24 pages • 48 minutes read
Isabel AllendeTwo Words
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1989A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Journeys
Isabel Allende uses the symbol of the journey to explore the theme of transition. A perilous journey is undertaken and endured at the outset of the story to demonstrate the transition from a preordained life to the possibilities that are created by literacy. The protagonist is an itinerant seller of words who travels from village to village in a series of journeys that give her the ability to support herself and help reduce individuals’ sense of isolation. The nature of the protagonist’s journeys changes as news of her powers as a storyteller spreads. First, she is captured and kidnapped as El Mulato takes her to meet the Colonel. She inverts this pattern in the second journey, which she seems to have foreseen after captivating the Colonel with her secret words. This final journey demonstrates Belisa Crepusculario’s full empowerment as she takes the hand of the subdued Colonel.
Weather and Geography
Allende utilizes geography, including rugged terrain and the harshness of the natural world, to symbolize hardship, challenge, and endurance. The story begins in an inhospitable environment where conditions range from floods to the scorching desert and drought that kill the protagonist’s siblings. This environment reveals the precariousness of poverty. Allende’s description of “burning coasts” summons images of pain and suffering. The initial journey Belisa must endure to escape these surroundings is described as “hell” (4). The landscape is eroded with “deep cracks, strewn with rocks and thorny bushes with the skeletons of animals bleached by the sun littering the path” (4). These vivid descriptions and images of suffering convey the enormity of the challenges Belisa must overcome to change her life. At the end of Belisa’s initial journey, she finds life-sustaining water, symbolizing survival.
Magic and Mystery
Throughout the story, Allende presents the motif of mystery and magic. At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes the magical power of Belisa’s words to enhance dreams and lift those who hear them from melancholy. At the core of the story are the two mysterious and secret words that the narrator never reveals to the reader. These secret words drive the narrative and captivate the Colonel, who becomes powerless due to the need that they provoke in him.
Allende uses vocabulary to enhance the story with a sense of mystery and magic with references to witchcraft, spells, and curses. Described as a “witch” engaging in “witchcraft,” Belisa creates magical words that make the Colonel behave as though under a “spell.” His army describes the words’ power as “witchcraft.”
Names
Names are a recurring motif in the story. The opening lines reveal that Belisa, the protagonist, was not given a name because her parents were too poor to provide one. Rather, she chose her own name, an act that signifies independence and freedom. The names she selects give her a romantic air: Belisa suggests belleza, the Spanish word for beauty, and Crepusculario derives from crepuscular, an adjective form of twilight. Thus, the protagonist essentially chooses “twilight beauty” to identify herself. In contrast, The Colonel and El Mulato are reduced to titles, not names. They evoke violence and fear and are immutable in the public image. The narrator does not disclose the Colonel’s name, reflecting his lack of identity beyond his military role and his inability to define himself. He serves as a stereotypical Latin American military leader. El Mulato’s name further reduces his identity, presenting him solely in terms of race by using a term that is a racist slur in English.
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By Isabel Allende
