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 Introduction!

Hello! My name is Jeremy Boyd, I am a 3rd year arts student and really looking forward to learning more about romance studies. I took a romance studies class a couple years back for the first part of my literature requirement and I am back again looking to fulfill the other half of the requirement. I have really enjoyed listening to the lectures and I am excited to continue to share my thoughts on the different texts throughout the semester.  

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 Introduction!

Hello! My name is Jeremy Boyd, I am a 3rd year arts student and really looking forward to learning more about romance studies. I took a romance studies class a couple years back for the first part of my literature requirement and I am back again looking to fulfill the other half of the requirement. I have really enjoyed listening to the lectures and I am excited to continue to share my thoughts on the different texts throughout the semester.  

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The Shrouded Woman was a very interesting comparison/contrast between the unknown world of death and the certainty of reality. I found reading about Anna-Maria’s life through the eyes of her corpse as a captivating way to bring me, the reader, … Continue reading → read full post >>

The first thing that caught my attention when I started reading the book was that the titles of each chapter were numbers, and it made me feel like I was reading a diary, like a first day, a second day, etc. There was a part at the beginning of the piece that was actually very […] read full post >>

Utilizing a unique perspective, María Luisa Bombal’s The Shrouded Woman reflects on the life of a woman skillfully and exquisitely. The foremost characteristic of the narrator is that she is dead. This special point of view manages to express and document the events of herself and related things before her death in a comprehensive approach. […] read full post >>

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 This text was my favourite by far, and after scrolling through a few blog posts, it's interesting to see that most people share the same opinion. The shrouded woman was a fascinating text that challenged men's views on women in that day in age. It was super cool to read a book from a women's perspective compared to the other two books we have read so far. A theme I found similar was how a woman shouldn't act out and always listen because their husband can take everything away from them. 

One of my favourite parts was when Maria spoke about how her beauty is lonely. Everyone was envious of her beauty, and all the men wanted her. Seeing it from her perspective was very eye-opening. But, unfortunately, she is only seen for that, and as a child, she was not given any love because she had enough beauty and was isolated. Isolated physically and emotionally from her family. She told us how she did not look like any of her family members and was not connected to anyone. Total and utter loneliness. This made me sad for her and has changed my perspective on living up to beauty standards and consistently trying not to judge anyone based on their cover. 

This book takes us along Ana-Maria's life, her love encounters, her brutal, unloving husband, her children and her sickness. I love how the book started off by describing her illness and being stuck as an alive corpse, and then ended once again, representing her death and her last march through her childhood and life. Ana-Maria had a chaotic life and had friends betray her trust and even her own husband. She holds many regrets about her life and her relationship with God. Hearing her side of the story and the feelings of everyone surrounded by her as she was dying brought me comfort. It may sound weird, but as someone who has dealt with a lot of grief in my life, it is nice to hear a story of one's relief in passing even after holding onto so many regrets. I think Ana-Maria can teach us a lesson. We are alive, we aren't like her living in a corpse, and we still have our lives to live. Even though we have regrets and more to come, we can't let them control or take over our lives. We should enjoy what we have in the present and not focus on the past because we cannot change it and have no control over it. 

The one question I have is...

Do you think if the narrator's perspective wasn't from a dead woman that the book's themes and lessons it gave us from reading it would change/lose their significance? 

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 This text was my favourite by far, and after scrolling through a few blog posts, it's interesting to see that most people share the same opinion. The shrouded woman was a fascinating text that challenged men's views on women in that day in age. It was super cool to read a book from a women's perspective compared to the other two books we have read so far. A theme I found similar was how a woman shouldn't act out and always listen because their husband can take everything away from them. 

One of my favourite parts was when Maria spoke about how her beauty is lonely. Everyone was envious of her beauty, and all the men wanted her. Seeing it from her perspective was very eye-opening. But, unfortunately, she is only seen for that, and as a child, she was not given any love because she had enough beauty and was isolated. Isolated physically and emotionally from her family. She told us how she did not look like any of her family members and was not connected to anyone. Total and utter loneliness. This made me sad for her and has changed my perspective on living up to beauty standards and consistently trying not to judge anyone based on their cover. 

This book takes us along Ana-Maria's life, her love encounters, her brutal, unloving husband, her children and her sickness. I love how the book started off by describing her illness and being stuck as an alive corpse, and then ended once again, representing her death and her last march through her childhood and life. Ana-Maria had a chaotic life and had friends betray her trust and even her own husband. She holds many regrets about her life and her relationship with God. Hearing her side of the story and the feelings of everyone surrounded by her as she was dying brought me comfort. It may sound weird, but as someone who has dealt with a lot of grief in my life, it is nice to hear a story of one's relief in passing even after holding onto so many regrets. I think Ana-Maria can teach us a lesson. We are alive, we aren't like her living in a corpse, and we still have our lives to live. Even though we have regrets and more to come, we can't let them control or take over our lives. We should enjoy what we have in the present and not focus on the past because we cannot change it and have no control over it. 

The one question I have is...

Do you think if the narrator's perspective wasn't from a dead woman that the book's themes and lessons it gave us from reading it would change/lose their significance? 

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 "But now, now that I am dead, it occurs to me that possibly all men once in their lifetime long to make some great renunciation; to sacrifice something vital; to tear to pieces a butterfly, in order to feel themselves masters of their own destiny."

The above quote stood out the most while reading Bombal's novel, The Shrouded Woman. Something about the unique narration of this novel made every line that much more poignant, given that our narrator was dead. It was almost as if she refused to pass without imparting whatever wisdom she could to anyone willing to hear her. Bombal's use of visual imagery was balanced and evocative. As I read, I did feel like I was witnessing the scenes as they played out. I enjoyed her descriptions of the characters and their personalities and what they meant to Ana Maria. 

Additionally, I found the dramatics of the novel very intriguing. The feuds, infidelity, and familial bonds of the characters were explored very intricately for a relatively short novel. I agree with the points discussed in the lecture regarding the comparison between the male and female characters and how the latter was more interesting to read than the former. I believe that Bombal has created a setting in which the men in the book mainly served the purpose of acting as the love interests. This is quite ironic as these roles are traditionally assigned to women. While she did devote a lot of focus to her romantic relationship, the relationships that stood out the most were the ones with her children and with Sofia. The depth of her friendship with Sofia and even Zoila s pointed to the women being the most important figures in her life emotionally, even though the men dominated in other aspects of life.

Moreover, I found the idea of a dead narrator very ominous but fascinating at the same time. The concept of dying a second death after having passed was quite bizarre to me, but something about how the narrator spoke about it struck me. The notion that she was experiencing life as a dead person, especially something as lively as freedom, provided poetic justice to the living, trapped woman. 

Overall, I found this text to be extremely entertaining. I loved the fact that it touched upon themes like family and the power dynamics between men and women. My question for the class would be: What did you think of Ana Maria's relationships? How do you think they shaped her idea of peace?

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