Isabel Luberza is Ambrosio’s wife while Isabel La Negra is his mistress. Each woman is left with half of Ambrosio’s inheritance upon his death, including the main house where he stayed with his wife. Whereas Luberza had been Ambrosio’s saintly white wife, La Negra, who is Black, was his prostitute. Ferré’s story is presented as an on-going memory of the two women’s encounters with and their recollections of Ambrosio. However, “it quickly spirals into a singular memory and a singular woman, a blend of the two,” 3 and the story climaxes with an encounter between Isabel Luberza and Isabel La Negra. While Ferré employs the use of characters as metaphors to symbolize Puerto Rican culture, Britton uses her protagonist to show the emotional challenges of a Latin American woman struggling with her
Isabel Luberza is Ambrosio’s wife while Isabel La Negra is his mistress. Each woman is left with half of Ambrosio’s inheritance upon his death, including the main house where he stayed with his wife. Whereas Luberza had been Ambrosio’s saintly white wife, La Negra, who is Black, was his prostitute. Ferré’s story is presented as an on-going memory of the two women’s encounters with and their recollections of Ambrosio. However, “it quickly spirals into a singular memory and a singular woman, a blend of the two,” 3 and the story climaxes with an encounter between Isabel Luberza and Isabel La Negra. While Ferré employs the use of characters as metaphors to symbolize Puerto Rican culture, Britton uses her protagonist to show the emotional challenges of a Latin American woman struggling with her