Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dreaming in Cuban, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Passion, Romance, and Marriage
Intergenerational Conflict
Religious Diversity
History and Personal Identity
Obsession and Devotion
Summary
Analysis
In December, 1942, in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and the establishment of dictatorships in both Spain and Cuba, Celia writes to Gustavo that she still loves him, but that it’s become “a habitual love.” She doesn’t know if he is still alive. She unquestioningly accepts her obsession with him as a fact of life.
Celia has continued writing to Gustavo for several years now. She acknowledges to herself that, on some level, her obsession with him is not rational—it’s just become a fixed aspect of her identity that can’t be explained. Passion, then, can’t be reduced to rational categories, even as it causes conflict in daily life.
Themes
In 1944, Celia mentions the tidal wave that hit Cuba and destroyed many people’s homes. She worries that her piano is irreparable and hopes she’ll be able to play Debussy on it again. In 1945, she expresses gratitude for having been born on an island—at least the changing tides give her an illusion of possibility. With arbitrary forces carving up the world, just surviving is a hopeful act.
In 1946, Celia writes that her son Javier has been born. She’s named him after her father, whose appearance she only remembers from her Tía Alicia’s face. Her father was murdered when Celia was 13, by men whose wives her father had slept with. Celia remembers nothing of her mother, except for her hard eyes and the sight of her back as she walked away from Celia on the train.
Celia grasps for some link to her own past, even though her parents don’t seem like people much worth remembering. In politically volatile times, it seems that even an unsavory past gives a basis for a more hopeful future—or perhaps just the illusion of hope.
Themes
Later that year, Celia writes that Jorge is afraid of her smile, so she looks in the mirror and tries on other smiles, which reminds her of going to the movies with her girlfriends as a young woman. After the movies, she would see women standing in food lines and feel ashamed of herself. She tells Gustavo that after he left, she stayed in bed for months, reliving their time together as if it were a movie. Though Jorge saved her from that, she doesn’t understand for what purpose.
Celia is still not happy, even though she has an outwardly stable life, and Jorge perceives her unhappiness. Celia is sensitive to the sufferings of people less fortunate than herself, a sensitivity to which Gustavo seems a more sympathetic audience than Jorge. In light of this, Celia questions whether being saved from heartbreak was really worth it. But given Celia’s less than reliable grasp of Jorge’s thoughts and feelings, it’s worth questioning whether her perception is accurate.
Themes
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In 1949, Celia writes Gustavo that she has been reading Molière’s plays and “wondering what separates suffering from imagination.”
Celia tries to escape her current circumstances, even through imagination. Her comment that she’s trying to determine “what separates suffering from imagination” suggests that she’s trying to understand whether her heartache over Gustavo has any enduring reality, or if her devotion to him has been a meaningless fiction.
Themes
