Aura: Analysis of Major Characters
"Aura: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the intricate dynamics surrounding three central figures in the narrative: Felipe Montero, Señora Consuelo Llorente, and Aura. Felipe, a disenchanted historian and teacher, seeks change from his mundane life and is drawn into a mysterious job that leads him to the eccentric and aging Consuelo's home, where he encounters her captivating niece, Aura. Consuelo, nearly 109 years old, is fixated on preserving her youth and the memory of her deceased husband, engaging in occult practices to maintain a connection to her past. Aura, described as ethereal and alluring, plays a crucial role in Consuelo's scheme, designed to fulfill the longing for her lost love by seducing Felipe.
The interactions among these characters reveal themes of desire, illusion, and the haunting power of memory. As Felipe becomes entangled in this surreal and gothic atmosphere, he grapples with his own identity, ultimately realizing that Aura is a mere extension of Consuelo's imagination, crafted to perpetuate a love that transcends death. This layered relationship speaks to broader questions about the nature of love, aging, and the lengths to which individuals might go to cling to their pasts. The narrative invites readers to reflect on the complexities of human relationships and the interplay between reality and fantasy.
Aura: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Carlos Fuentes
First published: 1962 (English translation, 1965)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Mexico City, Mexico
Plot: Fantasy
Time: The early 1960's
Felipe Montero (feh-LEE-peh mohn-TEH-roh), a young historian and part-time teacher in a private school. Bored with his present job of teaching “useless facts” to “sleepy pupils,” he desires a change from his daily routine, and he is drawn to an advertisement that seems addressed personally to him. Restless and curious, he is particularly susceptible to the strange events and relationships that he encounters when he accepts the job of translating the memoirs of Señora Consuelo Llorente's dead husband. Felipe leaves the known outer world and enters Consuelo's dark, moldy home; in this mysterious, gothic setting he meets Aura, the ancient woman's niece. Gradually, he is drawn into a series of bewildering, grotesque occurrences that suggest the fantastic bond between the two women. His growing desire for Aura is consummated when he makes love to her and swears, “Nothing can separate us.” Eventually, Felipe realizes that this “sterile conception” engenders another self, his own double, the embodiment of Consuelo's late husband General Llorente; through his sexual union with young Aura and his promise of undying love, Felipe completes his role in Consuelo's morbid scheme to perpetuate her youth and passionate marriage to the general. Felipe is too bewitched to protest; as he caresses Aura, he knows she is an image created by the withered, exhausted Consuelo, but he embraces her in shadowed moonlight and accepts his dark destiny.
Señora Consuelo Llorente (kohn-SWEH-loh yohr-EHNtay), Aura's strange, eccentric aunt, whom Felipe figures is about 109 years old. Obsessed with prolonging her youth and unwilling to relinquish the past, Consuelo dabbles in the occult, keeping odd medicines in her decrepit house, growing exotic herbs and plants in a dank garden, and performing obscure rituals and bizarre communion feasts before dim candles and a tortured black Christ. She married General Llorente at the age of fifteen and was widowed thirty-four years later in 1901, but she has remained ageless through her illusory double, Aura, waiting for the fated reappearance of her beloved groom.
Aura (OW-rah), Consuelo's young niece. Pale and beautiful, with loose black hair and astonishing green eyes, Aura seduces Felipe, luring him into the old widow's plot to re-create her dead husband and preserve their love forever by mating Felipe with the young girl. Aura is lovely, provocative, and spectral. Felipe sees her only in shadows; he senses her more than he actually feels her, although she inflames his desire for her and he does possess her. In loving her, Felipe loses himself, for Aura is merely Consuelo's imagined self, a materialization of the old woman's past. Aura's role is to open herself sexually and “like an altar” to Felipe until he is spent and drained of his own will, his animus submerged in the dark anima figure, whose “fleshless lips” he kisses at the end.