This Sunday: Analysis of Major Characters
"This Sunday: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the intricate lives and relationships of key figures within a narrative, showcasing the complexities of human emotions and interactions. Central to the analysis is Josefina Rosas de Vives, affectionately known as Chepa, who embodies a paradox of wealth and obsession with control, particularly in her relationships with the marginalized. Her husband, Alvaro Vives, is portrayed as a self-centered lawyer grappling with terminal illness, whose numerous infidelities highlight the emotional void in his marriage to Chepa. The character of Maya, a convict whom Chepa helps, underscores themes of dependency and rebellion as he seeks autonomy amidst his entanglement with her. Violeta, a maid with a complicated past involving Alvaro, adds another layer of emotional depth and tragedy, ultimately becoming a victim of violence. The narrative also introduces secondary characters, like Mirella, Meche, and Pina, who enrich the familial tapestry while reflecting the broader societal dynamics at play. Through these characters, the analysis examines the intersections of love, power, and identity within a setting marked by both privilege and despair, inviting readers to contemplate the multifaceted nature of human relationships.
This Sunday: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: José Donoso
First published: Este domingo, 1966 (English translation, 1967)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Santiago, Chile
Plot: Realism
Time: The late 1950's
Josefina Rosas de Vives (hoh-seh-FEE-nah RROH-sahs deh VEE-vehs), called Chepa (CHEH-pah), the well-to-do daughter of Alejandro Rosas and the wife of the lawyer Alvaro, who likens her to a bitch constantly nursing a vast litter. In her preoccupation with giving aid and sustenance to slum dwellers, she assumes the character of an Artemis of Ephesus and even envisions herself as a many-breasted nurturer who, in giving suck to a multitude, is bitten and consumed. Her ostensible charity is actually an obsession with making others completely dependent on her. In her passion to control others, she develops a strange attachment to a convicted murderer, Maya, whose release from prison she secures and whom she sets up in a leather business. Seeking him in the slums after his desertion of her, she is manhandled by the slum dwellers and loses consciousness. Broken by the experience and by her loss of Maya, she spends the last ten years of her life in silence and sadness and dies at the age of sixty-five.
Alvaro Vives (AHL-vah-roh), a fifty-five-year-old lawyer and husband of Chepa, who is the same age. His cancer, evidenced by a growing mole above his left nipple, will take his life within five months. His youthful sexual affair with Violeta had been followed by dates with many women, eight of whom are named in the novel, and by his marriage to Chepa when both were twenty-two years old. Although he and Chepa have two daughters, his extramarital affairs with Matilde Greene (who later commits suicide), Carmen Méndez, and Picha attest his loveless marriage. Both he and Chepa, each irrefragably self-centered, are incapable of love. They remain married but stop sleeping together after the exposure of Alvaro's affair with Matilde Greene. His grandchildren call the terminally ill Alvaro La Muñeca (the Doll) because of his porcelain-like whiteness.
Maya (MI-yah), a convicted murderer. He is tall and ungainly. Like Alvaro, he has a mole, but it is on his upper lip and is not symptomatic of cancer; also like Alvaro, he is compared to a doll, but whereas Alvaro is in metaphor a muñeca (female doll), Maya is a muñeco (male doll). Maya exploits Chepa's fascination with him by prevailing on her to secure his release from prison. Once released and set up in a leather business, which Chepa provides for him, he resents his subjection to her. She has arranged lodging for him at Violeta's house and keeps close tabs on him until he breaks with her and leaves Violeta's house. He loses all of his money and subsistence by betting on racehorses. His loss of independence frustrates his desire to be his own person. Ultimately, he can assert his individualism only by committing another murder as a means of being returned to prison.
Violeta (vee-oh-LEH-tah), a maid in the household of Don Alvaro and his wife Elena, the parents of Alvaro. She had continued to serve without monetary compensation after a household staff retrenchment and was rewarded after Elena's death with the legacy of a house. She is four years older than Alvaro (the son), although, on the Sunday that she initiates him in sexual union, she is said to be twenty-two years old (instead of twenty) to his sixteen. She remains the young Alvaro's sexual partner for six years, until he marries Chepa. She is abandoned by her lover, Marín, whose child she bears out of wedlock. Each Sunday, she prepares a batch of empanadas (meat pastries) for Alvaro, Chepa, and their grandchildren. Eventually, she confesses to Chepa her sexual affair with Alvaro. She is murdered by Maya in his determination to be returned to prison.
Mirella (mee-REH-yah), the illegitimate daughter of Violeta and Marín. She marries an automobile mechanic named Fausto, and they have a daughter named Maruxa Jacqueline.
Meche (MEH-cheh), the daughter of Alvaro and Chepa. She and her husband, Lucho, are the parents of Magdalena, Marta, Luis, and Alberto.
Pina (PEE-nah), the daughter of Alvaro and Chepa. She is married to a doctor.
The grandson of Alvaro and Chepa. The son of Pina and her husband, he narrates the three shorter sections of the novel (the two major parts are in third-person narrative). He is one year younger than Luis and the coeval of Alberto. He is in his mid-fifties as he gives his account of “this Sunday” at the home of his grandparents when they were in their mid-fifties. He and his four cousins played for the last time, on this particular Sunday, their game of Ueks (good people) and Cuecos (villains). The “funeral” of “Mariola Roncafort,” the consummate Uek, was played as prelude to her “resurrection,” but there was to be no resurrection. The games ended on this Sunday, during which Alvaro learned from his son-in-law, the doctor, about his terminal cancer; Violeta was murdered by Maya; and Chepa, seeking out Maya, was traumatically abused by her slum constituents.
Marujita Bueras (mah-rew-HEE-tah BWEH-rahs), a peddler of shirts, who is married and who both visits Maya in prison and corresponds with him by mail. She proves to be a rival to Chepa for Maya's attentions.
Fanny Rodriguez (rrohd-REE-gehs), a companion of Chepa on her visits to the penitentiary. She suggests that Chepa is in love with Maya and provides Chepa with information on how to use influence to secure Maya's release.
Bartolomé Páez (bahr-toh-loh-MEH PAH-ehs), the warden of the penitentiary. He had been a clerk when Chepa's father was president of the supreme court.
Don Pedro Benitez (PEH-droh beh-NEE-tehs), an official whose aid Chepa solicits in working out the release of Maya.
Gabriel, the manager of the Caja de Crédito Industrial (Industrial Credit Bank), who approves Chepa's request to lend Maya the money for an expensive sewing machine. He has risen from the same poverty that Maya knew. In his success and affluence, he is disappointed that his wife and sister-in-law have gone into a candy-store business because there was no need for them to do so.
Antonia, the maid in the household of Alvaro and Chepa.