The two words discussed in Isabel Allende’s short story Two Words, but never revealed to the reader are so personalized that no other individual will be able to comprehend them. The two words play a large role in the story, and also create another underlying theme from the story. Through the entire story, the reader is expecting the revealing of the two mystery words that are plaguing one of the most feared men around. I’ve decided that the purpose of not revealing the two words could be to show the reader that they cannot always get what they want. The human race has always strived to know the unknown. This has led us to become accustomed to having every detail disclosed in a story.
Why does the reader want to know what the two words are? We are told throughout the story that no other woman/man would be able to use the same word. “She gave the gift of a secret word to drive away melancholy. It was not the same word for everyone, naturally, because that would have been collective deceit. Each person received his or her own word, with the assurance that no one else would use it that way in this universe or the beyond” (52). Also supporting the theory is how she discarded the dictionary after she read it, as “it was not her intention to defraud her customers with packaged words” (53). So with this said , why is the reader still striving to know what these two words are?
Overall, I believe that we shouldn’t be trying to decipher what the two words are, but why the author decided it was not required of her to inform us of these words. I personally do not want to know the words that Belisa Crepusculario told the Colonel as they would have absolutely no meaning to me.
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I really agree with you that there really is no direct answer to what the two words are. It is through this concept that we are proving not only Allende's intent with her story, but the advantages of the reader response theory.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I noticed is that you said the two words were words only the Colonel could know, as no one else could use them. I would back up this claim more, because though the text does say no one else could use them, it states "use it that way" - implying that though it could be a common word, it is the context, or mystery Belisa associates with it that gives it the magical qualities. I'd try expanding upon this idea - it could yield some interesting results.