37 pages • 1 hour read
Julia AlvarezIn the Name of Salome
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Arrival of Winter, Middlebury, Vermont, 1950”
The narrative point of view shifts to Camila and moves backward in her timeline as she recalls a trip to Vermont in 1950. This year is the centennial of her mother’s birth, and Camila is scheduled to make a number of speeches commemorating the occasion. Her first speech will take place at the college where her friend Marion teaches. Camila feels that she’s received a multitude of speaking requests only because she comes from a famous family: “She is, after all, the anonymous one, the one who has done nothing remarkable. But—and this annoys her—she is in demand for sentimental reasons, the daughter who lost her mother” (69).
On the way to the talk, Marion announces that she is going to move in with a man named Lesley. Camila is surprised because she and Marion were lovers in their younger years, although Camila never wanted to become Marion’s life partner because of her controlling behavior. Marion says her relationship with Lesley will be an alliance, not a love affair. The narrator expresses Camila’s state of mind when she thinks, “We’re both too old for all this, Camila is feeling. Too old to still be knocking around the hemisphere, motherless, daughterless, fatherless souls” (74).
Later, at the presentation, Camila makes the snap decision to discard her carefully prepared address. She wants to be true to her mother’s spirit and gives a rousing speech about the need for liberty in her homeland. Much to her surprise, her words receive a standing ovation.
Chapter 5 Summary: “La Fe en el Porvenir, Santo Domingo, 1874-1877”
The story returns to Salomé in 1874, shortly after her first poem has been published using her real name. People begin to defer to her as a local celebrity: “I was the very same Salomé Ureña, but now everyone seemed to point, to make a low bow at the waist, or dip down in a schoolgirl curtsy, and say, ‘Buenos días, poetisa’” (87). Although Salomé has achieved fame as a poet, she’s 24 and longs to fall in love.
The family home becomes a gathering place for the country’s literati as Salomé continues to publish nationalistic poems that inspire her fellow citizens. She’s introduced to Federico Henríquez, who has written a play called The Hebrew Girl and wants Salomé’s opinion of the work. Salomé notices Federico’s handsome younger brother, Pancho, even though Federico seems to want to capture her attention for himself. He writes her a poem professing a lifetime of friendship before he is called away to travel overseas.
During this time, Salomé’s beloved father grows ill. The family is instructed to conceal the truth of his terminal illness from Nicolas to keep his spirits up. After he dies, Salomé goes into a deep state of grief that lasts two years. It isn’t until Pancho Henríquez invites Salomé and her sister to a literary gathering that her spirits begin to rally. At first, she wants to decline the offer but grudgingly accepts instead. Salomé thinks, “I had been living in a numb silence for two years, and I could not find the words I wanted to say to him. All I could manage is, ‘You may count on me’” (105).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Ruins, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1941”
The story returns to Camila and regresses to 1941 as she travels to Harvard to meet her brother Pedro. The two haven’t seen each other for 20 years. Camila has just fled Cuba due to a student revolt. During the past year, Pedro has been a guest lecturer at Harvard and is about to give his farewell address. As Camila is introduced to all of Pedro’s distinguished friends, the narrator says of her, “She, too, wants to be part of that national self-creation. Her mother’s poems inspired a generation. Her own, she knows, are not clarion calls […] Every revolution surely needs a chorus” (121).
After the speech, Pedro says he is planning to return to Argentina. He suggests that Camila take a teaching post at Vassar, which he could arrange for her. Pedro has always looked out for her, but Camila fears he is leading her into a permanent life of exile away from their homeland. The narrator describes Pedro through Camila’s eyes: “What she sees is an old man’s face—weary and spent, the eyes full of longing, the terrible moral disinheritance of exile, which he is now urging her to partake of” (126). Camila tells Pedro that she will have to think about his proposal.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Amor y Anhelo, Santo Domingo, 1878-1879”
In 1878 Santo Domingo, Salomé is about to be honored with the national medal for poetry. She discovers that Pancho has taken up a collection to fund the award. Later, Salomé starts attending regular meetings of The Friends of the Country, where different philosophical topics are discussed. Pancho asks if he can tutor Salomé in sciences to augment her considerable talents as a poet. Although Salomé was hoping for a proposal of an entirely different sort, she accepts Pancho’s offer.
After several months of tutoring Salomé, Pancho announces that he’s being called to assist with a countrywide school inspection. He begs Salomé not to take another teacher while he’s gone. Before he leaves, Pancho writes her a poem. It isn’t as lyrically romantic as she would have hoped. He asks that she write him one as well, but she gives an evasive answer. Even though she won’t commit, Salomé does publish a poem about passionate love but refuses to name the object of her affection. This starts rumors throughout the community. When Pancho returns from his trip, he demands to know who Salomé’s secret lover is. When she admits that the poem is about him, he responds with surprise and delight.
Chapters 4-7 Analysis
In this segment, Camila’s story has regressed to 1950 when she is a 56-year-old established literature professor and then retreats another nine years to 1941. In contrast, Salomé advances from a 23-year-old in 1874 to a famous national poet in 1877.
Camila’s chapters demonstrate her strong need for self-effacement. In 1950, she’s reluctant to take speaking engagements on the centennial anniversary of her mother’s birth. She defines herself as the undistinguished member of her illustrious family and is comfortable to remain so. The only motivation that drives her to rise above this comfortable anonymity is the conviction that her mother would want her to give an inspiring speech about Dominican independence.
Nine years earlier, she attends Pedro’s final address as a visiting professor at Harvard. He, too, is illustrious, and Camila only shares reflected glory. The siblings haven’t seen one another in 20 years, so Camila is struck by how aged and tired her brother looks. In both Camila’s chapters, the motif of exiled patriots emerges. She and Pedro are both preaching about the cause of Dominican independence from afar. Camila was already an exile in Cuba, but Pedro is pulling her even further away from their homeland by suggesting that she take a permanent teaching post in the United States.
Salomé is grappling with a different sort of problem in her chapters. She has just fallen in love with Pedro, so her poetry has taken a much more personal turn. When she publishes a love poem, her readers are baffled. This isn’t the sort of material the country expects from its national poet. As an artist, Salomé feels the need to express her personal feelings as well as her patriotic sentiments. However, her future success may depend on ignoring her personal urges in favor of her audience’s demand for political verse.
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