{"id":12,"date":"2022-01-29T00:25:18","date_gmt":"2022-01-29T07:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/?p=12"},"modified":"2022-01-29T00:25:18","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T07:25:18","slug":"week-4-bombals-the-shrouded-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/2022\/01\/29\/week-4-bombals-the-shrouded-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 4- Bombal’s “The Shrouded Woman”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found The Shrouded Woman to be an easier read compared to Paris Peasant and Combray. The writing was descriptive but not overflowing with a lot of vivid details. The scenes also didn\u2019t feel like they suddenly changed without a reason either. It is also my favorite novel so far, though I do wish I could\u2019ve read this as a physical copy rather than on the computer. Nevertheless, I found it interesting that this novel was regarding Ana-Maria, who is a dead narrator as she talks about the people who have had a significant influence on her life. Although, it feels more unfortunate that Ana-Maria reflects more on the men in her life rather than her children or parents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ana-Maria reflects on Ricardo, her first love when she was a teenager who had to move to Europe to \u201cstudy scientific farming\u201d (165). Ana-Maria asked Ricardo to marry her and take her with him, however, he refused as he doesn\u2019t seem to think that being married to Ana-Maria would be beneficial to both his career and future. Ricardo\u2019s rejection and departure broke Ana-Maria\u2019s heart, as she cries to Zoila that he doesn\u2019t love her anymore. However, ironically as Ricardo visits Ana-Maria on her deathbed, she \u201cunderstands that this man had never remained entirely apart from her\u201d (176). This is quite devastating, as she finally realizes Ricardo did- and still does love her on her deathbed. Thus, causes her to wonder \u201cmust we die in order to know?\u201d (176), which is truly a philosophical yet heartbreaking question. I think in most situations, perhaps yes, since pride, ego, and fear of vulnerability often restrains people from being honest about their feelings. It would be interesting if we had Ricardo\u2019s perspective on his relationship with Ana-Maria, and what his thoughts and emotions were when he visited her on her deathbed.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Ana-Maria\u2019s brother, Luis, visits her, I found this line to be quite powerful, \u201cI remember there was a time when we loved each other very much; \u2026 a time you had forgotten but which my death reawakened in you\u201d (180). It\u2019s unfortunate that she was separated from him due to an outsider when they were once so close to each other. It\u2019s quite tragic how sometimes people come to a realization of how much they love one another when it\u2019s too late. Luis seeing Ana-Maria on her deathbed seemed to make him realize how much he once loved his sister, in a similar way to how Ana-Maria realizes how much Ricardo still loves her after all these years. Even though it\u2019s not the same type of love, as one is a family type of love and the other is a romantic type, it\u2019s still love that was realized after her passing.<\/span><\/p>\n

A question I have for my classmates is why does Ana-Maria’s reflection focus more on the romantic relationships rather than her family, friends, and children? What could this also imply about our society today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found The Shrouded Woman to be an easier read compared to Paris Peasant and Combray. The writing was descriptive but not overflowing with a lot of vivid details. The scenes also didn\u2019t feel like they suddenly changed without a reason either. It is also my favorite novel so far, though I do wish I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89870,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[14,16,13,15],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-bombal","tag-death","tag-family","tag-love","tag-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89870"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tzrmst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}