Aura

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

Consider the colonization of the region that is now Mexico by Spain. During which period was this region colonized? How did this colonization shape the region’s political, economic, and social spheres? How has the legacy of colonization been immortalized in Latin American literature?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer provides the opportunity to introduce the themes of Identity, Doubling, and Colonialism and Memory and History in connection with the setting of the novella: mid-20th century Mexico. Colonized by Spain in the mid-16th century, the region that is now Mexico experienced significant political, social, and religious turmoil as Spanish conquest and diseases brought from Europe decimated Indigenous populations of the region while simultaneously enforcing a strict Spanish Catholic way of life. Fuentes’s exploration of colonialism is a crucial backdrop to the setting of the story. Although the protagonist is living in a postcolonial and independent Mexico, the majority of the story takes place under the heavy presence of Mexican colonial history: The house represents the pre-modern amenities of colonial days; Señora Llorente’s husband straddles the cultural lines between Europe and Mexico; and Felipe is a historian who focuses on a romanticized Spanish colonization of Mexico. With this example of magical realism during the “El Boom” movement, Fuentes blurs the lines between the colonial past and postcolonial reality.

• History provides a thorough explanation of Spanish colonization in the relation to the “History of Mexico.”
• Enrique Krauze’s “The Guerrilla Dandy. The Literary and Political Illusions of Carlos Fuentes, Everybody’s Favorite Mexican” is a detailed exploration of the relationship between the changing landscape of 20th-century Mexico and Fuentes’s published works. (Content Warning: Mature content; profanity)

Short Activity

Mexican author Carlos Fuentes was an important figure in Latin American literature, as both part of the “El Boom” movement, during which Latin American writers became widely circulated in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as in the genre of magical realism. Working in small groups, research one author strongly associated with either the “El Boom” movement and/or Latin American magical realism to present to the class.

Use the following questions to guide your research:

• Who is your chosen author, and what is this author’s background?
• In what ways can this author’s works be considered magical realism and/or part of the “El Boom” movement?
• Does this author touch upon the themes Identity, Doubling, and Colonialism; Memory and History; or Time? If so, how?

If time permits, construct concise visual aids to supplement your presentation (e.g., 3-5 slides or a short series of posters, shared with bulleted information).

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Activity invites students to explore the literary contexts of the novella in connection to other similar authors and in relation to the themes of Identity, Doubling, and Colonialism; Memory and History; and Time. Depending on time availability, students may either share their findings formally in a structured presentation with visuals or informally in an in-class discussion.

• Oxford Bibliographies provides a succinct overview of “Magical Realism” in Latin American literature.
• The Los Angeles Review of Books offers a detailed description of the “El Boom” movement in Ilan Stavans’s “El Boom and Its Aftershocks in the Global Marketplace.”

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

Consider the appeal of youthfulness in contemporary society. What are some of the ways in which youthfulness is preferred to aging? What are the reasons behind this preference? Does the desire to be youthful affect some groups more than others? If so, how?

Teaching Suggestion: This Personal Connection Prompt invites students to explore the way in which both Memory and History and Time connect to the desire for youth and operate as pervasive themes in literature. Fuentes’s work explores the theme of Time not only in the structure of the novella, which is obscured and surreal, but also in the rejection of the progression of Time as a signifier of aging. Señora Llorente is obsessed with maintaining her youth, so much so that she uses witchcraft in order to conjure a double that embodies her youthful stage. Felipe immediately falls for this double, Aura, when he enters the house.

Differentiation Suggestion: For an approach that includes comparative literary analysis, students might address this question instead: Select a piece of literature or an artistic work in which the concept of youth is a central component to either the characters or the plot. Examine the ways in which the desire to be youthful shapes the characters’ actions, mood, or decisions in the work.