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María Luisa Bombal, The Shrouded Woman——Week4

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 This week I read The Shrouded Woman. The article begins with the perspective of a woman after her death. The narrator himself observes different reactions of people around her after her death and recalls the memories of her life. This part is composed. This kind of perspective of keeping one's acquaintances in the corpse is exciting, watching their attitude towards their own death, recalling their characters and making comments on the whole, giving people a sense of sobriety and rationality, as we all know, only we are not involved events, we can make an objective evaluation of them. And the death of the protagonist just happened to put her in this state.

Nothing can highlight the existence of consciousness itself more than consciousness after death. In the beginning, when the protagonist observes the environment with ideology, he is pulled away from reality. He becomes a bystander to himself, and when she begins to recall consciousness, It is like being re-immersed in the environment at that time. When the protagonist recalls her experience of falling in love, we can read the excitement, enthusiasm and shyness of the protagonist and the depression, sadness and depression when she is lost in love. However, although I can feel the protagonist's emotions, the process and details of the birth of these emotions are still very abrupt, as if the protagonist suddenly fell in love. And then this relationship ended so quickly, and the protagonist received a lot of damage; she kept going back and forth in pain and relief and vividly reflected the anxiety and anxiety in love. At the same time, the scenery and weather in the memories also change and show different atmospheres according to her mood, which complements the protagonist's feelings.

When reading this week's article, I feel that the author's description of feelings is more intense than the two previous works. When reading the author's recollections, there is a feeling of reading ordinary novels. She shows the story's development and the psychological and behavioural states of the different protagonists in it. And when she shows these stories, I feel that her self-consciousness is very weak, and she doesn't make it clear that the thinking of the characters in the story is her thinking.

So the question I want to ask this week is: Is the intensity of The Shrouded Woman's emotional expression somewhat more robust or weaker than the text in our previous course assignments?


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A reflection of Bombal’s ‘The Shrouded Woman’

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Before reading this novel, I couldn’t help but notice a handwritten note on the pdf version of the book provided to us by our Professor wherein on the title page, an anonymous individual wrote “Ana-Maria is a Femme Fatale.” Upon researching the unfamiliar term, I came to learn it refers to an attractive and seductive […] read full post >>
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Bombal- The Shrouded Woman W4

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Firstly, I must say I really enjoyed this read. It has probably been my favourite thus far. I found The Shrouded Woman to be very thought-provoking and interesting.  The overall feel of Bombal’s fictional world in The Shrouded Woman seems to me to be very gender-stereotypical and of course, patriarchal. The toll each of these […] read full post >>
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Week Four: Maria Luisa Bombal, The Shrouded Woman

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This book was a quick read. Overall,  it was concise and captivating. A few of the most prominent themes that stood out from this text are as follows: love, the value of women in terms of love, and the expectations that are placed on people based on the gender roles of society. 

Almost every single description or mention of any women in this text was somehow related to their physical appearance. It heavily focused on the idea that the value of a woman rests primarily on how beautiful they are according to the standards of society and in particular, the standards of the men in society. The men weighed their potential partners as candidates for becoming their wives and the mothers of their children based first and foremost on their attractiveness. There were a ton of details centered around skin, the colour and shape of their eyes, their hair, their grace and their bodies. I came away from this text with the feeling that while I didn't learn enough about the profound, substantial characteristics of the women in the story, I came away with very clear, detailed images of how they look on the outside. 

However, there was one character, Fernando, who stood out as I believe the only man (from what I can recall) who saw more than Ana Maria's appearance - he described her merits to be her intelligence, her sensitivity and her intuition. Even her husband Antonio, although he says that Ana Maria is the only woman he had ever truly loved, justifies his being crazy for many other women with the exclamation "Really, there are too many beautiful women running around in the world!" There was simply so much focus, importance and value pinned on beauty. 

Here is my final thought. All of this talk of love, heartbreak, relationships, betrayal - there has to be more to life than that, right? I think there has to be other things, hobbies and interests and more fascinating things to think about than the pain and complicated pleasures of navigating love. There wasn't a single easy going relationship in this entire text and as realistic as that is, in my opinion, it shouldn't be the main thing around which we force our thoughts and feelings to constantly revolve around. Aren't there other ways for us to find value in ourselves other than the one that our relationship gives us?

Here is my question for everyone. Do you believe that in today's society, there is just as much emphasis placed on the value of beauty? Are men and women today put through different standards than they were at the time this book was written?

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Week Four: Maria Luisa Bombal, The Shrouded Woman

Posted by: feedwordpress

This book was a quick read. Overall,  it was concise and captivating. A few of the most prominent themes that stood out from this text are as follows: love, the value of women in terms of love, and the expectations that are placed on people based on the gender roles of society. 

Almost every single description or mention of any women in this text was somehow related to their physical appearance. It heavily focused on the idea that the value of a woman rests primarily on how beautiful they are according to the standards of society and in particular, the standards of the men in society. The men weighed their potential partners as candidates for becoming their wives and the mothers of their children based first and foremost on their attractiveness. There were a ton of details centered around skin, the colour and shape of their eyes, their hair, their grace and their bodies. I came away from this text with the feeling that while I didn't learn enough about the profound, substantial characteristics of the women in the story, I came away with very clear, detailed images of how they look on the outside. 

However, there was one character, Fernando, who stood out as I believe the only man (from what I can recall) who saw more than Ana Maria's appearance - he described her merits to be her intelligence, her sensitivity and her intuition. Even her husband Antonio, although he says that Ana Maria is the only woman he had ever truly loved, justifies his being crazy for many other women with the exclamation "Really, there are too many beautiful women running around in the world!" There was simply so much focus, importance and value pinned on beauty. 

Here is my final thought. All of this talk of love, heartbreak, relationships, betrayal - there has to be more to life than that, right? I think there has to be other things, hobbies and interests and more fascinating things to think about than the pain and complicated pleasures of navigating love. There wasn't a single easy going relationship in this entire text and as realistic as that is, in my opinion, it shouldn't be the main thing around which we force our thoughts and feelings to constantly revolve around. Aren't there other ways for us to find value in ourselves other than the one that our relationship gives us?

Here is my question for everyone. Do you believe that in today's society, there is just as much emphasis placed on the value of beauty? Are men and women today put through different standards than they were at the time this book was written?

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Week 4 – Bombal

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First of all, this was the kind of book I envisioned reading when I enrolled in Romance studies. To answer the question in this week’s lecture video, the characteristics of this fictitious world of Bombal stand out to me as being patriarchal and unfulfilling. Ana-Maria, our dead narrator, reflects on the people who impacted her […] read full post >>
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Aragon “Paris Peasant”

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I was initially surprised to find out that this book was incredibly difficult to understand when I started reading it. In the process of reading this book, I kept on getting lost. I believe this may be due to the language used in the book and the main sentiment it is trying to convey. The […] read full post >>
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Hello world!

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Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging! read full post >>
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Hello! (Introduction)

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Hi all! My name is Sophia and I’m one of your classmates in RMST 202. I just joined this class so my intro post is late, but I’m excited to meet you all (although it’s a bit delayed). I am a second year student, ad I am planning on (but haven’t yet declared) a major […] read full post >>
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Hello world!

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Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging! read full post >>
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