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The Stories of Eva Luna (Simple Maria (Elements of Fiction (Plot ("…

- - - - Metafiction (news story within Eva telling it) "Many miles away, I watched Rolf Carlé and the girl on a television screen. I could not bear the wait at home, so I went to National Television, where I often spent entire nights with Rolf editing programs"
    - - Social Awareness (waiting for the pump) Azucena is at the mercy of the government as they wait for the pump. "I called all the important people in the city, senators, commanders of the armed forced, the North American ambassador, and the resident of the National Petroleum, begging them for a pump to remove the silt, but obtained only vague promises. I began to ask for urgent help on radio and television, to see if there wasn't someone who could help us" (324).
  - - - Characterization (Rolf's past) Seeing Azucena resurfaced horrifying memories from his childhood-- things he couldn't control, just as she couldn't control her situation. "He took excessive risks as an exercise of courage, training by day to conquer the monsters that tormented him by night. But he had come face to face with the moment of truth; he could not continue to escape his past. He was Azucena; he was buried in the clayey mud; his terror was not he distant emotion of an almost forgotten childhood, it was the claw sunk in his throat' (267)
    - - '
- - - - "Maria's life was marked by sudden misfortunes, like a train that had claimed her mind and flung her back into an irreversible childhood. She was arranging her dresses in the stateroom closet when her son peered into the opened trunk. At that moment the ship lurched and the heavy metal-edged lid slammed shut, breaking the child's neck."(157)
      - "Soon other men came, drawn by the gossip that there was a woman who was able, even if briefly, to sell the illusion of love. All her clients were satisfied. And so María became the most famous prostitute in the port, sailors tatted her name on their arm and told her story on other seas, until the legend had circled the globe." (161)
    - - "María was born to be a great lady, this as what the other women deduced from her aristocratic manner of peaking and her unique behavior, and, if any doubt remained, it was dissipated at her death.She died with her dignity intact. She stuttered no recognizable illness, she was not frightened, nor did she breathe through her ears as ordinary people.." (152)
  - - - This is portrayed in the book as Maria didn't have a lot of power when she grew up. Her parents were constantly making her decisions, even as an adult. However, she then gains power as she grows up. She becomes the most famous prostitute in her town.
      - Examples:
        
        She couldn't marry anyone she wanted, her parents arranged her marriage.
        
        Her parents sent her to her aunt's house, causing her to enter the boat, where her son died.
        
        When she is older, she becomes a prostitute and sleeps with anyone that is willing to pay her.
- - - - Characterization (El Benefactor)
        “He believed that love was a dangerous weakness. He was convinced that all women, except his own mother, were potentially perverse and that the most prudent way to treat them was to keep them at arm’s length” (243).
        At first, El Benefactor was a strong dictator, a respected man that didn't believe he was capable of loving anyone as love made people weak. However, when he met Marcia, he completely lost control of things and became weak
    - - Characterization (Marcia) Her instincts were steering her to go along with El Benefactor. "She had the impression... that she belonged there, that until that moment she had been a stranger in the world, and that her instinct had dictated every step she had taken, including that of leaving her husband's house to follow a trembling old man, for the sole purpose of leading her here."
        
        Her instincts were steering her to go along with El Benefactor"She had the impression... that she belonged there, that until that moment she had been a stranger in the world, and that her instinct had dictated every step she had taken, including that of leaving her husband's house to follow a trembling old man, for the sole purpose of leading her here."
  - - - There were many magical realism components in this story, mainly the Indians that were like fantoms. They were spirits that were only whispered about; there was no real proof of them and yet they existed and took over the palace. Also, the palace was a physical representation of El Benefactor. While El Benefactor began to fall in love his strength began to be inhibited with weakness.
- - - - “He had been arrested so often, had joined in so many hunger strikes in solidarity with the prisoners, had sheltered so many persecuted, that according to the law of probabilities he should have died many times over” 203).
      - “Back in the car Miguel lectured his brother and sister, and the chauffeur, on how the Opus Dei was a nefarious organization more concerned with soothing the conscience of the upper class than with feeding the starving and on how it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (209).