I enjoyed reading Teresa De La Parra’s, “Mama Blanca’s Memoirs,” as it was the first piece of Latin American literature I had ever explored before. The book demonstrates how literature at this time was written with irony, challenging several different social implications and conflict of the time. For example, throughout the memoirs, De La Parra explores themes of class inequality, political conflict and slavery, and femininity versus masculinity. Although the book highlights progression and change in Venezuala, as slavery had just been abolished, it also brings to light class inequalities that had been apparent in Latin America primarily because of colonialism. We are given a sense of this straight away, as the forward reads, “Contrary to what the rich and mighty of this world think, life’s slender comes not from what it gives but from what it promises (8),” and “My door, like the door of the poor, is always open (9).” Other quotes similar to these demonstrate how Mama Blanca often brings up social inequalities and her personal opinions on class division.
Nostalgia and childhood are also prominent themes throughout the memoirs, as sentiment, emotion, and a sense of yearning for the past presented itself in the poetic documentation of her life. The stories that Mama Blanca shares with the young girl – who eventually amalgamates the memories and turns them into published memoirs of Mama Blanca’s life – is written in a poetic way that pulled me into Mama Blanca’s life, and left me wanting to read more at the end of each chapter. In a way, nostalgia and childhood tie back to the overarching theme in Latin American literature that explores a sense of play. The writing in itself is playful as De La Parra utilizes irony, as well as the use of childhood stories and family relationship dynamics bring forth old memories of a more youthful time in Mama Blanca’s life.
The style of writing was full of emotion, irony, poetry, conflict, betrayal, and in my opinion, depicted many themes of Latin American literature that were explored in class last week. Although nostalgia and play were prominent themes in the book, De La Parra also touches on important social and political aspects of life during this time, bringing class conflict and femininity ideals into question.
In a way, the book felt complex to me as it had several overarching themes to break down and examine closely. As my first Latin American literature reading assignment, I found it difficult to gather my thoughts, articulate exactly how I was feeling, and put it into words in this blog post. Hopefully as the term goes on this will improve as I explore further literature.
My question I have for you is: What does nostalgia mean to you? When reading Mama Blanca’s Memoirs, what aspect of the storytelling made you feel nostalgic?
“What does nostalgia mean to you?”
Or we could just ask: what is nostalgia? Is Mama Blanca’s Memoirs nostalgic? If so, how and why?
Hello! I really enjoyed your reflection. I loved what you have to say about nostalgia and connecting it to the theme of play. In regards to your question, I feel that nostalgia plays a large part in my life, as I constantly like to reflect on my childhood and my perspective than may differ from my perspective now. I found that there were multiple parts of this story that I felt connected to in my own life. For example, I have two sisters of my own and could see my relationship with my older sister as a child in the relationship between Blanca and Violetta. Like the two sisters in the story, my older sister and I would bicker all the time, most of the time starting with me annoying her as a reflection of my admiration for her and resulting in her calling me childish nicknames that would put both of us into a bad mood. Nowadays, my older sister and I are very close with each other and rarely get on each other’s nerves however reading this section of the story reminded me of those little fights I would always get into with my sibling.
Great blogpost! Very interesting point about nostalgia and childhood. I also felt that the book had an inherent feeling of nostalgia–although I don’t quite know why. Perhaps it is our knowledge that this story was all in the past–in the life of Mama Blanca, who is now deceased–that made it feel nostalgic. Or perhaps there was a certain tone or nuance used by Mama Blanca in writing her memoirs. To answer your question, nostalgia means “home” to me. Whether that is a physical or spiritual space, the feeling of nostalgia reminds me of the word “home”. When reading Mama Blanca’s memoirs, I felt nostalgia when reading what Mama Blanca had to say about the different people in her life (such as Evelyn).
– Daniel Choi
Nice read, I liked the themes you chose to bring up surrounding nostalgia, and tying it back to the themes we learned to focus on in the first week of the course. To answer your question, and Jon’s as well as an extension, nostalgia to me is a reminder of how I felt in the past. It goes beyond just being reminded of the past, like a reference or a memory. Instead, I feel that certain smells, sounds, or often just random moments send my mind back to a past feeling or environment. In the text, the words and phrases are written with a perspective that feels very much like how a child would look at the environment around them. The imagery used certainly felt nostalgic at times because it reminded me of how I would look at the people, situation, and scenery around me.
Hiya! Great points brought up in your blog post! I defintely appreciated the balance of the themes that embodied her writing, where there was play and emotion, there was also discussion of political issues such as conflict in family and society.
In relation to your question, I would define nostalgia as being reminded of a blissful past. The way Teresa De la Parra wrote this piece and how she emphasized on scenes where Blanca and her sisters would be playing in the garden and just highlighting the fun that was had in childhood struck me the most.
Hi! Really great blog post! I enjoyed reading about your thoughts with regards to nostalgia and memories. And in relation, I actually also did felt nostalgic in reading the book since it did remind me of my own cultural history from the Philippines. To answer your question, for me, nostalgia means when something in your current situation occurs, and that occurrence or event takes you back on a specific memory that has feelings and emotions attached to it, since the memory is really special and still significant in your life today.