Aura - actual or abstract?

In class we discussed how different interpretations of the novel drastically affect the reader’s experience while reading Aura. We debated whether or not Aura was an actual person, the niece of Señora Consuelo, or whether she was simply an idea of the aura of youthfulness the Señora desired. While reading the novel I first suspected Aura was actually a separate being from Consuelo and supernatural elements allowed the Señora to feed off of the youth of her niece. After closer examination, however, I now suspect that Aura is simply the youthfulness Consuelo craves and the two characters, Aura and Consuelo, are simply two personalities of the same person.

Multiple times in the text, Fuentes describes peculiar and miniscule occurrences that I could not help but wonder why he included these. After finishing the novel, however, I realize that these tiny inclusions are actually extremely important clues. On page 33 Fuentes writes, “You look at yourself in the large oval mirror...and when your breath hides your face again you’re repeating her name: ‘Aura’.” The reader may assume that Felipe is simply daydreaming about the beautiful niece, or we may realize that the aura of youthfulness is obstructing Felipe from realizing what is happening around him. Also, towards the end of the novel Aura ages drastically and Felipe sees that her beauty is fading. Then when Felipe goes to bed with Aura, he wakes up with Consuelo. Aura originally had told Felipe that Consuelo was ‘out’ for the day, but in reality Aura (or rather the aura of youthfulness) is leaving while Consuelo remains.

By assuming Aura and Consuelo are one in the same, we may also guess that perhaps so are Felipe and the General. On page 25 Consuelo says, “I told you she’d come back”, as if she had told Felipe multiple times that her aura of youthfulness would indeed return again and again. At this point in the novel, however, Consuelo had not yet told Felipe about Aura, but rather this is his first introduction to her. By collapsing time, and ‘generations’, on top of each other Fuentes blurs the reader’s perception of reality and the reader is forced to question if there are separate generations (Aura v Consuelo, Felipe v the General) existing. I viewed this collapse of time as signifying, rather, that memories are being tampered with and each of the two separate personalities are simply one in the same (Aura = Consuelo, Felipe = General). This is also supported when Felipe knows that the doors are not locked and his belongings are already in the room, and the ‘butler’ who fetched them is never seen.