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?