Does Mother Nature have emotions? February 17, 2007

Anyone who has experienced the devastation of a hurricane or been trapped in a snowstorm may attribute human motives or emotions to Nature. There were doubtless victims of Katrina who felt the devastation had some purpose or even personal intent toward them. While reading Sab, the reader becomes attuned to the “moods” or “emotions” linked with Nature. As a romantic author, Avellaneda skillfully portrays the involvement of Nature and its moods in the lives of the characters.

As Carlota daydreams about how she finds Enrique handsome and pleasant (p. 40), she wanders “through the woods or by the banks of the Tinima, enraptured by the scents, the brilliant light, the gentle breezes…” clearly, the beautiful parallel of her beautiful Enrique. Many times Avellaneda uses a storm to portray violent emotion, anger or an omen of evil or misfortune, but she also uses it to attribute emotion to Nature: “A dreadful silence reigned over nature, which appeared to be watching the sky’s anger with dismay while it waited for the fulfillment of its threat with sad resignation.” (p. 49) She even goes so far as to have Nature speak, straight from the horse’s mouth on p. 58: “…the animal seemed to be saying ‘I love you a great deal so as to please you; from no other hand but yours do I gladly accept food.’” Portraying Nature and man in a symbiotic relationship, she states that, “Nature becomes more beautiful in the presence of the beloved, and this person in turn is embellished by Nature,” (p. 59) and similarly on p. 71, “There was in fact a certain harmony between the landscape and the woman, both so young and so beautiful.”

Reading Sab embodies the characteristics of Romanticism. The dramatic images and moods of Nature evoked by the author serves to keep the dramatic story alive in the reader’s memory, as the author might say, until the mountains crash into the sea.