47 pages • 1 hour read
Marco DeneviRosaura A Las Diez
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1955A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Paintings
Paintings make frequent appearances throughout Rosaura because of Camilo’s profession. He also makes them a centerpiece in his story about Rosa. Each character has a different relationship with paintings; Mrs. Milagros disregards them entirely, Eufrasia discerns Camilo’s lack of skill as a painter, and Camilo himself works on them but despises them at the same time. As with many other motifs throughout the book, their significance shifts between each testimony.
The most thorough discussion of paintings, however, occurs during Camilo’s conversation with the police inspector. In that conversation, he professes to despise his own work and the world of contemporary art in general, asserting that “All modern painting is phony” (149). Though this is an accusation directed at others, the idea of “phoniness” is also reflected in Camilo’s artistic work. Revealing himself to be a forger who specializes in imitating the paintings of English masters like Reynolds, Camilo makes a career out of using his artistic skills to deceive others. Rather than being purely aesthetic or decorative objects, therefore, the paintings take on a role as agents of deception. Eufrasia is the only other character who knows Camilo is a fraud, and she “could never manage to understand how Mr. Canegato could maintain—with a straight face—that Rosa had posed for him” (176). By understanding Camilo’s artistic lies, Eufrasia is able to unravel the mystery fairly quickly, highlighting the association between paintings and dishonesty.
Camilo’s Letters
The letters from Rosa that Camilo forges are an extension of his imagination, symbolizing an ideal femininity that he believes will impress other people. The pink paper he writes the letters on, the perfume that he scents them with, and even the flowery handwriting he constructs for Rosa all evoke a heightened stereotype of femininity that characterizes Rosa. This exaggerated performance of gender, intended for the eyes of others, points to what the inspector calls Camilo’s “purpose” in fabricating Rosa’s existence. By acquiring a girlfriend who fits so neatly into a feminine ideal, Camilo alleviates the anxiety he feels about not living up to masculine ideals.
The letters, therefore, become an emblem of the gender dynamics that lie at the heart of the novel, dictating Camilo’s actions and other characters’ perceptions of him. When the male residents of La Madrileña learn that Camilo is romancing the beautiful Rosa, they suddenly gain respect for him. Réguel observes that “Now Coretti was making jokes to Camilo’s face, not, as before, behind his back,” proving that Camilo gains masculine credibility through the femininity of his imaginary girlfriend (117). Like his paintings, therefore, Camilo’s letters are tools of deception designed with a very specific social purpose: exploiting the gender norms of his society to improve his daily experience at La Madrileña.
Oppressive Households
Several of the characters in Rosaura suffer while living in oppressive households. Camilo reveals his struggles with a domineering father, Rosa is restricted to her father’s mansion, and La Madrileña has a suffocating atmosphere of social scrutiny. The book is, therefore, concerned with what living in such an oppressive environment can do to one’s mental state. Camilo is the primary case study in this phenomenon; even after his father’s death, he is haunted by an oppressive paternal presence. Camilo recalls a particular daymare about his father to the inspector: “In the dream I understood that the one who was alive was the real one, the true one, and that his death had been a dream—terrified at having to confess to him that I had thought he was dead, I would stand there speechless” (158). Where death should have been a release for Camilo from the oppressive household of his childhood, it instead made room for his father’s presence to be ingrained in him psychologically. In his essay “Camilo’s Closet: Sexual Camouflage in Denevi’s Rosaura a las diez,” Herbert J. Brant argues that Camilo’s oppressive father and the one he constructs for the imaginary Rosa “display unmistakably classic Freudian undertones” that connote sexual repression dating back to childhood (Brant, 8). The setting of an oppressive household, therefore, takes on symbolic significance as a microcosm of the social pressures that dictate characters’ romantic and sexual behaviors. The chorus of judgmental gossipers at La Madrileña mirrors the judgments of society at large, and Camilo crumbles under the pressure of pleasing them.
