Week 7 - Merce Rodoreda "The time of the doves"
This week, I chose to read The time of the Doves by Merce Rodoreda.
I pity and feel bad for Natalia. However, I also believe she kind of deserved what had happened to her. Since she is the one that made the decision of breaking her engagement with her fiance, Pere, to be with Quitmet. This may be due to the lack of advice she had received since her mother had passed away for a long time and her dad is remarried. She is alone.
Quitmet is a controlling and abusive man. He ordered Natalia around a lot and also seemed to have gaslighted her by saying he saw her on the street with Pere when she wasn't with him. He demanded an explanation, apology and called “all women were crazy and they weren’t a nickel” (p32) when Natalia was just trying to explain herself. Quitmen is not caring and doesn't seem to respect Natalia. When Natalia was pregnant and tried to sleep, he would do anything to wake her up. After the birth of their son, Quitmet was annoyed at how he needed to make a new bedpost because Natalia broke it while giving birth.
“...when my father remarried a few years later there was nothing left for me to hold onto” (p28). Despite knowing Quitmet did not treat her well, she is still with him. I believe it may be due to the fact that she is able to find a sense of belongingness and someone to hold onto when she is with Quitmet. The pros are greater than the cons for her.
After receiving the message from the militiaman that “Quitmen and Cinet had died like men’ (p137), Natalia didn't want to think Quitmen had died and wanted things to go back to how it always had been. This made me wonder if it's because she couldn't get over the death of her husband or she is afraid of the ideas on ‘things changing’.
One of the biggest twists for me was the name Maria. Quitmet mentioned Maria many times to the point where Natalia began to take it seriously and thought about her in many situations. She would think Maria could clean the dishes better when she's washing the dishes, etc (p46). It also made me wonder who this mysterious Maria is. However, it turns out that “Quitmen had never known a girl named Maria. Never” (p121).
Which leads to my questions for the class: Do you think think ‘Maria’ represents/symbolizes anything? Is there a reason why Quitmen kept mentioning ‘Maria’?
Hi Celine! I really like the question that you raise about “Maria” - and what this non-person symbolizes (and, we can add, the way that Natalia internalizes the idea of her as a sort of foil for her own self and perceived shortcomings). If we have a discussion on symbols and metaphors in class, I encourage you to bring this one up!
ReplyDeleteHey Celine,
ReplyDeleteI 100% agree with you that Quimet is disrespectful. I wonder if that is the result of his upbringing (parents did not teach him right), or the idea that most men in this setting behaved similarly. The name Maria to me (and this may be quite a shallow answer) was simply Quimet's attempt at making Natalia feel jealous. I thought maybe he was trying to bring her down by making her jealous because he was down from jealousy. That is, because he is unhappy, he feels the world revolves around him so others must also feel unhappy. Could it be that Maria was Natalia? That every time Quimet said "poor Maria" he was saying "poor Natalia". This could also reflect the fact that he refuses to call Natalia by her name and is disrespecting her by not acknowledging her by name. Thank you for posting this!