The Spanish Daughter

“She snatched her hat from the ground. ‘That man is an animal! But thank you, caballero. At least there are still a few gentlemen around.”

Puri, dressed in her husband’s clothes, sees a young man knock an elderly woman to the ground, whom Puri then helps up. The elderly woman calls Puri a gentleman (in Spanish and English), highlighting the irony of Puri playing as a man and dressing as her husband. Without knowing it, she is proving that gentlemen are even more rare than the woman thinks. She has called the man she’s called an animal and the woman a man.

“After Cristóbal got lost in the Caribbean waters, the nostalgia of our lives together enveloped me like a cloak.”

Puri remembers Cristóbal after he dies falling overboard. She uses a simile to express how her grief and loss surround her, her memories overwhelming her in his absence. The use of “cloak” anticipates that she will dress as her husband in his absence.

“As we advanced into the heart of the plantation, the gurgle of a stream became louder. A mild scent of bananas filled the air.”

Puri and Martin tour the plantation on horseback and advance further into the woods. The author uses imagery—such as the sound of the stream and the smell of bananas—to stress the plantation’s wildness. Together with this imagery, the use of “heart” gestures to the living nature of the plantation itself.