The Shrouded Woman - How dead is dead?

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 The Shrouded Woman by Maria Luisa Bombal has been my favourite of the books we have read so far. I certainly found it the most compelling, and recognised many of the themes that were going on.

I think the theme that most stood out to me was that of realisation. We as people tend to be our most sober around death, and you often hear people talking about their realisations of what really matters in life and how they want to live each passing day only after being confronted with mortality; be it their own or someone dear to them. Bombal manages to take this theme and subvert it by showing that while those who live are faced with hard-hitting realisations, so are the dead. 

The regret of wasted time is one that we have all felt (I reckon it's one of the most universal regrets), including Ana Maria. She is struck by this realisation when she is reunited with her first love, only to realise that they both loved each other despite all the years they'd been apart. Her cry of "Oh God, dear God! Must we die in order to know?" (p176) really hit home for me. At the time of writing, I have been fortunate enough to not have felt the impact of a death close to me. However, I have seen people I love be devastated by grief and the loss of someone dear. Death is a very taboo subject in many societies, which makes it difficult to talk about openly. This often causes it to be an "out of mind, out of sight" situation where people aren't exposed to it until it happens, and the shock of it all can be very disorientating.

Beside death, a theme that is worth talking about is that of beauty. In this book, beauty can be lumped in with jealousy, insecurity, and the male gaze. Maria Griselda, the character known for being astonishingly beautiful. She reminds me a bit of Remedios the Beauty in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude in that her beauty supposedly causes men to make bad decisions, and then she's held accountable for things that she has no control over. 

Maria Griselda's beauty is also a source of suffering for the women in the novel, with Silvia eventually resorting to suicide because she was so jealous of this woman for sTeaLiNg hEr HusBanD; "I thought I was lovely until I met Maria Griselda. Maria Griselda is a hundred times more beautiful than I!" (p193). However, her beauty can never be held in isolation from other perspectives. All the suffering and emotions that are felt as a result of her appearance come from the male gaze. Be it men's disloyalty to their wives, or women's jealousy as a result of their inherent value as women being threatened, it all comes down to what men think. It is what it is I guess. Bombal puts it more eloquently than I do: "Why oh why must a woman's nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?" (p226).

There's so much more to discuss about this novel, since there are many rich themes. However, the question I pose is: Are emotions a good "reason to be"? If so, is hatred a bad one?


Comments

  1. Jon Beasley-MurrayFebruary 1, 2022 at 8:44 AM

    "I think the theme that most stood out to me was that of realisation."

    Yes, I think this is a good point. There's a lot in this novel about emotion (passions of different sort, from love to hatred to jealousy to desire) but ultimately it's also about ways of knowing and, as you say, knowing too late.

    What prevents Ana Maria from figuring these things out while she is still alive?

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  2. DanielleFebruary 1, 2022 at 9:44 PM

    Hi Deeba,

    Thanks for your great post! I noticed the drama around beauty as well. The women put so much power in possessing beauty, yet when they end their own lives, their ability to live is completely gone. I think it is significant that Ana is watching this happen from beyond the grave because her death puts a lot of things into perspective. She no longer has the ability to change her life and she sees these women throw it away due to their worry about mens' views of their appearance.

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  3. Daniel ChoiFebruary 1, 2022 at 11:05 PM

    I really enjoyed reading your insight on realization. I also found that the idea of realization stood out most for me. It was interesting to see what realizations Ana Maria had, especially knowing that she is now "dead" (still conscious, but dead). The change in perception and observation during her life and after her death is quite interesting. It almost seemed like she was set free after death.

    - Daniel C

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  4. Vidushi SinghFebruary 2, 2022 at 1:24 PM

    Hi Deeba,

    I really liked how you consciously kept track of the themes as they arose to you. Honestly, I got so invested in the story and the characters that it was just a race against time for me to find out what that specific character's place was in Ana Maria's life. However, I think that the theme of realization was something that had come to me while reading as well because Ana Maria is mostly reflecting on all her major life events throughout the book. Not just reflecting but also taking the readers through her own changes in the attitudes about certain life events. For your question, I would say that is is important to feel and go through and acknowledge the emotions one is feeling because that is just the truth of it, but it shows maturity if you don't act on it and process it in a way that is morally right, instead of just what feels right in that moment. Just my take on it :))

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  5. AsthaFebruary 3, 2022 at 11:52 AM

    Deeba, this was fascinating read. To answer your question, I think it's about virtue: I think while love is normatively a great virtue, it translates to a good reason to be, whereas hatred doesn't.

    ReplyDelete

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