Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The Two Words by Isabel Allende - readers response

In my opinion the two words Belisa Crepusculario gives to the colonel are her names she was given when she was baptized. Throughout the short story her name has great significance to all that know her, she is constantly being referred to with her first and last name.

In my opinion her name increases it's significance when she is approached by a man who she describes as the loneliest man in the world, the colonel. She the seller of words, gives him two words. She informs him that these are for him and him alone. To me this signifies that she is giving herself to him and him alone. He informs her that he wants to be president, and she wrote him a speech that not only captured a nations heart but the colonels.

While he is away from her sharing his speech across the nation, he is obsessively thinking of these two words, he murmurs them in his sleep, carries them on horseback, repeats them before his speech, and thinks of them in his leisure time. To me this is the act of infatuation, he is not repeating the words he is constantly thinking of Belisa Crepuscarlio's feral scent, her fiercy heat, the whisper of her hair and her sweet mint breath in his ear. The thought of him being with her is cemented in his mind.

It was clear to the colonel's opponents that he was in a fog and they must do something to erase these two words. El Mulato set out to find her. Once they brought Belisa Crepuscarlio to the colonel she could see his eyes soften, he was no longer the loneliest man in the world, she had given herself to him to cure his loneliness.

1 comment:

  1. I really like the idea that the two words could be her name - Belisa Crepuscario. I think this adds a nice romanticism to the story, and you have done a good job of explaining how truly infatuated the Colonel was with Belisa. I also find it interesting just to compare the variety of opinions on what the two words are, which in itself displays the exact purpose of the reader response theory.

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