Dreaming in Cuban

by

Cristina García

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Javier is the youngest of Celia and Jorge’s children; he’s Lourdes and Felicia’s brother and Irinita’s father. Unlike his sisters, Javier doesn’t figure prominently in the novel. He is a scientifically gifted young boy who is frequently criticized by Jorge. He secretly sympathizes with Celia’s communist politics and ultimately goes to Czechoslovakia, where he becomes a professor of biochemistry, marries, and has a daughter, Irinita. After his wife leaves him, he returns to Cuba, heartsick and cancer-ridden. He later disappears from Celia’s house and presumably dies.

Javier del Pino Quotes in Dreaming in Cuban

The Dreaming in Cuban quotes below are all either spoken by Javier del Pino or refer to Javier del Pino. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Passion, Romance, and Marriage Theme Icon
).
Baskets of Water Quotes

Could her son, Celia wonders, have inherited her habit of ruinous passion? Or is passion indiscriminate, incubating haphazardly like a cancer?

Celia hopes that the sea, with its sustaining rhythms and breezes from distant lands, will ease her son's heart as it once did hers. Late at night, she rocks on her wicker swing as Javier sleeps, and wonders why it is so difficult to be happy.

Of her three children, Celia sympathizes most with her son.

Related Characters: Celia del Pino, Javier del Pino
Related Symbols: The Ocean
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:

Simón Córdoba, a boy of fifteen, has written a number of short stories considered to be antirevolutionary. His characters escape from Cuba on rafts of sticks and tires, refuse to harvest grapefruit, dream of singing in a rock and roll band in California. […]

Celia suggests to the boy that he put down his pen for six months and work as an apprentice with the Escambray Theater, which educates peasants in the countryside. "I don't want to discourage your creativity, Simón," Celia tells the boy gently. "I just want to reorient it toward the revolution." After all, she thinks, artists have a vital role to play, no? Perhaps later, when the system has matured, more liberal policies may be permitted.

Related Characters: Celia del Pino (speaker), Javier del Pino
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
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Javier del Pino Quotes in Dreaming in Cuban

The Dreaming in Cuban quotes below are all either spoken by Javier del Pino or refer to Javier del Pino. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Passion, Romance, and Marriage Theme Icon
).
Baskets of Water Quotes

Could her son, Celia wonders, have inherited her habit of ruinous passion? Or is passion indiscriminate, incubating haphazardly like a cancer?

Celia hopes that the sea, with its sustaining rhythms and breezes from distant lands, will ease her son's heart as it once did hers. Late at night, she rocks on her wicker swing as Javier sleeps, and wonders why it is so difficult to be happy.

Of her three children, Celia sympathizes most with her son.

Related Characters: Celia del Pino, Javier del Pino
Related Symbols: The Ocean
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:

Simón Córdoba, a boy of fifteen, has written a number of short stories considered to be antirevolutionary. His characters escape from Cuba on rafts of sticks and tires, refuse to harvest grapefruit, dream of singing in a rock and roll band in California. […]

Celia suggests to the boy that he put down his pen for six months and work as an apprentice with the Escambray Theater, which educates peasants in the countryside. "I don't want to discourage your creativity, Simón," Celia tells the boy gently. "I just want to reorient it toward the revolution." After all, she thinks, artists have a vital role to play, no? Perhaps later, when the system has matured, more liberal policies may be permitted.

Related Characters: Celia del Pino (speaker), Javier del Pino
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis: