Oops - sorry, my mistake. I keep getting
Love in the Time of Cholera and
100 Years of Solitude mixed up! I did not finish the one that the Lit Club read many years ago.
I've been thinking about this book some more. I just went back and re-read the first line: "My name is Eva, which means "life," according to a book of names my mother consulted." It is significant that the title of the book is simply
Eva Luna, her name, which is symbolic of life and light. One has to assume that Allende was very intentional in selecting this name and title. Wikipedia had the following statement about a key theme in this book. It reminded me that I had read somewhere that many of Allende's books were based on her own experiences, often focused on women, and weaving myth and realism together. In this case, she makes Eva Luna the weaver of stories as the main protagonist.
From Wikipedia:
Quote:
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Allende critiques on the gender imbalance that was and still is present in most Latin American countries. Generally, women were regarded as objects, entities that were subjugated in a male hegemony. Through the protagonist Eva, Allende has found a character that reflects on all the characteristics that all women trying to survive in the harsh conditions of Latin America, should embody. Eva's name is itself symbolic. Luna is Spanish for "moon" – a symbol of the matriarchal power that women possess. In many ways the character Eva reflects Allende herself and the struggle that she went through after her father's cousin, Salvador Allende, was overthrown as Chilean President on September 11, 1973
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One of the things that I thought was interesting was that she wasn't really writing about the social/political upheaval of a specific country's history but more of a general experience in Latin America for that time period.