I’m not sure that I “enjoyed” The Shrouded Woman, as I found it to be quite sad; however, it certainly struck me as unique, and it made me consider gender and society from a perspective that I wouldn’t normally entertain: the perspective of a woman who has not only “lost,” but died.

When I describe Ana Maria as a woman who has “lost,” I mean it in more than one way: she has lost people and time and romance, of course; but maybe more importantly, I get the sense that she has lost out on a happier life due to structures beyond her control. As mentioned in the lecture on Bombal and modernism, Ana Maria is limited by gendered expectations, by the class system, and by the needs and pressures of her own family.

I think that Ana Maria’s death can also be understood as something beyond the literal end of being alive: “For she had suffered the death of the living. And now she longed for total immersion, for the second death, the death of the dead” (Bombal, p. 259). Here, it seems that Ana Maria is ready to be dead “for good,” which suggests to me that she was already dead in some less permanent way – perhaps with the numbness of a tragic or unfulfilling existence. I don’t believe that Ana Maria hated her life or the people with whom she shared it, but I would say that something about the “permanent” death brings her peace that she was unable to find in life. Maybe this has to do with the transition from existing as an object to being seen as both object and subject, as discussed in the lecture; or maybe it is simply relief at the end of everyday sorrows and frustrations.

I was rather surprised that Ana Maria didn’t feel more bitterness towards the people who came to mourn her. It was hard for me to tell whether she truly loved them, despite the pain that they had caused her, or whether she was making a conscious choice to forgive them for the purpose of resting in peace – or even out of obligation. Does Ana Maria have a reason to forgive the people who hurt her or limited her in life? Is the act of forgiveness performed for her own benefit, or is it a demonstration of how societal expectations follow a woman right to the grave?