No, it doesn’t feel all over. As many others have noted, Ruiz de Burton leaves much open and unsettled at the end of the novel. It is hard to tell why she would have left so many loose-ends and so much unifinished business. In part it disappointed me, but it also disturbed me, as do all books that are seemingly incomplete. However, this book didn’t seem to gain anything, artistically or otherwise, from ending as it did. In fact it seemed to lose the opportunity to develop themes and characters that had so much potential. I wonder if she simply had trouble deciding how to end the book or if she really had some intention or idea behind how she ended it. I really can’t see how leaving Lola so undeveloped could help the novel, as with several other characters, like Dr. Norval, but at the same time it forces one to really think, to wonder: why did she end it this way, what does it say about Ruiz de Burton’s view of the nation and society she was commenting on, what does it suggest about the hope for change in the US?

What can be said about the book is that it is not very clear or easy to analyze in many cases. The discussion today about whether it is a “Feminist Novel” or not, really showed that it is hard to say either way. It seems to me that Ruiz de Burton created a work that is ambiguous, ambivalent, at times contradictory so that it is not easy for the reader to choose ideologies to adhere to or espouse. Of course, it is easy to see which characters are good or bad in general, but it is not easy to decide what ideas are put forth through the novel. I believe this is because Ruiz de Burton was more interested in capturing and revealing the reality, the cruelty, the hypocrasy, and the corruption of her times, rather than develop ideas on how to change them. Thus, her novel forces us to think and to question our assumptions and those of our society. I agree with one classmate who was somewhat annoyed by the prospect of having to decide whether the novel was a “Feminist Novel” or not. Such decisions are really a way to pigeonhole a novel and remove the complexity that Ruiz de Burton developed in it. Our discussion today evinced perfectly how the novel effectively reveals the inequalities between men and women in this period, and the ignorant assumptions of so many people, both men and women, concerning the status of women, without being easily categorized as a feminist novel. This, again, makes one question further the issues in the novel. Is Ruiz de Burton trying to justify the treatment of women, is she defending them and attacking the status quo? She presents the opinions and ideas of the different sides, never definitively siding with any of them.