Aura, in a word, was spooky. The darkness, the rats, the secret trunk…all
of these aspects of the novella created such an unnerving mood. For me, the way time is portrayed throughout
the story made it even more unsettling. The
use of second person present tense creates a strong connection between the
reader and Felipe, making us feel as though we are in the house with him, in
the present. But as we continue,
particularly when we begin to read the General’s manuscripts, it becomes evident
that time is not a simple notion in Consuelo’s house.
As Fuentes
drew connections between the past, present, and the future with the discovery
of the photographs and Aura’s miraculously fast aging, I began to feel anxious,
like I was trapped in the house and needed to get out quickly, before I learned
too much. But when Felipe realizes that
the he is in fact the General, I came to the conclusion that there was no hope
of escaping. Aura’s life is a bizarre cycle
in which Felipe is forever intertwined: old Sra. Consuelo becoming young Aura, finds
the general and makes him fall in love, then quickly ages again. When he realizes this, time becomes
irrelevant: “You don’t look at your watch again, that useless object tediously
measuring time in accordance with human vanity, those little hands marking out
the long hours that were invented to disguise the real passage of time” (139). This “real” time that Felipe alludes to is magically
realistic and impossible to explain, as it brings the past and present together
into one. To Felipe, this seems more
real than anything a clock could measure, though, making us believe that the
magic of this house is more real than the tangible. For me, entrapment by time is far more
frightening than any sort of physical confinement, and the way that Fuentes
used time truly enhanced the spooky mood of the whole novella.
I too felt suspended in time. But I didn't feel the sense of fright you experienced in your suspension. I felt intrigued by this freedom, excited to explore while free of the ties of time.
ReplyDeleteAlso following your thoughts, when Felipe first read Senora Consuelo's newspaper article he immediately became a victim of time. He gives up all control. It's almost as if all his consequent thoughts and actions have been previously determined.
It's interesting that you felt as though you had to escape from the house. For me, Aura ensnared me early on. I felt like leaving the house wasn't an option. I, like Felipe, had to stay there. I did feel an ever mounting sense of uncomfortable fear as the story continued on, but never once did I feel as though I had to leave.
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