'The Time of the Doves' by Mercé Rodoreda

‘The Time of the Doves’ by Mercé Rodoreda had me very emotionally involved the entire story. While I had to take breaks to manage reading the stream-of-consciousness style writing, I could not help but react emotionally to what was happening the story. The emotions I felt weren’t necessarily straight forward, I would say they were pretty unplaceable. For me, there was always a feeling of uncomfort and displacement, the protagonist Natalia, never seemed to be settled and this made my reactions to the story much less settled. I imagine this was part of the author’s intent, to make the reader uncomfortable or on edge to mimic the feelings that Natalia is feeling throughout the story. It was like something bad was always coming. In the beginning, it’s Natalia’s relationship with Quimet and his erratic temper which often leads to abuse. Later on, it becomes the war, the disappearance of Quimet, Natalia’s job status and the lack of food for her and her children. The constant acknowledgement of how tired, and borderline hysteric Natalia becomes an unsettling theme throughout the story. Even Natalia’s backstory, her instability with her family and her lack of connection with her father become an unsettling factor in the story. When we finally reach the end, post-war, and Natalia has what is closest to a happy ending for herself; we are kept on edge despite the lack of danger.

The lack of importance put towards big events such as the war, makes this story even more poignant in my opinion. There all these events that are happening around Natalia that will become huge historical moments, that will be looked back on as a whole, but Rodoreda tells the story of the true effects of the war. Not the change of the Spanish political sphere, the changes in Europe and politics as a whole. Instead, she shows us what we would experience if we were there during the civil war. The hunger and the fear and the loss that so many people experienced for a cause that becomes unimportant to people like Natalia, who can only think so far as the next meal. Her slow growing insanity mimicking what I would imagine anyone would go through if they were put in a situation where almost everyone they know is gone or dead, and they have to look after their two children alone with no money or food. In saying this, I can also understand what happened when Natalia was on the brink of killing herself and her children. While morally, I cannot agree, I think I can understand how Natalia got to the point where she felt this was an option. I think people underestimate the insanity motherhood can drive you to, especially while working and looking after the house and being in an abusive relationship. Along with this, experiencing a war and almost starving to death, I think Natalia is put in a very tricky situation where her choices become (in her mind) limited. She thinks she is doing what is best for herself and her children, even though, once Antoni comes along, we can see there were other options and ways to escape.

One of the most interesting things I found in the story was the importance of her name. Her name is Natalia, but Quimet decides to call her Colometa and always mentions someone called María. For a majority of the book, Natalia is not often referred to as Natalia, and the people she works for she usually calls Senyora (lname). Senyora, I assume, is the same as the Castilian Spanish “Señora”, which is usually used to refer to a married or older woman. In my experience it can also denote respect towards someone in terms of their age or status. As such, Natalia calls the older woman she is friends with senyora, she calls the women she works for senyora and so forth. In the end of the story, we see that Natalia has started being called “Senyora Natalia”, which seems to affect her in some way. She ends up repeating it out load and, in her head, over and over and it is clear that it has affected greatly her in some send. My question for this week is thus, what do you think this means? How has the use of names in ‘The Time of the Doves’ changed throughout the story and what is the effect of this? For me it seems like a significant factor to Rodoreda and the text, especially considering it is a translated text and ‘senyora’ does not end up being translated.