Critical Analysis of Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

The novel by Cristina Garcia moves miles covering the life of three generations mainly of a single family between Cuba and United States. The book focuses primarily on what is referred to as Latin feminism focusing on the plight of women across generations. The characters in question here are Cecil Del Pino, her two daughters Felicia and Lourdes not exempting her granddaughter Pilar. Across American generations, women have held different ideologies, movements, and notions that share a common goal. Ideally, the major focus has been those related to politics, economic and social rights. Cristina Garcia, therefore, tries to view the common purpose that has been defining the achievements of women over the three generations. In the novel, the major themes of concern include the following: Relationships among family, matters of exile, the divisiveness of politics giving equal opportunities to both men and women and even memory, etc. Throughout the novel, history of the Cuban culture unfolds providing links to the matters of time and the themes in focus.

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The story begins with Cecilia, a young and beautiful woman living in Havana, happens to fall in love with a Spanish man named Gustavo. It leads them to marriage. Soon after tying the knot, Gustavo leaves goes back to Spain leaving Cecilia behind. Though beautiful, she becomes depressed and loses interest in life. In the process of struggling with life as a housewife, another man by the name Jorge del Pino, courts her for quite some time. After a series of persuasion, she decides to move and live with the man. Soon after marriage and honeymoon, Jorge leaves Cecilia at home with his mother together with his Sister who is not in good terms with her. The sole reason as per to why this happened is because of jealousy Jorge had for Gustavo. It is a sort of punishment given to Cecilia for having been married earlier on. The cruelty of Jorges Mother increased when Cecilia was expectant of her daughter Lourdes, to the extent that by the time she was giving birth, she underwent mental breakdown.

The occurrence made her be taken to a mental institution, at the time when Lourdes was being taken care of by the father, Jorge. All this time from birth, Lourdes has been living with the Father and hence the strength of the bond. Later on after her release, Cecilia gives birth to the second daughter Felicia and a few years later to the only son Javier. At this point, Jorge and Cecilia seem to hold different ideologies. Jorge prefers the position of the American government, as it is very friendly while Cecilia is in support of the revolution.

In the span of years, the three children grow to have different interests and ideologies making them take different paths. Lourdes joins the university, falls in love and ends up being married against her mothers will. Her marriage to Rufino, who was from a wealthy family occurred and a few days after the Cuban revolution, she gave birth to a daughter named Pilar. One time Lourdes was thrown from her horse to the extent of losing her second baby. She went home and found two soldiers holding Rufino, his husband to gun point. She scared them, but they promise to come back claiming that Puente estate belongs to the revolution government. She refused, but that result led to her being raped at a knife point. Soon after the occurrence, Puente family decided to relocate to Miami where Lourdes found life harsh forcing them to proceed further to New York where they started a new life from scratch. Ruffini found life quite hard, and Lourdes became the bread winner. She saves up some money and begins a bakery business. Pilar, on the other hand, developed a stereotypical mind, having a negative attitude towards the mother but too close to the father.

On the other phase, the second born Felicia becomes friends with the daughter of Santeria, the high priest. It occurred at age six. As the time went by, she managed to drop out of high school and with no qualification and skills she ended up jumping from one job to another and soon she met a man who ended up impregnating her. The man named Hugo, later on, went missing for around seven months and later on returns to marry her. Felicia then gave birth to twins, but still in their lives Hugo kept coming and departing. His continued behavior inculcated a bad idea to Felicia, and she even planned to kill him, but he managed to escape.

Javier on his side had a similar ideology to the mother concerning revolution. Being that he loved activities to do with invention, he ended up becoming a biochemistry professor and married a Czech girl and had a daughter named Irina. A series of events followed, Jorge developed a stomach cancer and died in the presence of Javier while Felicia became mentally snapped after a series of attempt to make peace with Santeria. Felicia, later on, descends into madness after being married, and the husband dies. Years later, Javier returns home to supports his mothers ideology, and he too died. Felicia after recovering returns to Santeria and became the priestess. She continued to distance friends and family and her health soon deteriorated, and she died. It made Cecilia wander out and into the Ocean at night. Lourdes and Pilar came around, took cares for her but soon went away. The novel ends with Cecilia wondering in and out of the ocean.

Notably, the major theme that apparently features pertains family relationship supported by the link that existed from the first generation of Cecilia to the third generation of Pilar. Cecilia is the central bond, and the text portrays what she had to go through as a woman. It is inclusive of ideology that she stood for and the support and rejection that she received as a result of her position. It is very clear that women are always for the good of the family bond, but they are never given a chance. When Lourdes was being married, for example, she was against it for reasons best known to her. Her position as a woman was purely based on past experiences. She confirmed it ones again that maturity is not based on age but experience. Despite the fact that her firstborn Lourdes was not so close to her, she was at the center in guiding her social life. In addition to this, the acts and attributes of Cecilia play a significant role in the perspective of Latin feminism. This notion is grounded on the movements and ideologies aimed at meeting a common objective concerning political and social rights of the women. The position held by her regarding revolution stood to the end. To a greater extent, social justice was missing about all the horror she went through.

Conclusion

The Cuban dream is centered on the themes of family relationship, division in politics, and exile among others. The core of them all was matters pertaining family relationship. Many households in the text have undergone twists in ideologies, attitude, and even emotions as a result of the geographical gap separating them, lack of proper communication and politics. Politics played a bigger role as its instability led to revolution leading to the exile of other families like Punto's. Mothers and their daughters also appeared not to move along. Girls tend to fall on the side of their fathers as sons shift towards their mother. At another level, it is observed that there is a bigger connection between first and third generation as portrayed by the relationship between Cecilia and Pilar in particular. A common aspect again to facilitate the theme is the relationship between husbands and wife. Across all generations, marriages seemed to break. Challenges of divorce and re-marrying seem to be part and parcel of life resulting in the mental breakdown in all generations. The art of bond across generations is only seen on the third level, that is, between Ivanito and Pilar. It stands out as the only chance to bring together the entire generation of Cecilia. In this context, therefore, the essence of communication, closeness, and political stability is portrayed as imperative to the union of the family and sharing of ideologies across generations.