Nostalgia is empowering throughout Dreaming in Cuban not because of the end-point or destination that is reached, but instead because of the imaginative journey it inspires inside the women in the novel. When nostalgia—or a longing for the past—is considered in a discourse, in conjunction with Garcia’s characters’ questionings of the accuracy of memories, we see that the final object of nostalgic reflection becomes arbitrary in light of the ability to see oneself as capable of transforming the present through knowing the past.
In her essay, Saez describes nostalgia as emerging from the “despite to reconnect with the original objects of memory’s gaze” (131). When considering the role of memory within their narratives, the characters ultimately realize that memory does not always offer an accurate depiction of events. Celia refers to this as the “distortion of memory” when she looks at a photograph and recognizes all the …show more content…
Her articulation in the passage, captures the way in which women did, in fact, have a role in history, and that people’s memories don’t recognize this role either because of their glossing over, or their failure to look beyond internal beliefs and see what lies before them. This highlights what ultimately is the reality of the fact that people see what they want to see.
Saez takes issue with the view of critics who say that the novel’s depiction of Pilar’s return to Cuba is simply representative of the completion in her own search for identity. Indeed, although Pilar has a desire to reconnect with the original Cuba of her memory, it is understood that Pilar has an awareness of the fact that she is memorializing the country, and through nostalgia transforming Cuba into something it is not, never was, and can never
In her essay, Saez describes nostalgia as emerging from the “despite to reconnect with the original objects of memory’s gaze” (131). When considering the role of memory within their narratives, the characters ultimately realize that memory does not always offer an accurate depiction of events. Celia refers to this as the “distortion of memory” when she looks at a photograph and recognizes all the …show more content…
Her articulation in the passage, captures the way in which women did, in fact, have a role in history, and that people’s memories don’t recognize this role either because of their glossing over, or their failure to look beyond internal beliefs and see what lies before them. This highlights what ultimately is the reality of the fact that people see what they want to see.
Saez takes issue with the view of critics who say that the novel’s depiction of Pilar’s return to Cuba is simply representative of the completion in her own search for identity. Indeed, although Pilar has a desire to reconnect with the original Cuba of her memory, it is understood that Pilar has an awareness of the fact that she is memorializing the country, and through nostalgia transforming Cuba into something it is not, never was, and can never