I found that this week’s text, “The Shrouded Woman” by María Luisa Bombal was a very spiritual, and intimately written novel. The chapters felt very personal, as if these are journal entries that she may be writing as a dead woman. It is significant that her family and past loves come to see her body. I think that it is natural for humans to wonder who will miss them when they are dead and who will be there for them. This makes for the grasping concept of this novel: to have the point of view of a person who is dead gives an otherwise impossible insight into life after death. Ana’s reflection on her memories show how we view life and death and mortality. When she is gone, she feels the need to look back at her life and revisit her memories of her first love which left such an impression on her. It is beautiful, yet sad that she now “understands that within her the love that she thought was dead had slept hidden” (pg.176). She then asks herself whether people must “die in order to know certain things” (pg.176). While pondering this, she feels regret at trying to stop “a flood of memories” whenever they came or avoiding “certain strains of music” or “fear[ing[ the first breath of some over-warm Spring” (pg.176). There is something that is so beautiful and so tragic about this question. I think that people hold back on acting on many things in life, and sometimes those are things that they could have just gone for and attempted to gain. Ana no longer has the power to chase what she wants and I think that this brutal realization is something that many people might have before they pass away–if they do not live life for themselves. Therefore by her watching over the love lives of all her loved ones, I feel that she is urging them to go for what makes them the happiest. This is very true to how humans think in real life. A big part of the novel is how women bend themselves to the desires of men, and believe that their whole life is defined by the success of their relationships. Ana now understands how Silvia feels trying to measure herself up against another woman. She notices that the girl is risking her own happiness for this. Comparing one’s self to others is a struggle that everybody will face at some point in life. I think that it puts it into perspective since Ana is reflecting on it from being dead.
In the way that Ana described her first love shows what a grasp it had on her. She even described that she wanted to die (pg.168).
I wonder if she, reflecting back on this, regretted saying this since here she is, non-living and without her whole life in front of her.
