"It takes a very long time to become young" - Pablo Picasso

While reading Aura, my perceptions and understandings of the characters shifted dramatically. One character that remained consistently appealing was “Aura” with her ambiguous identity and mysterious purpose. Up until the middle or end of the fifth chapter, I often tended to compare Aura and Consuelo’s relationship to that of Friday and Cruso, and possibly Susan. In Aura, Consuelo is presented as the head of the house who holds all power over everyone and everything that lives and takes place under her roof. She treats Aura as her servant, and Aura, although not silenced completely, does not have her own unique identity. On page 71, the narrator says “you ask yourself if the Senora doesn’t have some secret power over her niece; if the girl(…) isn’t kept in this dark old house against her will. This reminded me of Friday in the sense that our only understanding of Friday is through what we are told by Susan about how he was treated by Cruso and the experiences that they had. We don’t know how he got to the island, whether he wanted to be there, whether he wanted to follow Susan etc.

Towards the end of the book when the characters start to mesh and I became uncertain of whether Aura and Consuelo were the same person and whether Felipe and the General were the same person, I became more skeptical regarding Aura’s character. After the discussion in class today; however, I again can compare Friday to Aura. We discussed the idea that silence and truth are analogous and that this is only present within the novel because of Friday’s inability to communicate. Similarly, we discussed today that youth is preserved in this novel through Aura’s youthful characteristics. Going further with this, I can make a connection between Felipe and Susan. One possibility that we suggested was that Friday was simply a construct of Susan simply for the purpose of story telling. Today in class we considered the possibility that Aura can only exist if Felipe is brought in to write about Aura and that Consuelo’s youth is gained through Aura. Take away Friday and all truth is lost, take away Aura and all youth is lost  - Consuelo is lost.

The youth that Aura provides is demonstrated not only through her obvious age difference, but is also portrayed through the descriptions that we are give. Her “beautiful green eyes”(27), when “(she) is dressed in green”(37), the “green taffeta”(121), “green veil” and all other constant green imagery represents the new life that we lack in Consuelo. This all seems to be created by Felipe, as he creates his ‘dream girl’ who he promises to love forever.

The only source of Consuelo’s youth is Aura. However, in the book, we are told that Aura is only around for three days and then Consuelo must find a new way to create her youth. With the ad, she draws Felipe in to complete her husband’s memoirs. This concept in itself either suggests that Felipe knows the story of her husband and can accurately present it, or that Felipe is a stranger hired solely for the purpose of establishing Consuelo’s youth, and is shaped to construct inaccurate memoirs based on Consuelo’s desires.