The Characters
Ana María is a prototype of the Latin American women in the 1930’s who did not have an active participation in economics or politics. Therefore, in the restrictive role of wife and mother, the protagonist searches for love as the only means to achieve a goal in life. Her relations with Ricardo, Antonio, and Fernando reveal three crucial stages in her life: sexual initiation, the passive acceptance of social conventions symbolized by marriage, and erotic sublimation in unconsummated adultery. Significantly, these three stages mark the progressive degradation of those instinctive and primordial elements in feminine character being slowly eroded by societal conformism.
The love experiences with Ricardo are tinged with sensuality nurtured by sensations equated with nature. Ricardo’s adolescent body is compared to the vitality of the wild forest and the indomitable strength of a stallion. His caresses are described as a dark and wild carnation. Ana María ignores social regulations that demand virginity and gives in to instincts deeply rooted in nature. Thus, when she becomes pregnant, she feels completely identified with budding trees, the graceful flight of doves, and the sounds surrounding her. She is, in fact, intimately united to Matter. Ricardo’s abandonment and the accidental abortion destroy this natural and harmonious relationship with nature. She encloses herself in her room and passively accepts Antonio’s marriage proposal.
Married life is described as empty and unfulfilling. In spite of her frustration, Ana María feigns happiness, keeping up with appearances, although she is conscious of the unfair situation regarding men and women. This view of society is made explicit in the following statement: “While women have men as the pivot of their life, men succeed in directing their passion to politics or work. But the fate of women seems to be to turn over and over in their heart some love sorrow while sitting in a neatly ordered house, facing an unfinished tapestry.”
As the years go by, Ana María withdraws into herself, becoming narrow and petty. She encourages Fernando to court her, a selfish act that gratifies her vanity, but she never allows him to kiss her—thus protecting herself from moral transgression in committing real adultery. Her relationship with Fernando is marked by selfishness and cruelty; moreover, although she is not in love with him, it is significant that her life is still dependent on a relation with a man. Fernando’s visits become a raison d’etre for the protagonist, and even on her deathbed she anxiously waits for him.
Ana María’s trajectory must be defined in terms of this existential subordination to men, characterized in the novel as symbols of power; in this sense, the lover motif is highly significant: domination and physical strength in Ricardo, pride and power in Antonio, selfishness and rationality in Fernando. These primary characteristics of the male, as perceived from a female perspective, are, in fact, the qualities usually attributed to men in Latin American society, according to recent sociological studies on sex roles.
Ana María represents a tragic view of women and their place in society. As though screened in by a shroud, the protagonist ends up alienated because she is forced into a passive acceptance of the status quo. Ironically, the solution to this dilemma lies not in changing her historical role but rather in the supernatural realm of Death. It is only when she is dead that she is able to unveil the intrinsic nature of those she knew in life. Moreover, death allows her to penetrate the secrets of nature: the intensity of night, the sounds of rain, the beauty of tree bark.
(This entire section contains 606 words.)
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Characters Discussed
Ana María
Ana María, a dead woman who alternately views her mourners, the memories they arouse, and the dramatic landscape of death. A passionate woman and mother of three children, Ana María finds that in death her perceptions are amplified; her emotions are fully realized. Her early beauty returns, and she sees herself as pale, slender, and unwrinkled by time. In life she was imaginative, sensitive, intense, and playful. She journeys through the past and relives her adolescent love for Ricardo, his betrayal, and her subsequent herbally induced abortion; her marriage to Antonio, his love for her and the loss of that love, and her passion for him; the adoration of the luckless Fernando in her later years; and the unhappy loves of her three children. Following heart attacks and a stroke, Ana María dies and witnesses her wake, a journey to the family vault, and her fall to surreal subterranean landscapes. Flowing back to the surface, she roots herself to the world and longs for immersion in death.
Ricardo
Ricardo, Ana María’s adolescent lover and neighbor. As a young man, Ricardo is clear-eyed, tanned, and wiry. A trickster tyrant, he teases Ana María. He is willful, rebellious,and impetuous. Ana María is a childish lover; she does not share his passion but desires his strong arms and the “wild flower” of his kisses. Ricardo deserts Ana María when he goes to study agricultural farming in Europe. On his return, he fails to approach her, then says that he is not to blame for her pregnancy. From this time on, each avoids the other; when he enters her room of death, Ana María understands that her love for him was a hidden core and that his love for her is the same.
Antonio
Antonio, Ana María’s rich, handsome, and charming husband. For a year, Antonio spies on Ana María from the wild black forest adjoining her father’s hacienda. After marriage, his young bride feels lost in his sumptuous, labyrinthine house; she resists both his home and the pleasure that Antonio arouses in her. Antonio allows her to visit her father’s home, but when she returns, he is indifferent to her presence. Fated now to love a man who seems only to tolerate her, Ana María suffers from Antonio’s constant pursuit of other women, just as he suffers from her long, vicarious bond to Ricardo. Antonio weeps for the dead Ana María, who discovers that she neither loves nor hates him.
Fernando
Fernando, an older man who woos Ana María and becomes her confidant in her later years. Fernando—ill, luckless, unhappy, swarthy, and lean—repulses Ana María, although she needs to confide in him. His dispassionate attitude toward his wife’s suicide disturbs Ana María; requited love, he says, eludes him. Fernando, tormented by his love, finds that he can admire, understand, and forgive Ana María after her death. The death releases him to return to his interests in politics, farming, and study.
Alberto
Alberto, the son of Ana María and Antonio. Handsome and taciturn, he loves only life on his southern hacienda until he meets María Griselda. Her overwhelming beauty and appearance of self-containment drive him to agony and drink. Jealous, he walls her up in the family hacienda, deep in the dark forest.
María Griselda
María Griselda, Alberto’s wife. The swanlike María Griselda is lovely, and her beauty causes her to suffer from early childhood. Green eyes, pale skin, black hair, and harmonious gestures draw the adoration of men and women, children, and nature. Left lonely by her husband’s searching love, she remains solitary. Only Ana María can forgive her great beauty.
Fred
Fred, the son of Ana María and Antonio. Ana María dearly loves this child, who fears mirrors and talks an unknown language in dreams. As a robust young man, he falls in love with blond Silvia, but it is dark María Griselda who awakens his poet’s soul.
Silvia
Silvia, Fred’s wife. Tiny, graceful, and golden, Silvia makes the tragic decision to spend her honeymoon at the forest hacienda. The new bride shoots herself in the temple when Fred confesses that he has been transformed by the presence of María Griselda.
Anita
Anita, the daughter of Ana María and Antonio. Anita is arrogant, private, haughty, and brilliant. When her good-natured sweetheart, Don Rodolfo, falls under the spell of María Griselda, Anita seduces him and becomes pregnant.
Sofía
Sofía, the estranged wife of Ricardo. Lively Sofía envies Ana María’s intensity; the two are bound by friendship until Ana María comes to think that Sofía has betrayed her.
Alicia
Alicia, Ana María’s sister. Sad, pale, and religious, Alicia has suffered her husband’s brutality and the death of her son.
Luis
Luis, Ana María’s brother. Commonplace values separate Luis from Ana María, especially after he rejects the vivacious Elena for a conventional woman.
