Ambivalent Desires by Andrade María Mercedes;

Author:Andrade, María Mercedes;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1767215
Publisher: Bucknell University Press

Such humor, however, disappears as the young woman becomes more physically and psychologically constrained by the boundaries a patriarchal world. One night, Marcela finds her mother and uncle José engaged in a serious conversation. “Marcela pudo oir que el tío José trataba de convencer a su hermana de que debía confiarle formalmente la guarda y educación de Marta y Marcela” (48) (Marcela was able to hear that uncle José was trying to convince his sister to entrust him entirely with the custody and education of Marta and Marcela). Doña María, Marcela’s mother, responds to the proposal with a smile, telling her brother that, knowing his fondness for intra-family love affairs, a comment on the plot of María, she can see that he is really trying to marry the girls to his own sons. Although his attempt at deciding the girls’ future seems to fail, the uncle maintains a watchful eye over the family and appears as a surrogate father with the power to decide whom the girls can marry. He also instructs his sister regarding their education, the need to “iniciar a las muchachas en la vida de sociedad” (49) (initiate the girls in society life), and the protocol pertaining to the custom of receiving visits from suitors—guidelines that Doña María obediently follows.

Mallarino Isaacs does not reject this instance of patriarchal authority and Marcela’s subordination to it. Instead, the childhood home appears in the novel as an idyllic, peaceful space that will stand in stark contrast with the character’s homes as an adult, married woman. The author does not address how the seeds of the character’s unhappiness are planted precisely there, where she gradually learns the meekness and docility that identify her as a good daughter but which ultimately make her a frustrated and unhappy adult. At home she learns certain notions of propriety and privacy that will later lead her to hide from others the dissatisfaction that she experiences in her married life, and to endure her misfortunes silently, progressively turning into an isolated individual. In contrast with the homes of her adulthood, the image of the family home that appears in Las memorias de Marcela serves as a good example of the model promulgated toward the second half of the nineteenth century in Colombia, a “new familial model” that, availing itself of a romantic sensibility, manages to “‘privatize’ the space of the home; obtain greater control over female sexuality; relegate women more and more to the home. . . . All of this supported by the image of the ‘home, sweet home’.”22

Marcela gradually loses any ability to speak for herself until, as a rule, it is not she but rather the men of the household who must be addressed when her future is at stake. Consequently, although Marcela has always been infatuated with Mariano, it becomes clear that her future will take a different direction when Mr. Davis, a businessman from the United States, visits their house: “la primera vez que vió a Marcela . . . , Mr.

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