The Dualism in Luz Villaverde’s View of Her Family in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban

In Cristina Gracía’s novel Dreaming in Cuban, the theme of family relationships has an important place. This theme is treated in different ways according to which character the narration is focusing on. This essay focuses on the passage that begins on page 120 from “After Mamá set him on fire |…|” and ends on page 121 till “|…|wants to hear”. It deals with Luz Villaverde’s point of view. She uses a language to describe her family that shows how her point of view is tainted with dualism. Dualism is a central term to understand Luz’s view of her family. In the Oxford English Dictionary, dualism is defined as “the doctrine that there are two independent principles, one good and the other evil”. According to this definition, there are two different sides in life: the good and the evil. This concept can be applied on Luz’s view of her family. Luz sees only the good in her father and the bad in her mother. Those views oppose themselves to each other and show the contrast from Luz’s point of view.

            Luz’s view of her family is separated in two parts: the good and the bad. Each part is linked to some family members. The language she uses when describing her family shows that her sister belongs to the good part. She uses a metaphor to describe the strong link she has with her sister: “We’re a double helix, tight and impervious” (120, García). The double helix is a scientific term that is used to describe the shape of the DNA (Oxford English Dictionary). Luz’s use of this expression has a double meaning. In fact, there is the aspect of DNA because her sister and her are twins. There is also the image of the DNA being two sides tight close together as Luz and Milagro are. They are “tight and impervious” because, like the DNA, they cannot be separated from each other. After that Luz says that their mother “can’t penetrate [them]” (120). This metaphor expresses the fact that the two sisters are so close to each other that nothing, not even their mother, can tear them apart. For Luz, Milagro is linked to the good part of her family. In the passage, there are no terms that describe Milagro being in any way a bad person. How Luz describes her sister shows the dualism in her view of her family.

            As with Milagro, Luz sees her father in a good way. The dualism can also be seen in the descriptions of her father. She considers him as the person who would save her and her sister from their mother: “I fantasized about how he’d come back to take Milagro and me away from Mamá and her coconuts” (120). She also “imagined riding on the backs of those cranes, flying to wherever he was” (120), a trope that shows how much she wants to be with him rather than with Felicia. She finds excuses for her father even if what he did was flawed: “It didn’t matter that we were too young to wear [the scarves], only that he thought we could” (120). Hugo is not close enough to them to know what they can wear or not, but, because of her positive view of her father, she does not notice this. She idealises her father because she does not know all the bad things he did to her mother. She has a biased point of view.

           The only thing that the twin sisters know is that their mother “set [their father] on fire” (120) and they resent her for this. This action is the point for Luz’s biased perception of her mother. Everything that their mother says to them are “pretty words” and “meaningless words that didn’t nourish us, that didn’t comfort us, that kept us prisoners in her alphabet world” (121). She uses the metaphor “prisoners” to express the sentiment of being stuck with her mother. This metaphor is also hyperbolic because Luz and her sister are not in a prison neither are they treated as prisoners. The sentiment of being prisoners emphasises the desire of wanting to fly “to wherever [her father] is” (120). The metaphor of the “alphabet world” emphasises the idea of “meaningless words” that her mother uses. She is stuck in a world that is made only of words that do not have a meaning for her. The word “alphabet” emphasises it because the alphabet only contains the letters and therefore the primary meaning of words. The letters alone do not have a broader meaning. When letters are put together to form a word, then this word may have multiple meanings. If one reads the word and understand it only for its primary meaning, then the broader meaning is lost. Luz does not understand her mother because Luz understands only this primary meaning of the words. Felicia is using figurative language that her daughter does not understand.

          The language Luz uses to describe her mother is so mean that she and her sister created a metaphor to name their mother: “not-Mamá” (121). This metaphor translates her resentment against her mother. Luz does not consider her mother as being a “mamá”. “Mother” is linked to the biological aspect which is giving birth whereas as “mamá” is linked to the emotional aspect. “Mamà” is the Spanish word for “mom” which is more affective. This emphasises the wickedness of the term “not-Mamá” because, by calling her mother this way, Luz shows Felicia that she is not acting like a mom should act.

         In the passage, through the oral language of Luz Villaverde, the dualism is present and opposes her family members. On the one hand, there is the good embodied by her sister and her father. On the other hand, there is the bad embodied by her mother. She has a fourteen-year-old point of view and hers shows dualism. It is also biased and does not represent the whole picture of the actual situation in her family. The reader knows that the father made mistakes as well as the mother because of the different characters’ point of views. But if the story was written in a unique point of view, the reader would not have this knowledge about the real situation. The dualism in Luz’s point of view is only noticeable because of the structure of the novel. 

References:

• García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1992.
• Oxford English Dictionary:
  • Dualism: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/58113?redirectedFrom=dualism
  • Double helix: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/57004?redirectedFrom=double+helix

Identity issues, broken families, generational gap and political conflicts are at the centre of Garcia’s novel Dreaming in Cuban. In this novel, Cristina Garcia explores the consequences of the Cuban Revolution that took place between 1953 and 1959. The aftermath of the revolution is explored through many characters and Pilar Puente is one of these. This passage (GARCIA 25, 26; ‘I’m trying on […] sing quietly in my ear’) is the first time the reader encounters Pilar and already, Pilar’s ambivalence towards her surrounding is set. In fact, her need to escape her lifestyle in the U.S.A. in hope to find a better life in Cuba is emphasized in the passage. By means of contrasted narrative tone and contrasted lexical fields, this passage confronts the reader to the resent Pilar feels towards her life in America and the comfort she hopes to find in Cuba. It sets Pilar as an ambivalent character.

Pilar is an ambivalent character and this ambivalence is reflected with the depiction of her situation. This passage is narrated from her point of view. The narrative tone is critical and ironic and allows the reader to sympathize with her point of view. As soon as she sees her father with another woman, she criticizes their behaviour and attitude: ‘like a 1950s beauty queen gone to seed’; ‘[They are] pretending to window-shop […] [in] outdated stores with merchandise that’s been there since the Bay of Pigs’ (25). Pilar’s critique towards the relationship of her father with the woman highlights the fact that she hates the situation. Furthermore, Pilar is also critical of her current situation in America. Describing the work at the ‘bakery’ as slavery (25). Not only critical, her tone is also ironic. Describing the situation in an ironic tone allows the reader to sympathize with her point of view. “The beauty queen leans into him outside a stereo place that’s blasting, incredibly, “Stop in the Name of Love.” (25) Pilar wants the situation to stop and, ironically, a music named Stop in the Name of Love is ‘blasting’. Also, when talking about the woman, Pilar uses a lot of figurative language. Comparing the woman to a ‘beauty queen gone to seed’, ‘as if she’s been walking in those heels since birth’ (25). The ironic tone used to describe the situation has a humorous effect and helps the reader sympathize with the Pilar’s position. Pilar’s tone reflects her point of view on her situation in America. She is critical and takes distance from the situation, allowing her to be ironic at times.

On the other hand, when talking about Cuba and how she envisions it, Pilar’s tone shifts; thus emphasizing the contrast between her point of view of America and Cuba. She is imagining how her life would be: ‘I imagine Abuela Celia’s surprise’; ‘she’ll smell of salt and violet water’; ‘She’ll stroke my cheek with her cool hands, sing quietly in my ear’ (26). The tone here is calm and peaceful. It highlights the vision Pilar has of Cuba, a tranquil place where her grandmother can comfort her. Her resent towards her American life is conveyed critically and with irony. And when imagining her life in Cuba, the tone shifts to more peaceful one. The contrast between the two narrative tones emphasizes Pilar’s ambivalence.

Furthermore, Pilar’s ambivalence is emphasized again with a contrast in lexical fields. When describing the relationship between her father and the woman, everything they do lead to disgust. The queen is ‘gone to seed’, she has a ‘flicking, disgusting […] flycatcher tongue’ and it makes Pilar ‘sick to her stomach’ (25). The use of this lexical field allows the reader to visualize the resentment Pilar is feeling. The lexical field of disgust also comes to highlight the negativity of the situation. Moreover, Pilar describes her father and the woman with their physical attributes which reinforces the negative point of view of Pilar. This lexical field of appearances can particularly be seen when Pilar is describing the woman: ‘[She] is huge and blond […] has a cloud of bleached hair and high-muscled calves’; ‘They walk down Fulton Street arm in arm, pretending to […]’; ‘my father holds her waxy, bloated face’ (25). But also when describing her father: ‘[He] looks like a kid, laughing and animated’ (25). Pilar does not like what she sees and the combination of the two lexical fields highlights this fact. It is the reason she is ‘fed up with everything around here’ (25) and is a real turning point in her relation with her father as it will be seen later in the novel (138).

By contrast, the lexical fields used when imagining her life in Cuba is not as negative as the latter one. The lexical field of movement, which can be interpreted as a metaphor for freedom, gives a more positive point of view: ‘one-way bus ticket to Miami’; ‘if I can just get there, I’ll be able to make my way to Cuba’; ‘rent a boat or get a fisherman to take me’; ‘as I sneak up […]’ (25-26). Even the act of sitting is not idle: ‘She’ll be sitting in her wicker swing’ (26). Furthermore, the lexical field of the five senses is associated with Cuba: ‘overlooking’; ‘she’ll smell of salt and violet water’; ‘She’ll stroke my cheek with her cool hands, sing quietly in my ear’ (26). The combination of the two lexical fields emphasize the positive point of view Pilar has of Cuba. A place where her sense can be free.

All in all, this passage creates a clear contrast between the different point of view Pilar has of America and Cuba. Each geographical region is associated with different lexical fields and narrative tones. This contrast highlights Pilar as an ambivalent character and, as it will be seen later in the novel, this passage is a clear turning point in her life (138).

Narrative Techniques and Language in Pilar’s Excerpt:
How They Create a Sense of Oral Tradition

Cristina’s Garcia’s novel Dreaming in Cuban portrays the stories of a Cuban family members and the relationships between each other. Family is one of the main themes of the novel and getting to know a story from different perspectives has a significant role in Garcia’s book. The plot focuses on the three generations and uses drifting narration throughout the chapters, which are divided in parts describing a certain character. The stories of the older characters are portrayed in the third person narration , where the youngsters’ excerpts are written in first (the only exception is the one section narrated by Herminia – a non family member and an adult). Pilar Puente is the oldest of the grandchildren and her excerpts are the most prominent from the young generation. The use of first-person narration, present tense and uncomplicated colloquial language in Pilar’s segments create a sense of orality. Through the use of these elements, the text addresses directly to the reader, as if the young character was telling her story and thoughts to a friend. I will focus on analysing a passage from the chapter Going South in which Pilar is in a bus on her runaway to Cuba, staring through the window and reflecting about her parents.

While sitting in the bus, Pilar notices the neon signs outside the road have missing letters which gives them a completely different and more humoristic meaning: “hell”(!!) instead of Shell and “cock—s”(!!) instead of cocktails. That takes her, against her struggle not to, to speak about the image of her dad cheating: “No matter how hard I try, though, I keep seeing the bloated face of that aging beauty queen bouncing off the lights into my father’s outstretched hands”(31). Disapprovingly describing her dad’s lover as an old lady along with giving her “beauty queen” epithet implies that Pilar is very upset and annoyed by witnessing the love affair. Pilar seems to have an internal conflict, she bears a grudge against her father, does not want to talk nor think about him but at the same time tries to defend him by saying her parents barely see each other and that he appears troubled. What is interesting, to express this concern, the female narrator uses a grammatically incorrect phrase. Instead of stating he looks really worried, she says the man “looks real worried”(31) – uses the noun in place where should an adverb. This expression is unusual for writing it down but is commonly used in everyday spoken language. Other words that appear and are considered colloquial “weird”(31), “damn”(31),  “down-to-outs”(31) contribute to making the text seem more passed orally, as they are more common to say than to being written down. Later Pilar proceeds talking about how Lourdes, the mother, taking care of her bakery by using more humoristic language. The teenager criticizes her mother for employing non-English speaking people to just “get them cheap”(32) and then for inspecting their personal belongings to ensure they have not stole anything. Pilar does not believe her mother having anything valuable, so asks rhetorical questions with funny suggestions what could have they taken: “Like what they are going to steal? A butter cookie? A French bread?”(32). As much as these questions are to entertain the reader it easily can be to friend who is listening to Pilar telling a story. She finishes her dismissal by suggesting her mother is not a good person to receive the chance of the American dream from and suggests the foreign employees to look for it elsewhere: “Hell, if she’s the welcome wagon, they’d better hitch a ride with someone else”(32). The interjection “hell” at the opening of this quote emphasizes the character’s irritation and also together with other interjections Pilar uses such as “though” and “too”, it resembles oral tradition.

Pilar is the first-person narrator: the text is written from her point of view (“I’m too tired…”(31)). She also states personal expressions, such as, “I swear it”(31), “I guess”(31), which are more familiar to be used in conversation to support what is told than to be written down. These phrases together with the first-person narration give the impression that Pilar is addressing her thoughts to someone. Furthermore, indirect speech is barely used to illustrate conversations. For instance, when an incident at the bakery is recalled, instead of inserting dialogue with direct quotes, the narrator describes the talk in just one sentence: “She told me to check someone’s purse once and I said no fucking way”(32). Pilar, as the narrator, does not mention the name of the employee or exactly in what words did her mom ask her to check the personal belongings, which is natural. This makes the passage seem to be delivered verbally by using her own words rather than to be a text. Another interesting fact about the narration is that it is mostly written in the present tense – the sentence quoted above is one of the few, which are distinguished from this observation  throughout the whole Pilar’s subsection. Therefore, past tense is only occasionally applied for the reminded events that happened before. The technique to use mostly present tense creates an impression that Pilar describes right at the moment like in conversation telling story and what is on her mind.

To conclude, the usage of everyday language through rhetorical questions, injections, colloquial phrases and first-person narration along with indirect speech, being written in present tense gives the text sense of orality. While reading, the rhetorical questions and personal expressions make the passage seem directly addressed to the reader and the character’s thoughts told like to recipient of the book. Narration being first-person along with indirect speech and almost the whole text being written in present tense make the impression of the passage being told by Pilar at the exact moment as a story to the reader.

Dawn of Madness

Close reading of page 75 and the 1^st paragraph of page 76 of Christina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban

In Christina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, the reader discovers Felicia Del Pino as a crazy character by plunging in her thoughts. Throughout the passage, the third-person narrator does a character focalization on Felicia by setting out the situation she endures. Her hallucinations allow her to observe and listen things very distinctly. Despite her craziness, she demonstrates a clarity in her words regarding what she sees, hears and thinks. The essay will focus on page 75 from “Felicia del Pino doesn’t know” to “It is worse when she closes her eyes” in page 76. It will enable to discover her overdeveloped senses and her tangle of thoughts. Throughout the narrative voice’s expressions, figures of speech and lexical fields, the depiction of Felicia allows the readers to make an image of this woman’s deep imagination. In the description of Felicia in the beginning of the passage, the sudden increase of her sensorial abilities, as well as her thoughts makes the reader feeling small next to Felicia’s competence.

The intensification of sounds within Felicia’s head influences her sensitiveness to noises and damages her mind. Felicia does not know what happened to her, she “doesn’t know what brings on her delusions” (75). Her confusing situation gives to the “delusions” (75) a negative connotation. Theses hallucinations prompted an apparition of sounds that have a harmful effect to Felicia’s health. The multiplication of sounds is driving her crazy as perceived by the narrative voice saying that “they call to her all at once, grasping for parts of her” (75). Here again, the verb “grasp” (75) has also a negative connotation because it has a weigh on her brain. Each time the third-person narrator specifies that she hears another sound, it emphasizes the din and reinforces the mess in her head. When the narrator underlines that Felicia “can hear everything in this world and others, every sneeze and creak and breath in the heavens or the harbour or the gardenia tree down the block” (75) she mentions several noises from different places. The adverb “everything” (75) exaggerates the turn of this declaration and outlines this sentence as a hyperbole. Besides, small noises like a “sneeze” (75), a “creak” (75) and a “breath” (75) join the same lexical field of sounds and expose the extent of her craziness. Seeing that she hears them in “heavens” (75) and in the “harbour” (75) confirms that she is insane. The term “heavens” (75) symbolizes her mental state because she constantly seems to be in her own world.  Felicia gives the sensation that she is feeling oppressed by all the information coming to her mind.

Felicia’s sight is another sense that makes her feel both lucid and crazy. Her perception of the colours creates a poetic turn to the narrator’s declaration. The assonance “even the greens, her favourite shades of greens, flee the trees and assault her with luminosity” (75) seeks to make poetic this form of sentence. On the other hand, within this assonance, the metaphor “flee the trees” (75) displays the kind of images that are built in her head. It is meant to plunge Felicia in a madness by creating a character who sees weird things. Thereby, Felicia’s own representation of the colours has both a poetic and a crazy aspect in the extended metaphor from “the colours, too, escape their objects” (75) to “assault her with luminosity” (75). Another element that makes her an insane character is her objectification of the human being. Indeed, when Felicia looks outside “the people are paintings, outlined in black, their faced crushed and squarish” (75). She dehumanizes people because something is real only if she can touch it that is why the narrator says that “nothing is solid until she touches it” (75). This metaphor is used to say that Felicia only believes what is real, what she can touch.

Felicia’s thoughts are, at the same time, fragmented by her reason and her hallucinations. A metaphor is used to depict what is happening within Felicia’s head by saying that her “mind floods with thoughts” (76). Thereby, it creates an imagery to explain with water how full is her mind. She is in some way drowning herself in her thoughts, they are too numerous, especially because they are from “the past” (76), “the future” (76) and from “other people” (76). Besides, telling that Felicia’s mind is full of thoughts “from the past, from the future, other people’s thoughts” (76) is perceived as a hyperbole because it is exaggerated to say that she reached to know other people thoughts. She does not have any power to do that and in this example, her delusions took over her reason. Moreover, there is a second hyperbole in the same paragraph to describe Felicia’s tangle of thoughts since the narrative voice declares that “every idea seems to her connected to thousands of others” (76). Felicia overestimates her cognitive competence saying that “thousands” (76) of ideas seem connected to hers. The third-person narrator mentions a comparison that symbolizes her mental state, by saying “she jumps from one to another like a nervous circus horse” (76) speaking about her ideas. The adjective “nervous” (76) is used to compare Felicia’s state to a “nervous circus horse” (76). Therefore, this adjective takes a negative connotation which illustrates the damage that causes her hallucinations. However, some thoughts are real and the narrator did not forget to mention that. When it is related that “Things come back as symbol, bits of conversation, a snatch of an old church hymn” (76) it is an allusion to the time when Felicia used to go to church with her sister and her father. Besides, in the next paragraph Felicia mentions these memories, so it shows that there is still a part of lucidity in her thoughts that makes her struggle against her delusions.

Through a variety of figures of speech, this passage presents Felicia, a character who is flooded by her delusions but also lucid in her description of thoughts. The strong presence of technical features in this passage makes fascinating the reading of this book. The narrator’s monologue provides a distinct way to understand and imagine how messy are Felicia’s thoughts. Indeed, the reader discovers someone who is trapped by her two senses, that is the sight, the hearing as well as her thoughts.

In any literary text, the form is a central element and is usually linked to the content. For Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, it is definitely the case. In this book, form is a tool used to give each character a specific way to express him- or herself, therefore making them unique and more realistic. In the passage chosen for this essay, pages 120-121 (“Luckily, Milagro and I […] it’s okay with me”), Luz Villaverde has her own voice and it helps define who she is, using both figures of speech such as metaphors, allusions and similes, and narrative elements. Here I will analyze these different elements and show how closely form is linked to meaning.

This passage is told from the point of view of Luz Villaverde, a young teenager. She speaks using a lot of imagery (particularly metaphors), which accentuates her youth – whereas an adult, might use more logical, objective terms and be more rational in his description. Luz is a very imaginative girl and her thoughts are filled with images; the visual elements are an important part of the way she thinks.In this passage, Luz uses multiple metaphors, for example to describe herself and her siblings: “[Milagro and I] are a double helix, tight and impervious” (p.120); “[Ivanito] is her gullible rag doll” (p.121). In the first quote, she describes the bond she shares with her twin sister, and the metaphor helps create a vivid image in the reader’s mind. In the second quote, Luz refers to Ivanito’s relationship to Felicia, clearly criticizing her little brother even though he is very young – this emphasizes the fact that she is a child herself and thinks her brother is to blame for obeying their mother, showing a biased narration.The allusion in this passage (“the summer of coconuts”, p.121) shows again that Luz is very young and uses a lot of imagery when expressing herself. It is told casually, as if it were a normal way to refer to a period of their lives. The reader knows what she is referring to as the allusion has been used before in the book, but Luz feels no need to explain it. This is a characteristic of children’s speech; they use their own terms and do not think that they may not be clear to other people.

Another example of Luz’s imagination is the simile on page 121: “[…] she looks right past us as if she could see another pair of girls just behind us.” The young girl gets into her mother’s head and tries to imagine what she sees, showing again her imaginative personality.

Many elements of the narration also contribute to building the Luz’s character. She talks and expresses her feelings very dramatically, meaning that she almost exaggerates the gravity of what she is talking about in order to have more effect on her interlocutor. To create this effect, she uses mostly parallelism; for example, “Pretty words. Meaningless words […]” (p.121); “he never saw what we saw, he never heard what we heard” (p.121); “[…] Milagro and I have a pact to ignore Mamá, to stay as far away from her as possible” (p.121). These constructions are more likely to affect the reader’s emotions about Luz’s story, making it seem more serious than it might have been (however, we cannot make this affirmation with certainty as we are dealing with a biased narrator). Similarly, Luz uses repetitions, such as: “We try to protect him but he doesn’t want to be protected” (p.121), and “They got married and had children while they were still children themselves” (p.121). These repetitions are surprising coming from a young girl; they make her sound very mature for her age (we will come back on this later). In the last example, the emphasis put on the word children is even greater with the word themselves adding on to it.

Two more narrative elements contribute to building Luz’s character for the reader. The first one is the fact that she and Milagro call their mother not-Mamá (p.121). This shows a very strong character for such a young girl – usually when children are mad at one of their parents it lasts only a short moment, and they do not go as far as Luz and Milagro do. It shows that she is a strong, intransigent person, almost unforgiving – although the reader does not blame her for it as Felicia’s inconstant behavior as a mother has already been shown multiple times, and we can imagine the impact this can have on her children. The second element is the way she expresses herself in the last paragraph of the passage. This paragraph shows Luz’s intelligence and her maturity. She says that she realizes how lucky she is to be offered an education:

“We’re studying hard so when we grow up we can get good jobs and go wherever we please. Abuela Celia tells us that before the revolution smart girls like us usually didn’t go to college. They got married and had children while they were still children themselves. I’m glad we don’t have to worry about that.” (p.121)

This shows real maturity and intelligence coming from a young girl, as well as political consciousness – she knows that it is easier for her than it used to be for other girls and she wants to take advantage of it and enjoy this chance.

The last paragraph also shows Luz’s – and, indirectly, Milagro’s – intelligence through her choice of words. In a few occurrences, she uses an entire word instead of using the common abbreviation for it – veterinarian and not vet; rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses and not rhinos and hippos. She also states that her twin sister plans to be a “mycologist specializing in tropical funghi” (p.121), a very unusual dream for a child.

These figures of speech and narrative elements allow the reader to learn a lot more about Luz than he or she might initially think. Luz used to be just a child, a part of Felicia’s life and background, and she is starting to step forward as an important character in the novel. She is a very surprising character because of her imagination and her intelligence. Her personality is getting more complex to the reader’s eyes, making her seem like an important part of the story just like Celia, Lourdes and Pilar have been since the beginning of the novel. Luz’s character is now evolving from secondary to primary and, simultaneously, from flat to round.