about the rest of the youth in Black Shack Alley, and what about the rest of the youth in Black Shack Alley?

Week 5: Young Boy Agostino’s Journey–Alberto Moravia

Posted on by under Alberto Moravia

In Alberto Morovia’s novella Agostino, the main character Agostino is a 13-year-old boy who has an unusual attachment with his mother. Despite he is already 13, he loves his mother with a “naive” heart and adores her as a mother figure.  One summer, he and his widow’s mother went on holiday to the Tuscan coast, and this trip caused Augostino to transform from a boy to a man exponentially, as well as added confusion, distress, and sexuality in him.  

From the narration, Agostino seemed to have lived a privileged and sheltered life, where he understood nothing about the suffering, sexuality, and violence of the outside world. His unusual dependencies on his mother lead him to be jealous and anxious when her mother is being attracted by other “men” while on the beach. I liked Morovia’s description of Agostino’s mood at this event. When he realizes that his adored mother acts so proactively toward another “man” and that he is being left out, he is overwhelmed, anger, confusion, and shame surround him. When his mother slaps him, it seems that this is the turning point, the turning point that changes Agostino, where he meets the local boys.

His comfort zone was shattered when he went to hang out with the gang of local boys, and that’s when he was forced to grow up. These boys were very rude, violent, and vulgar. In the first interaction, Agostino seems to be degraded and humiliated. I did not expect that he didn’t seem to care that he was being put down and still wanted to hang out with them. I think a big reason why Agostino kept hoping to be with them is that he finds these boys and Saro as a model of what is a real “man”. He never had a male figure in his life because he didn’t have a father, and meeting these rude boys seemed to open up the world of masculinity to him.

“He replaced his former reverence with cruelty and his affection with sensuality.” (p.69)

And after being teased and sexually educated by these boys, it seems that his opinion of his mother has completely changed, and he can no longer respect, and love his mother when she has no qualms about dressing and exposing herself to him. It seems that any stimulus during adolescence can easily change a child’s heart and moral values, which also makes me reflect that the wealth and status protection that Agostino has seems to make him even more influenced.

One question I have is that is the thoughts that 13-year-old Agostino are abnormal and immoral, or it is reasonable during puberty when he just learns about sex? How might his experience with the local boys shape his perception of man and woman?

Spam prevention powered by Akismet