Maria Dos Prazeres Analysis

OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW: An Analysis of “Maria dos Prazeres”
Maria dos Prazeres is the representation of every human being. Figuratively, she mirrors how people are scared of what they don’t know and so we try to do the best we can to control the circumstances in our favor. “Three months ago it had been revealed to her in a dream that she would die, and from that time on she had felt closer than ever to this child of solitude.” After that dream, the way on how she lived her life had completely changed. She tried to prepare for her own death and for whatever may happen to her. But the story is not only about the life of Maria; it is about life and people in general. The way in which Maria lived her life represents how we live ours.
It shows the difference between living in the present versus living in the future and in the past. It is also about uncertainty and unsureness versus security and predictability. It also shows the opposition between the monotonous versus the spontaneous. In general, it is a story of the familiar versus the new.
To elaborate on the first opposition, living in the present versus living in the future and in the past, Maria kept on looking back on her past and obsessing on her future. “Maria dos Prazeres saw that it was the complete plan of the immense cemetery of Montjuich, and she remembered with an ancient horror the graveyard in Manaus under the October rains…” She always remembers her past, and sometimes, she dwells on it too much. There are times that her past even influences her decisions and her goals. She is too idealistic and she wants to run away from her past and forget about it, but in doing so, she reminds herself even more of her experiences. On the other hand, after the incident with the dream, she became paranoid with her death. “She had anticipated the posthumous distribution of her belongings and the disposition of her body with so much care that she could have died at that moment without inconveniencing anyone.” Because of her paranoia, she never “lived in the moment” again. She didn’t bask in or enjoy her present fortunes but she planned on how to dispose of them. As humans, we have the tendency to remain apathetic to what is happening around us. Our mind is so consumed in thoughts of the future and of the past that we forget that we are still in the present.

The second opposition is uncertainty and unsureness versus security and predictability.
People in general are afraid of the unknown. “’What I mean,’ she said, ‘is that I am looking for a place where I can lie down in the earth with no risk of floods and, if possible, in the shade of trees in summer, and where I won’t be pulled out after a certain period of time and thrown away in the trash.’” In the passage, Maria tells the funeral salesman exactly what she wants. Even in her death, she wants to control whatever will happen to her. She wants to be sure with every detail of her grave. We all try to live a safe life so as we will feel more secure with ourselves. If we set up structures in which we feel safe in, we can predict what will be the outcome of the decisions we make and the things we do. Because of Maria’s fear that no one will cry for her death, she even teaches her dog to go to the grave regularly and cry for
her.

The opposition between the monotonous and the spontaneous is one of the most visible oppositions in the story.
When Maria was first introduced as a character, it was shown that she had a very structured way of life. She does things in a very routinely manner. But in the span of the story, she starts to be more spontaneous with her actions. “But on the third Sunday she took advantage of a moment’s carelessness to fulfill one of her great dreams, and with her lipstick she wrote on the first, rain-washed stone: Durruti. From then on, whenever she could she did it again, sometimes on the gravestone, or on two or on all three, and always with a firm pulse and a heart stirred by nostalgia.” Maria know learns how to take risks and it gives her a sense of liberation. Living a monotonous and rigid lifestyle is like not living your life at all. It is like you were programmed, like a robot, to do a specific task at a given time and do another at another time. It is like a social death. The sense of liberation and excitement that we feel when we do something “bad” is due to the fact that we do not do this often. Like uncertainty, we are afraid of change, but this actually excites the mind and the
body.

The most general but most essential opposition is between the familiar and the new. In my opinion, the Count of Cardona represents the only familiar thing that reminds Maria of her old life. He is the sole remnant she has of who she was. “The visit had turned into a ritual. “The punctual Count would arrive between seven and nine at night with a bottle of local champagne, wrapped in the afternoon paper to make it less noticeable, and a box of filled truffles.” Neither one of the two actually remembers what the cause of their friendship is. It was mainly due to habit and not really because they had something in common. On the other hand, the boy is the representation of change in the story. The dream of Maria was actually about a new beginning and not of death; it was a call from the universe for her to let go of her past and embrace the present. In a way, it does reflect death in the sense that the old Maria “dies.” “In a fraction of a second she made a thorough reexamination of the premonitory dream that had changed her life for the past three years, and she saw the error of her interpretation. ‘My God,’ she said to herself in astonishment. ‘So it wasn’t death!’”

Being humans, we are innately unsettled by the thought of the unfamiliar. But change is also naturally and inevitably going to happen. It is only in how we deal with change that varies from person to person.