Hi Romance Studiers,

Bombal’s “The Shrouded Woman” explored the life of Ana Maria through a retrospective lens. The novel used Ana Maria as a narrator, recounting her experiences with the different people in her life as they appeared at her funeral, and the significance they played in her story. I found the story to be very emotionally compelling and acted as a time capsule for the late 1930s. It touched on many aspects of the patriarchy from the way men held power within relationships, the expectations placed on women to marry wisely, and the issues with marriage in a time period when divorce was heavily stigmatized. This in combination with very realistic and compelling characters pulled the reader in to learn more about the late life of Ana Maria.

Throughout my reading, there were several moments when I had to take a break and ask myself why I liked or felt so compelled to document a certain prose so much. The section that I could not get enough of was the exploration of Maria Griselda, or more specifically, the impact of Maria Griselda’s unprecedented beauty. Reading about Fred’s undying infatuation for his brother’s wife made me laugh harder than in any section of the book. I find the way Bombal dramatized character’s actions so hilarious, such as when Fred was confronted by his mother about his greater interest with Maria Griselda than his own wife Silvia, Bombal wrote “Fred had suddenly thrown his arms around his mother’s waist, laid his forehead against the fragile hip and closed his eyes” (Bombal, 189). The way I can visualize this grown man throwing himself towards his mom, as if pleading for her to listen to him, felt like this was a play script made for a high school drama club. This language goes past the actions of the character, and pushed even further in the dialogue, as can be seen when Fred expressed “Oh, Mother, every day it’s a new image, every day some new admiration I have to fight against. No, no, I must not stay here another day… because I can’t help admiring her more than I do Silvia, every day more” (Bombal, 189). While the dialogue and actions were dramatic, they were so full of emotion it was difficult to not sympathize with him. I overall found this section very funny, in my notes throughout reading, I wrote “not Fred simping for his brother’s wife????”.

Despite the story having funny moments, it had its fair share of moments that caused me to shed a tear, both over multi-paged chapters and short proses. The first time I was overwhelmed with emotions in this story was in chapter seven, when she remembered an intimate moment between herself and her father. In this memory, she was still a child and discussed the reasons they love her late mother. Ana Maria stated that she loves her mother because of her beauty which her father laughed at, it is the following paragraph which really got to me. Ana Maria believed her father loved her mother for the same reason, as she thought, “he loved her for her fleeting perfume, her treacherous veils and her premature death, as disconcerting as the frivolous mystery of her eyes” (Bombal, 178). The childlike innocence in the way Ana Maria thought and how Bombal described the father at the end of the chapter as “fulfilling that part of sorrow destiny has assigned to him” really got to me and made me greatly enjoy my reading of “The Shrouded Woman” (Bombal, 178).

During this story, I felt like Bombal was consistently dropping ‘bars’ which I like to describe as a few continuous lines that strongly encompass an emotion or an idea. My personal favourite ‘bar’ that I felt encapsulated the dominant patriarchal ideology during the 1930s was when Bombal wrote, “why, oh why must a woman’s nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?” which is simply put, a bar (Bombal, 226). My question for the class is, what was your favourite bar in the story and how did you interpret it?

I’m excited to hear all your thoughts in class this week and I’m looking forward to reading your favourite bars from the book 🙂