Bombal – The Shrouded Woman

The first page pulled me in and made me curious to find out what the setting of the reading was. Second page onwards, I was intrigued and hooked, for the premise of the text – of reflections of a dead woman – was exceedingly fascinating. Overall, more than anything, this reading made me reflect on the meaning of death and mortality, and their implications for what comes before that – life itself.

The idea of death can mean many things to different people, it can evoke many different feelings. Some view it as too depressing to even think about. To a friend of mine, even thinking about death is the antithesis of life – what purpose does imagining exactly the opposite (i.e., death) of what we are meant to be enjoying (i.e., life) serve? To others, the thought of death makes their mortality abundantly evident, and in turn, helps shape the kind of life they want to lead before they eventually do die. I personally have always wondered how and why death changes our perception of someone – why do we feel a visceral need to say or feel nice things about the dead, regardless of how we must have felt about them when they were alive? Is it because of our fundamental human inclination to not want to inflict harm or see someone suffer a tragedy? Or is it because we have never properly contended with the idea of death, especially our own, and someone else’s death reminds us of our very real and imminent mortality?

I think The Shrouded Woman captures these (admittedly, philosophically heavy) ideas and questions quite well – why do we respect the dead more than the living? It is a reflection of how people’s perceptions can change after you die. Specifically, how different this perception can be if you are a woman (and perhaps, more generally, a minority or marginalized individual). I do not identify as a woman or as someone marginalized, and as such, can relate to Bombal’s worldview only as a spectator, not the protagonist, in the world she paints for us. However, this view, combined with the unique position of speaking from the space between life and death, itself makes it a refreshing read for me.

Additionally, I think there is an important message in the content of her imagined reflections. They are mostly about people who were important and close to her. In her coffin, what she thinks made up the content of her life was the people above all.

The last line of this text – “And now she longed for total immersion, for the second death, the death of the dead” – reminded me of a quote I often think about when I ponder my own mortality: You die thrice, once here in the physical world, once again when someone says your name for the last time, and finally when the last person with your memory dies. It’s safe to say that Bombal’s imagined reflections of a dead woman in The Shrouded Woman have ensured that she only has to die the first death. Now, what about us, the yet still living?