I'm Trapped

            In Aura, Fuentes explores the ideas of freedom and being trapped. At first, it seemed strange that Felipe takes the job, as it requires him to give up his personal freedom and live in that shady house with a crazy old lady. We learn, however, that he does this because he needs to save up money for his “future creative liberty” (67). Felipe chooses to give up his freedom now in order to have some in the future, which he, toward the beginning, is quite hopeful and optimistic about as he already gets a head start on his own writing. As the novella progresses, we find out that this is futile since the house becomes “a prison cell” that traps him (141). Fuentes describes the moon which “tries to free itself” from the clouds and “escapes for only a moment” before slipping back behind the clouds (140). This parallels Felipe’s own inability to escape, as he even had a moment of hope early on, just to find out he’s trapped. All of his hope he once had for his freedom in future is gone. Fuentes enforces the feeling of captivity by trapping the reader in the story through the second person narration. Felipe has promised to love Aura forever, a decision that will tie him to her eternally, even after her death. He is stuck in Aura and Consuelo’s perpetual cycle of aging and youth. I feel that there is a greater significance to Felipe’s entrapment here, although I can’t quite put my finger on it. If I can sort out what the house and what Aura represent, I can dig deeper into the idea. I think that the ideas of time, beauty, and love can tie into it somehow, and I’m hoping that our discussion in class tomorrow will help clarify things. All I know is that Fuentes definitely created a suffocating environment that traps both the reader and Fuentes and eliminates any hope of personal freedom.