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IRONY AS SILENT SUBVERSIVE STRATEGY IN ISABEL
ALLENDE'S CUENTOS DE EVA LUNA
R es umen En Ia ultima decada los es tudios fem inistas han sugerido el papel subversivo del silencio en La escritura femenina. EL uso de La ironia por parte de Isabel Allende en su colecci6n de cuentos, Cuentos de Eva Luna, se puede ver como una estrategia de silencio porque no se indica el significado del discurso explicitamente a traves de las palabras. Allende invierte el uso del silencio, el cual se ve tradicionalmente como un signo de La opresi6n feme nina. Est a inversi6n se puede ver como una sefial at Lector que le indica Lo que Sara Mills Llama en su libro La esti lf stica feminista "la afiliaci6n fem in ista" del text o. Ademas, Allende usa La hi pe rbole para subrayar la absurdidad de los procesos literarios tradicionales usados para caracterizar a Las protagonistas femeninas, como el es tereotip o, La compensaci6n, la colusi6n y La recuperaci6n. Gayle Greene y Coppelia Kahn discuten estos procesos en su estudio "Los estudiosfeministas y Ia construcci6n social de La mujer". Allende emplea estos procesos ir6nicamente para subvertirlos a favo r de un mensaje feminist a. Palabras clave: ironia, silencio, feminista, subversi vo, hiperbole
Ab stract In the last decade various feminist studies have suggested the subversive role of silence in women's writing. Isabel All en de's use of irony in her collection of short sto ri es, Cuentos de Eva Luna , can be seen as a strategy of silence because it does not indicate meaning explicitly through words. Allende's inversion of th e use of silence, which is traditionally viewed as a sign of female oppression, can be seen as a cue to the reader th at signals what Sara Mills in Feminist Stylistics terms the text's "feminist affiliation." Moreo ver, Alle nde's use of hyperbole underscores th e absurdity of traditional literary processes used for female literary characte ri zation, such as stereotyping, compensation, collusion and recuperation, as outlined by Gayle Greene and Coppelia Kahn in their study "Feminist Scholarship and the Social Construction of Women." Allende ironically emplo ys th ese processes in order to subvert them in favor of a feminist message. Key word s: irony, silence, feminist, subversive, hyperbole
Silence has been the focus of a numb er of feminist studies over the last
d ecade. Many of these studies present women 's silence as a manifestation of
the passive role assigned to women by patriarchal ideology. For example, Amy
Kaminsky 's Reading the Body Politic ( 1993) views feminist poetics as the
attempt to establish a presence or voice for women who have bee n absent from
Revista de Estudios Hispanicos, U.P.R. Vol. XXXI, Num. I, 2004
or silent in histo ry. 1 However, many other studies suggest that women's silence
need not be indicative of passivity, but rather may function as a subversive
tool. For example, Debra Castillo in Talking Back: Toward a Latin American
Feminist Criticism (1992) states:
The revolutionary response to s ilencin::: is resemanlictzation: to use silence as a weapon (to resort to silence) or to break silen ce women writers must refine such tools as they are given ... Under old traditional codes the woman. .. remained silent and withdrawn. In the counter hegemonic response to this official silencing she executes a dizzying dance of negativity, appropriating silence as a tactic neither for saying nor for unsaying, but for concealing a coded speech between the lines of th e said and the unsaid.^2
There are three excellent studies on the subversive potential of silence. The
first is Janis Stout's Strategies of Reticence: Silence and Meaning in the Works
of Jane Austen, Willa Cather, Katherine Anne Port er, and Joan Didion (1990),
which focuses on how these writers use a paucity of speech by their characters,
as well as a deliberate lack of narrative commentary, as a form of criticism of
social norms that victimize or limit the rights and freedom of women. 3 The
second is King-Kok Cheung's Articulate Silences: Hisa ye Yamamoto, Maxine
Hong Kingston, Jo y Kogawa (1993), which offers a brilliant study of strategies
of indirection as a form of feminism in the Asian-American women writers of
the title. Cheung defines three types of silence in her book: rhetorical silence,
attentive silence, and provocative silence. According to Cheung, rhetorical
silence refers to silence as both theme and method. Silence as theme refers
to the societal repression of both men and women, while silence as rhetorical
method takes the form of "muted plots" which manifest themselves through
devices such as textual ellipses, irony and unreliable narration. Cheung's "a tten-
tive silence" focuses on the different gradations of silence. Cheung shows how
the traditional interpretation of silence as either oppressively imposed or stoi-
cally adopted are reductive and culturally bia sed. The author illustrates that
silences can also be "attentive"; a way of communicating love, forgiveness and
other positive emotions in the texts she examines. Provocative silence refers
to the paradox "w hereby parental and historical silence spurs creativity ...
the absence of information is used as a pretext for artistic license allowing the
author to give voice to the voiceless and to subvert patriarchal and historical
' Amy Katz Kaminsky, Reading the Body Politic: Feminist Criticism and Latin
American Women Writers, Minneapo li s, Univer si ty of Minnesota Press, 1993.
2 Debra Castillo, Talking Back: Toward a Latin American Feminist Literary Criticism,
Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1992; 38-41.
3 Janis Stout, Strategies of Reticence: Silence and Meaning in the Works of Jane
Austen, Willa Cath er, Katherine Anne Porter, and Joan Didion, Charlottesville,
Univer si ty of Virginia Press, 1990.
Revista de Estudios Hi spanicos, U.P.R. Vol. XXX I, Num. 1, 2004
These cues include a variety of sty li stic (gramma ti cal, lexical and transitivity choices) and thematic op tions. 8
In or de r to unde r sta nd how Allende cons tru cts Cuentos de Eva Luna 9
through irony, we mu st first discuss the s trategies used by the author to portray women in her short stories. Gayle Greene and Coppellia Kahn, appropriating
the terminology used by Michele Barrett in Women 's Oppression Today,^10 study
the ways in which literature reflects gender ideology in its portrayal of women. According to Greene and Kahn Barrett defines four male-dominated pr ocesses u se d for female literary characterization: ster eo typing, compensation, collusion and recuperation (2 1-22). Stereotyping r efe rs to the tendency to portray women according to a fix ed, traditional model. Compensation is defined as imagery and ideas that "elevate the moral value of femininity" and co llusion as "attempts to parade women 's consent to their subordin at ion." Finally, recuperation is the process by which men oppose attempts to challenge the histori ca lly dominant meaning of gende r. 11
At fir st glance, many of the sto ries of Allende's Cuentos de Eva Luna
appea r to sub scribe to the domin ant male id eo logy, presenting st ereo typed female protagoni sts who consent to their own subordina ti on and who are of an exaggerated moral fiber. However, upon closer examination, it b eco m es clear that Allende is e mploying what Jo an R adner and Susan Lan se r call the tech- nique of appropriation in their article "The Feminist Voice: Coding in Women 's Folklore and Literature." According to these authors appropriation refers to "co ding strategies that involve adapting to feminist purposes forms or materials normally associated with male culture" (4 15 )_12 In other words, Allende uses stereotyping, compensation and collusion in her texts but converts them into a feminist too l, precisely through their ir on ic employ ment. The subtlety of this
irony explains why frequently Cuentos de Eva Luna have been mi sinterpreted
by critics who fail to perceive it. Since irony is a "s il e nt " technique, one that is developed strictly through an implied but never explicitly stated reje ction of a declaration , its u se in Allende supports the notion of the primacy of subversive silence in Allend e's texts.
In A Rhetoric of Irony, Wayne C. Booth es tabli s he s and defin es different
categories of irony. According to Booth , the development of what he t erms
- Mills, op.cit.; pp.31- 9 Isabel Allende, Cuentos de Eva Luna, Barcelona, Pla za & Janes Editores, 19 89. All subsequent references to the text wi ll refer to this ed iti on and will be indicated by page numbers in parentheses. (^10) Michele Barrett, Women's Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis, London, Verso Editions, 1980. " Gayle Greene and Coppelia Kahn, "Fe minist Scholarship and the So cial Construc- tion of Women." Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism, Eds. Gay le Greene and Coppelia Kahn, London, M et huen, 1985; 28-29. (^12) Joan Radner and Susan Lanser, "The Feminist Voice: Coding in Women 's Folklore and Literature," Journal of American Folklore I 00 ( 1987): 412-456.
Irony as Si lent Subvers iv e Strategy. .. Helene C. Weldt-Basson
"stable irony" is a three ste p process: l ) The r ea der is re quired to reject the literal meaning of a di sco urse; 2) the reader will try out alternative interpreta- tions that are in co ng ruou s with th e literal statement; 3) the reader chooses a new meaning for the literal statement. Booth s ummarize s the mental process by which the reader concludes that there is ironi c intent in the following manner:
Thus I do not reject a printed statement because of any literal untruth. I reject it because I refuse to dwe ll with anyone who ho lds this whole set of beliefs. And then, because I can not be li eve that the author of the statement can be that kind of person, I am fo rced (through psychological and intellectual pressures which I will not even pretend to understand or explain) to make sense out of the statement by co ncluding that it is ironic.^13
It is important to note that in almost all of Alle nde' s stories, the use of the figure of hyperb ole goes hand in hand with the author's e mployment of iro ny. Indee d, excessive exaggeration is one of the key figures that points toward the need to interpret Alle nd e's stori es ironically.
Th e first story in Cuent os de Eva Luna, " Do s palabra s" is an excellent
example. Be li sa Crepusculario is a se lf- mad e woman from a poor family, who supports her se lf "se lling words" (i. e., writing thin gs for other people). Belisa initially appears to be the vic tim of the f eare d civil war hero, The Colonel, whose henc hm an, el Mulato , abducts her under th e Co lon el 's orders. Th e Colonel wants Beli sa to write a politi ca l s peec h for him that w ill transform his reputation as a f ear ed and brutal man , and convert him into a popular and beloved presidential ca ndidate. De s pite the brutality of her abduction, Belisa adopts a compassionate attitude toward the Colonel:
Ella habfa acep tado mu chos encargos, pero ninguno como ese, sin embargo no pudo negarse, temiendo que el Mulato le metiera un tiro entre los ojos o, peor aun, que el Co ronel se ec hara a ll orar. Por otra parte, sinti6 el imp ul so de ayudarlo, porque percibi6 un palpitante calor en su piel, un deseo poderoso de tocar a este hombre, de recorrerlo co n sus manos, de estrecharlo entre sus brazos. ( 15)
This characterization of Beli sa fits with the traditional model of the co mpas- sio nat e and l ove struck female. The fact that Be li sa feels pity for th e man r espo nsible for kidnapping her suggests elements of female co mp ensation and co llus ion as well. However, despite Beli sa's original cas ting as v ictim in the story, it is she who triumphs ove r the Colonel in the end, dominating him through the two free word s s he awards him for th e purchase of his speech. The reader is never explicitly told what these word s are; he or she is left to infer their content on the basis of the effect they produ ce on the Colonel in the story:
(^13) Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19 74; 35.
Irony as Silent Sub vers ive Strategy... Helene C. Weldt - Ba ss on
Los domingos acudfa con su esposo a Ia misa de doce, imperturbable bajo su mantilla espanola, intocada por las inclemencias de ese verano perenne, descolorida y silenciosa como una sombra. Nadie le oy6 algo mas que un saludo tenue ni le vieron gestos mas osados que una in clinaci6n de Ia cabeza o una sonrisa fu ga z, parecfa volatil, a punto de esfumarse en un descuid o. Daba la impresi6n de no existir ... (140)
This original casting of Casilda within the traditional female stereotype is
subsequently contradicted by a number of other elements in the story. For
example, we are told that after the judge marries her he becomes less stem and
more just, and that everyone "se sorprendieron al ver su infuencia en el Juez,
cuyos cambios eran notables." (140). Moreover, when the Judge imprisons the
mother of the infamous criminal Nicolas Vidal, Casilda is the only one who
can persuade the Judge to feed the starving woman, whose fast is intended to
lure Vidal out of hiding and lead to his capture. Finally, when the Judge dies
and Casilda and her children are pursued for revenge by the relentless Vidal,
Casilda devises a plan to gain time until the authorities can arrive and capture
Vidal. Knowing that Vidal will rape her, she decides to dazzle him with her
lovemaking abilities and thus stall him until the police catch up with him. This
strategy leads to the story's incredible final paragraph in which Casilda and
Vidal appear to fall in love:
Durante esa inolvidable tarde ella no perdi6 de vi sta que su objetivo era ganar tiempo, pero en algun momento se abandon6, maravillada de su propia sensualidad, y sinti por ese hombre algo parec id o a Ia gratitud. Por eso, cuando oy6 el ruido lejano de Ia tropa le rog6 que huyera y se ocultara en los ce rros. Pero Ni colas Vidal prefiri envolverla en sus brazos para besarla por ultima vez, cumpliendo asf Ia profecfa que marc6 su destino. (147)
This final paragraph is predicated on a romantic hyperbole: Casilda 's sexual
gratification is so great that she forgets her revenge on Vidal and urges him to
flee, while he corresponds in kind by sacrificing his life for the privilege of a
last kiss and final few moments in her arms. Thus, Allende once again appropri-
ates the techniques of female stereotyping (Casilda becomes the woman who
is dominated by her love of a man) and compensation. Patricia Hart interprets
the ending as an example of the latter, viewing it as one of the many instances
of female forgiveness in Allende's stories, which is a way in which the chain
of senseless male violence and revenge is broken by the moral superiority of
women. According to Hart:
Magic feminism occurs in works in which real and impossible (or wildly improbable) events are juxtaposed, when this ju xtaposition is narrated matter-of- fa ctly, and when the telling of the apparently impossible ev ents leads to the understanding of larger truths that hold outside of the text. 15
u Patricia Hart, "Magi c Femini s m in Is abel Allende 's The Stories of Eva Luna," Multicultural Literatures Through Feminist/Poststructuralist Lenses. Ed. Barbara Frey Waxm an. Knoxville , Univer s ity of Te nne ss ee Press , 1993 ; p.; 105.
Revista de Estudios Hispanicos. U.P.R. Vol. XXX I , Num. I, 2004
The story's absurd and surprising conclusion is an hyperbole that fu lfills the
function of what Ra dner and Lanser ca ll the technique of distraction. According
to the authors:
We u se th e tenn dis tra ction to describe str ategies that draw ou t or draw attention away fro m the s ub vers ive powe r of a fe mini st me ssage. Usually dis trac ti on involves creating some kind of " noi se,'' in terference or obscu rity th at will keep the message from being h eard excep t by those ... who su spec t th e message is there. In literature the " no ise"... is styli stic. 16
We can think of Allende 's u se of hyperbole as a type of "d istraction" de signed
to "tone down" the feminist message. In the case of "T he Jud ge's Wife," that
me ssage is explicitly stated in the final par ag raph when the narrator te ll s us that
Casilda " did not forget for one instant throughout that memorable afternoon,
that her objective was to gain time." In other words, Ca silda is n ot e ngaging
in sexual activity for love or fun, but for se lf-pre se rvation. Her in credible
moment of forgiveness coupled with Vidal 's equally incredible self-sacrifice for
love, serve as a textual distraction from thi s me ssage. However, this exagge r-
ated denouement does not lead the reader to accept their mutual feelings, but
rather to reject them as highly impla usible. Allende co nstructs the hyperbole
as a parody of romantic st ereotypes in which women routinely fall in love with
their rapists. Allende ironically appropriates an id eo logical device of patriarchy
and uses it in an implicitly critical manner. The story's ultimate message, from
which the reader is temporarily distracted through its hyperbolic ending, is that
Casilda is stronger and smarter than the male counterpart she has outwitted and
triumphed over in the story.
Casilda 's victory over Vidal is e mpha sized by Vidal's initial underestima-
tion of Casilda's power. At the very beginning of the story we are told that Vidal
"no Ia encontr6 atractiva" and that she had "unos dedos finos, inlitiles para d ar
placer a un hombre ... Tan insignificante y remota le pareci6 Casilda que no
tom6 precauciones co n ella" ( 139). Vidal's fate is to die for a woman. It is
thus highly ironic that Ca silda turns out to be the one and ends up conquerin g
him preci se ly with the sexual prowess of which he deems h er totally lacking.
Vidal suffers from the poor jud gment me n stereotypically attr ibute to women.
Thus, the man who initially appears more intelligent and p owerful, ends up the
victim wh o will lose his life at the end of the story. Allende's ironic inversion
of traditional stereo types se rves to d eco nstruct them and to situate the r ea der
within a femini st perspective.
Another good example of iro ni c appropriation is found in the story "Una
venganza." Dulce Ro sa Orellano, the orphaned daughter of a murd ered se nator,
might also initially be seen as the weak, stereotyped female victim. Sh e is raped
by Tadeo Cespedes, her father 's political opponent. Sh e is initially portrayed as
•• Radner and Lanser, op. cit., p .; 417.
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deeds. For example, at the beginning of the story we are led to believe that she
reforms a robber who attempted to steal from her and sent her Christmas pres-
ents every year thereafter. However, we later Jearn that the robber continued to
steal, that he "no habfa enmendado el rumbo y estaba convertido en un verdadero
profesional" (43). He tells Clarisa when he visits her on her deathbed: "Me
va muy bien. Ahara me meta nada mas en las casas del barrio alto. Le robo a
los ricos y eso no es pecado. Nunca he tenido que usar violencia, yo trabajo
Jimpiarnente, como un caballero -explic6 con cierto orgullo" (43 ). The robber,
like Clarisa, subscribes to his own moral rules, not society's. Thus Clarisa's
supposed ability to heal and reform is ironically treated and contradicts the
image created of Clarisa as a flawless human being.
The ironic subversion of Clari sa as saint is not intended as a condemna-
tion of the protagonist, but rather of the society that imposes such norms and
expectations. Clarisa's logic and values prove compelling, and the contrast
between these and the appropriated female stereotyping and compensation,
serves to situate the reader within a feminist textual perspective. It is the ironic
counterpoint of hyperbolic extremes, sainthood versus marital infidelity, that
points the reader in the appropriate direction.
The description of Elena Mejfas in "Nina perversa" evokes the stereotyped
image of a silent, invisible girl:
Esos trabajos de espfa habfan acentuado Ia condici6n incorp6rea de Ia muc hacha, que se esfumaba entre las sombras de los cuartos, existfa en silencio y aparecfa de subito, como si acabara de retomar de una dimensi6n invisible. Madre e hija trabajaban juntas en las multiples ocupaciones de Ia pensi6n, cada una inmersa en su callada rutina, sin necesidad de comunicarse. (22)
However, words are not necessary here for communication because de spite the
silence, Elena's mother knows what her daughter is thinking: "pero su madre
tenia un instinto certero para detectar sus fantasias. Del rnismo modo descubrfa
si su bija le ocultaba informaci6n" (22). Elena develops a passion for a new
boarder in her mother's boarding house, Juan Jose Bernal, who becomes her
mother's lover. Elena cannot express her budding adolescent sexual feelings
through words and turns to ritual , a form of silent expression instead. Every
night, when she knows Bernal is out of his room:
Abandonaba su harnaca y salfa como un fantasma a vagar por el primer piso, juntando valor para entrar por fin sigilosa al cuarto de Bernal. Cerraba Ia puerta a su espalda y abrfa un poco Ia persiana, para que entrara el reftejo de Ia calle a alumbrar las ceremonias que habla inventado para apoderarse de los pedazos del a lma de ese hombre, que se quedaban impregnando sus objetos.... Del arrnario sacaba una carnisa y las botas de Bernal y se las ponia. Daba unos pasos por el cuarto con mucho cuidado, para no hacer ruido. Asf vestida hurgaba en sus cajones, se peinaba con su peine, chupaba su cepillo de dientes, lamia su crema de afeitar, acariciaba su ropa sucia. Despues, sin saber por que lo hacfa, se quitaba Ia carnisa, las botas y su camis6n y se tendfa sobre Ia cama de Bernal, aspirando con av idez su olor,
Iron y as Silent Subversive Strategy... Helene C. Weldt-Basson
in vocado su calor para envolver se en ~ 1. Se toca ba todo e l cuerpo ... P or fin una noche, de regre so del c uarto de Bernal donde habla cumplido sus ritos de enamorada ... Con Ia destreza a pre ndida en tantos aiios de hace rse invisible, atraves6 Ia puerta ce rrada y los vio entregados al pla ce r.... y pudo observar co n toda atenci6n para aprender de su madre los gestos que habfan logrado arrebatarle a Bernal, ges tos mas poderosos que ... sus silenciosas llamadas, que todas sus ceremonias magicas ... (26-28, my emphases)
After witnessing her mother and Bernal making love, Elena sneaks into Bernal 's
room one day while he is asleep and attempts to replace her mother. Bernal
rejects her advances, and after this episode Elena is sent off to boarding school
while Bernal and her mother marry. Ironically, after Bernal rejects Elena, he
becomes obsess ed with her: "el recuerdo de esos huesos livianos, de esa mano
infantil en su vientre, de esa lengua de hebe en su boca, fue creciendo basta
convertirse en una obsesi6n" (31 ). Years later, when Elena is grown and about
to marry, she visits her mother and stepfather. The latter, who has lived all
these years tormented by desire for her, confronts her about the episode, but
her response is an ironic and silent lack of recall of the incident:
Elena lo mir6 asombrada y no supo qu ~ co ntestar. t,De qu~ nina perversa le hablaba? Para e ll a Ia infancia habla quedado muy atnis y el dolor de ese primer arnor rec ha- zado estaba bloqueado en algun Iu gar se llado de Ia memoria. No gu ardaba ningun rec uerdo de aquel jueves remoto. (32)
Once again, Allende's story provides an ironic inversion of traditional stereo-
types through an appropriation of them. She employs the stereotype of the
female ruled by her passion for a man, only to invert it and create an obsessive
male passion that translates into an unhappy life for Bernal. Elena goes on to
lead a normal life, but much in the same way as Dulce's memory torments
Tadeo Cespedes, so does Elena's torment Bernal.
"El oro de Tomas Vargas" is also based on an ironic plot twist. In this story,
Allende not only appropriates female stereotyping and compensation, but also
relies heavily on other techniques of indirection, such as implication. The story
initially pre se nts his wife Antonia as her husband 's passive victim:
Antonia Sierra, Ia mujer de Vargas, era vei nti s~ is aiios menor que ~ 1. AI llegar a Ia c uarentena ya estaba mu y gastada, casi no le quedaban die ntes sanos en Ia bo ca y su aguerrido cuerpo de mulata se habla deforrnado por el trabajo, los partos y los abortos;
... A veces andaba co n e l cuerpo sembra do de magullones azules y aunque nadie preguntaba, toda Agua Santa sab fa de las pa lizas propinadas por su m ar ido. (54)
Antonia 's moral capacity is elevated through her generosity toward Concha
Dfaz, Varga s's pregnant concubine who ends up living with them : "Deseaba, a
pesar suyo, que el futuro de Concha Diaz no fuera tan funesto como el propio.
Ya no le tenfa rabia, sino una callada compasi6n ..." (58). Of course, Concha
is simply another of Vargas 's victims, which leads to a bonding between the
Irony as Si le nt Subversive Strategy... Helene C. Wcldt-Basson
Furth ermo re, the st ory's co nclusio n ironically inverts the roles of vic ti m and victimize r. Amad eo Peralta ends up in j a il , ju st as he had in ca rce rated H orte ns ia fo r forty-seven years. Th e to rture she s uffered in the fo rm of neg l ec t is paral- leled by the to rture Pe ralta suffers by h ear in g an overly so li cito us Ho r te nsia play he r psa ltery eve ry d ay o ut side hi s pri so n:
Encogido al otro lado de los muros, Amadeo Peralta escuchaba esc sonido que parecfa proven ir de l fonda de Ia tie rra y que le atravesaba l os ncrvios. Ese reproche cotidiano de b fa significar algo, pero no podfa recordar. A veces sc ntfa unos ramalazos de culpa, pero enseguida le fa ll aba Ia me moria y las imagenes del pasado desapa rccfan e n una niebla de nsa. No sabfa po r que estaba e n esa tu mba y poco a poco olvid6 tambien el mundo de Ia luz. aba ndonandose a Ia desd ic ha. (73)
Ho rt ensi a's inability to for ge t a bout Peralta (in the fo rm of he r mus ic) causes Pera lta to suffe r. Thi s is a deliberate inversio n of the neg lect that made Hortensia s uffer. Thu s, the female prot ago nist un wittingly triumphs ove r he r male vi ct im- ize r at the end of the stor y, def ea ting the rea de r 's ability to lend c reden ce to notions o f f em ale co llusio n and situating him or he r in a femin is t pe rsp ec - tive. Ho rtens ia is a "s il ent" prot ago nist in many ways. She is locke d away fro m the world and unable to c ommuni ca te with it for fo rty-seven years. Wh en she is finally r esc ued by he r neig hb ors we are told that "En tantos a fi os de encie rr o habfa perdido el uso de l as pala br as y Ia voz le salfa a sacudones, co mo un ronquido de moribund o" (68). The w ay in whi ch Hortensia co mmuni ca tes is through her music:
S6lo las manos mantu vieron su fo rma y tamano. ocupadas siempre en el ejercicio del salterio, aunque ya sus dedos no reco rdaban las mclodfas aprendidas y y en cambio le arrancaban al instru me nto e l llanto q ue no le salfa de l pecho. (70)
Ind eed , as we h ave see n, it is throu g h her psalte ry play in g th at H orte n sia "co mmuni ca tes" w ith the impri so ned Peralta in the end, g r at in g o n his nerves and making his in car ce ratio n unbe ar able. Th e u se of m usic ca n be seen as a form of ritua li stic a nd no nverbal co mmuni catio n. Simil ar l y, the story "Marfa Ia bo b a" pr ese nts an ironic enjoyme nt of prosti- tution by its prot ago nist, "s imple M ar fa." Marfa, like Ho rt ens ia, is n ot mentally in tac t:
Cuan do Marf a tcn fa doce a i\ os, atraves6 distra fda un cr u ce de fe rrocarril y Ia atrope 11 6 un lre n de ca rga. La resca taron e ntre los riclcs si n dai\os aparentes, tcn fa s6 lo algunos rasg uiios y hab fa perdido el so mbre ro. Sin embargo, al poco tiempo, todos pudicron co mprobar que el impacto hab fa transportado a Ia nina a un estado de inocencia de l cua l ya nun ca regresa rfa. ( 11 7- 11 8)
Marfa shares a passionate rela ti o nship w ith a d runke n Gree k sa il or who later abandons her. She inn oce ntly seeks to rep eat this ex p erience wit h a string of
Revista de Estudios Hispllnicos, U.P.R. Vol. XXXI, Num. 1, 2004
men, thus converting herself into a prostitute. Despite her mental lack and "el
mismo entusiasmo por cada encuentro con un hombre," the story "silently"
tells us that Marfa is dissatisfied with her life and wishes to die. As Jacoba
Koene notes, 17 the text implies (but never states) that Marfa commits suicide
by drinking a poisoned cup of hot chocolate:
-Ahora me lleg6 el tiempo de morir -fue su unica explicaci6n. Se recost6 en Ia cama, con Ia espalda apoyada sobre tres almohadones, con fundas almidonadas para Ia ocasi6n, y se bebi6 sin respirar una jarra grande de chocolate espeso. Las otras mujeres se rieron, pero cuando cuatro horas despu~ s no bubo manera de despertarla comprendieron que su decisi6n era absoluta y echaron a corer Ia voz por el barrio .... Aiguien sugiri6 que tal vez habfa tragado veneno con el chocolate, en cuyo caso todos serfan culpables por no haberla llevado a tiempo al hospital, pero nadie prest6 atenci6n a tales maledicencias. ( 116- 117)
Once again, the text silently negates the stereotype of enjoyable prostitution,
first by emphasizing Maria's mental incapacitation, and second, by implying
her suicide. The stereotype is appropriated and then inverted through Allende's
subtle irony.
The story ''Tosca" presents an interesting counterpart to the theme of silence
in Cuentos de Eva Luna. As we have seen, silence is frequently seen in a posi-
tive light, as a form of rebellion and communication. In "Tosca" Allende forms
a logical opposition between words and silence by characterizing the loqua-
cious protagonist, Maurizia as a vapid, selfish woman. Maurizia is married
to Ezio Longo, a strong, self-made man who loves her dearly and would do
anything for her. Together they have a son. Maurizia loves opera and music
and is dissatisfied with what she perceives as her husband's lack of culture.
She meets a medical student who loves opera on the bus one day and together
they pursue a romance that leads Maurizia to leave her family. Maurizia later
discovers that her lover is not all that she thought he was, but refuses to admit
his failings:
"empeiiada en embellecer cada instante con palabras, ante Ia imposibilidad de hacerlo de otro modo.... se impuso Ia tarea de mostrarle al mundo que ambos eran los protagonistas de un amor excepcional, ... (93)
Thirty years later Maurizia meets Ezio Longo and her son again. She wants
to approach them, speak to them and ask forgiveness for the years of neglect,
but in a rare moment of wisdom, leaves the tavern in silence:
En ese instante, cuando un solo paso m~ s le habrfa sacado de Ia zona de Ia sombra y puesto en evidencia, el joven se inclin6, aferr6 Ia muileca de su padre y le dijo algo con un guiilo simpatico. Los dos esta!Jaron en carcajadas, palmote~ndose los brazos, desorden~dose mutuamente el cabello, con una temura viril y una firme co mplicidad
'^7 Koene, op.cit., 200.
Revista de Estudios Hispanicos, U.P.R. (^) Vol. XXXI, Num. I, 2004
gies), which is the ultimate mes sage of Allende's text.
It is interesting that Allende omits the passage from A Thousand and
One Nights that explicitly states the significance of Scheherazade' s speech
and s ubsequent silence. The reader familiar with the intertext mu st fill in the
textual gaps of Cuentos de Eva Luna and hence the ultimate significance of the
epigraphs is implicitly rendered to the text 's audience, once again emphasizing the power of s ilence.
WORKS CITED
Helene C. Weldt-Basson Wayne State University Michigan
Allende, Isabel. Cuentos de Eva Luna. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes Editores, 19 89. Barrett, Michele. Women's Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analys is. London: Verso Editions, 1980. Booth, Wayne C. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19 74. Carullo, Sylvia G. "Fetichismo, magia amorosa y amor er6ti co en dos cuentos de Isabel Allende," Texto Crftico 3.4-5 ( 1997): 125- 132. Castillo, Debra. Talking Back: Toward a Latin American Feminist Literary Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Cheung, King-Kok. Articulate Silences: Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, Joy Kogawa. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. Greene, Gayle and Coppelia Kahn. "Feminist Scholarship and the Social Construction of Women." Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism. Eds. Gay le Greene and Coppelia Kahn. London: Methuen, 19 85. Hart, Patricia. "Magic Feminism in Isabel Allende's The Stories of Eva Luna ." Multi- cultural Literatures Through Feminist!Poststructuralist Lenses. Ed. Barbara Frey Waxman. Knoxville: University of Te nn essc Press, 1993. lser, Wolfgang. The Act of Readin g: A Theory of Aesth et ic Response. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 19 78. Kaminsky, Amy Katz. Reading th e Body Politic: Feminist Criticism and Latin American Women Writers. Minneapo li s: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Koene, Jacoba. "Metaphors of Margi na li zation and Silencing of Women in Eva Luna and Cuentos de Eva Luna." Diss., University of Toronto, 1997. Mills, Sara. Feminist Stylistics. London: Ro utledge, 1995. Radner, Joan and Susan Lanser. "T he Feminist Voice: Coding in Women 's Folklore and Literature." Journal of American Folklore I 00 ( 1987): 412-456.
Stout, Janis. Strategies of Reticence: Silence and Meaning in the Works of Jane Austen, Willa Cather, K atherine Anne Porter, and Joan Didion. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990.
