Impressions

This week’s reading on Shrouded Woman was written in a poetic style with an imaginary and descriptive expression. The literature was like a fusion between a poem and a novel. The usage of literary devices such as similes and anaphoras, instills a vivid scenery. For example, the word falling is used in the following passage, “falling and sliding like tears […] falling on her heart and drenching it, dissolving it into sadness and languor” (Bombal, p. 159). I found that with sections of the literature where poetic expressions were used, such as the example, makes the reading easier to follow and illustrates the imagery that the author wants readers to have glued to them. This does not mean that being easier to follow meant it was easier to interpret because to be frank, I had to reread some passages and look through for missed details. This makes me wonder, if what I’m reading is within the intent to be understood or is it a subjective experience where we report our interpretation of what is the meaning.

I found this reading quite compelling because of the way I would imagine Ana Maria being behind a dome and watching her life events in a movie, from her first love whom she could not marry to the spiral of conflict she faces. Just like the title, it felt like the narrator’s life was shrouded and went downhill after not being able to be with her first love, Ricardo. This was a result of Ricardo’s mother disapproving the marriage, illustrated with the passage, “she is afraid that you will marry me […] she thinks I’m not well brought up” (Bombal, p. 166). Ana’s marriage with her latest husband, Antonio, was one that was met with conflict. In the scene where Antonio confronts Ana with the past love letters from Ricardo and tosses every item reminiscing the times with Ricardo. Although evidently a troubling marriage, it was not one she could freely emancipate from, assuming that societal expectations and stigma were an additional conflict and barrier for if she sought to divorce.

There were instances of the book that would ring a bell on how societal ideas imposed on women, such as not having them being taken seriously. A passage that captures this in the literature is when Antonio talks about how “he can’t follow how you women talk and their usage of the word betrayal” (p. 247). It felt like almost a strange relief for Ana Maria when the narrator says that she finds herself immersed into the second death. This to me felt like it was a final shut off of the events she had to recollect as she is dead, but as the chapter ends, so does the pain and suffering she so wanted to emancipate from.

Question:

If Ana Maria had married Ricardo, do you think that she would not have felt like life was despairing?