Dreaming in Cuban

by

Cristina García

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Dreaming in Cuban: The Fire Between Them Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Felicia doesn’t know why she has delusions. She just starts hearing small sounds, like a beetle on the porch or a tree down the block, very vividly. She hears them all at once. Playing Beny Moré records is the only thing that helps. Colors become overpowering too, seeming to rise above their objects, like greens that “flee the trees and assault her.” Felicia decides this is the sun’s fault, so she stays inside and shuts the blinds tight.
The story shifts from Lourdes’s conversation with her father’s ghost to Felicia’s delusions, suggesting that maybe there’s not a firm distinction between these kinds of experiences. The source of Felicia’s struggles isn’t as clear as those of Lourdes or Celia, and her view of reality is much more tenuous. Somehow, everything in Felicia’s surroundings—even down to the colors on the trees—seems to be attacking her, indicating that the world as a whole feels like an unsafe place for her. This seemingly causes her to turn to obsessions, like favorite music, as a feeble defense against it.
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At such times, Felicia’s thoughts overwhelm her, too—thoughts from the past, future, and even other people’s minds, in fragments that seem strangely connected. Her mind jumps from one to another.
Felicia’s disconnected mental world echoes her mother’s experience of mental breakdown, though Felicia’s is more persistent. Later, Pilar will experience a variation on the same pattern, suggesting that although it’s never spoken aloud, mental illness is passed down through their family.
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Felicia remembers that when she was in elementary school, she found the external aspects of Catholicism more interesting than its teachings. After mass, she would search the church for rosaries or prayer cards, and she would gather holy water with which to baptize a neighbor’s chickens. Her father and sister Lourdes participated enthusiastically in mass, while Celia, who distrusted churches, stayed home.
Felicia has always had a spiritual inclination, more so than Celia. Unlike Jorge and Lourdes, Felicia’s spirituality has always tended in an unorthodox direction, more focused on tangible, earthly things than on religious teachings, which she finds too abstract to relate to.
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Celia didn’t identify herself with a religion, but she was still nervous about mysterious powers. She locked the children in the house on the feast day of Changó. She wouldn’t let Felicia visit her best friend, Herminia, whose father was rumored to be a witch doctor.
Even though Celia shuns organized religion, she still observes certain cultural expressions of it, like belief in Changó, a powerful Yoruban god of fire and lightning who is revered in Santería. Even though Celia mistrusts formal religious practice, in other words, she still acknowledges the presence of powers outside her control.
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Get the entire Dreaming in Cuban LitChart as a printable PDF.
Dreaming in Cuban PDF
That summer, the “summer of coconuts,” Felicia keeps hearing Saint Sebastian inside her head, sometimes in rhyme, sometimes in a jumble, disrupting her thoughts. Saint Sebastian says that Felicia used to love him, but now she just disappoints him. Felicia had become obsessed with Sebastian when she was a girl, feeling sympathy for his gruesome execution by Roman soldiers. But the nuns wouldn’t let Felicia pick “Sebastian” as her confirmation name. For that reason, Felicia refused to get confirmed. Jorge later blamed Felicia’s sorrows on this.
Sebastian was a third-century Christian martyr who, according to tradition, was tortured and ultimately killed under the Emperor Diocletian. Felicia always felt a strong affinity for him, though she was denied the chance to associate herself with him more formally—another example of how she doesn’t fit into a mainstream religious identity. In fact, as her obsession with coconuts shows, she doesn’t fit easily into mainstream society more generally.
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Thoughts of Jorge unsettle Felicia, so she plays Beny Moré records and teaches five-year-old Ivanito all the dances she knows. When they dance, things make sense. When they stop, she thinks about her husband, Hugo, a merchant marine. She served him in the restaurant where she worked. When he placed his hand on her wrist, she immediately left her apron and walked out of the restaurant with him. They ended up at the Hotel Inglaterra and had sex repeatedly. But the next morning, he left.
Felicia has a complicated history with men, lacking the bond that Lourdes shared with Jorge and later searching for happiness with men who mistreat her or don’t stick around. Her little boy, Ivanito, is the only one she can rely on. But given the dysfunction in Felicia’s past, it’s not clear that her relationship with Ivanito is healthy, either—perhaps she is perpetuating dysfunctional patterns by becoming too obsessed with and dependent upon her relationship to him.
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When Hugo returned, Felicia was seven months pregnant. They got married during the week of the Cuban Missile Crisis; Jorge refused to attend. After that, Hugo and Felicia moved into the house on Palmas Street where Jorge’s mother, Berta Arango del Pino, and his sister Ofelia (long dead from tuberculosis) once lived. When Felicia offers to have sex, Hugo nearly chokes her, and he promises to kill her if she comes near him again. The next day, he goes back to sea. Luz and Milagro were born on Christmas Eve.
Felicia’s happiness with Hugo is short-lived, as he proves to be abusive and never appears to have wanted to be married to her to begin with. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October, 1962, when the United States discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba; tense negotiations finally led to the weapons being dismantled instead of to nuclear war. Felicia’s explosive marriage parallels the tension of the political moment, another example of how characters’ personal histories and identities are bound up with what’s happening in society more broadly.
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By the end of the summer, Felicia is in worse shape—it feels like someone has drawn a curtain over her brain. She remembers deciding to murder her husband in the summer of 1966. She was pregnant with Ivanito and suffering from the syphilis Hugo gave her. One afternoon, while frying plantains, Felicia experiences a sudden clarity. She lights an oil-soaked rag on fire and stands over Hugo until he wakes up from his nap, then says, “You will never return here,” and drops the rag onto his face. To this day, she laughs when she remembers his screams.
It's not clear if Felicia’s mental illness began before Hugo came into her life, or if it’s a symptom of the syphilis he gave her. Either way, it has tragic consequences for Hugo and appears to be the start of a downward spiral in Felicia’s life, as after she burns him she retreats more and more from reality and into the world of her private obsessions.
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Ivanito Villaverde. Every day, Ivanito and Felicia dance to a song called “Rebel Heart.” Felicia wears a flannel nightgown and an embroidered Chinese tunic that had been a gift from Hugo. Ivanito doesn’t remember his father, and he isn’t sure if it’s true that Hugo still loves him, as his sisters claim. Felicia tells Ivanito that when he was born, he almost died from the venereal disease his father gave him.
For the first time, the perspective switches from the women of the del Pino family to that of a male child. Ivanito’s point of view gives an innocent onlooker’s perspective on Felicia’s descent into illness. Ivanito’s world revolves around his mother and her interpretations of the world; he hasn’t had the opportunity to know anything else, as his identity has been shaped by the illness and abuse Felicia has suffered over the years.
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Felicia uses the last of her food coupons to buy a bin of coconuts. Felicia is still wearing her tunic and slippers. As she and Ivanito walk through the neighborhood, looking for more coconuts, they “speak in green,” talking about everything that makes them feel “green.” They do the same with other colors. At home, Felicia breaks open the coconuts, and Ivanito helps her make ice cream. Felicia believes that the coconuts will purify them.
Ivanito is drawn into his mother’s delusions, innocently seeing the world through her eyes. Felicia’s inability to dress and behave in a socially acceptable way—such as her obsession with coconuts and her disconnection from normal, everyday topics of conversation—seems normal to Ivanito.
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When Luz and Milagro return home from their camping trip, they look upset. They tell Ivanito that they’ve seen Mamá this way before, but when he says, “What way?” they don’t reply. When Abuela Celia leaves, Felicia locks them in the house. The girls tell Ivanito about Felicia’s attack on Hugo,  warning him that he might end up crazy like Felicia. Hugo isn’t sure why, but he feels like his sisters are united against him and his mother.
Luz and Milagro, being older, understand the nature of their mother’s illness better than Ivanito does and also remember Felicia’s attack on their father. They perceive that Felicia’s delusions are shaping Ivanito’s view of the world, perhaps passing down a legacy of mental illness that will harm him in the long run. To Ivanito, Felicia just seems normal.
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At the end of the summer, Celia comes and packs up Ivanito’s things. After she leaves, Felicia cleans the house and cooks an elaborate dinner. Ivanito helps her pick gardenias for her bath. After Felicia bathes and gets dressed up, she also bathes Ivanito and dresses him in his nicest clothes. They enjoy a sumptuous dinner, and Felicia tells him that he must imagine “winter and its white extinguishings.” At last, Felicia crushes pink tablets onto their ice cream, saying it will help them sleep. Then, they go to bed.
Felicia’s delusions culminate in her attempting suicide and intending to take Ivanito along with her. It’s later revealed that Felicia’s quote about winter is a fragment from one of Celia’s favorite poems, suggesting that half-remembered things from childhood have a way of strangely recurring, and that the mother-daughter bond sometimes takes shape in inexplicable ways.
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Celia del Pino. Celia worries that despite his young age, Ivanito looks like his father, and she wonders what goes through Felicia’s head while she’s locked up with him. Celia hasn’t seen Hugo since Felicia was pregnant. Once, Hugo insisted on entering the del Pinos’ house even though Jorge had threatened to kill him. When Jorge came in that day, he wordlessly broke a dining-room chair over Hugo’s back. In response, Hugo punched him in the mouth. Jorge warned Felicia never to come back if she left with Hugo, but she did anyway.
Celia senses that there’s something unhealthy about Felicia’s relationship with her son and that it’s a continuation of the dysfunctional patterns between Felicia and Hugo. The tension in Felicia’s relationship with her father traces back to his hatred of Hugo and his insistence that she choose sides. Together, these dynamics suggest that intergenerational wounds are difficult to heal and that they have a continual ripple effect.
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Celia keeps visiting Felicia’s house, bringing food and trying to keep her and Ivanito clean. On her way home, she often stops by the ceiba tree in the nearby plaza, leaving an offering of coins and fruit and praying for Felicia. Occasionally she sees Herminia Delgado passing by carrying healing spices for Felicia. Herminia’s association with Santería unnerves Celia.
Celia does what she can to help Felicia, even participating in cultural superstitions—yet a more elaborate religious intervention, like Herminia’s, seems a step too far. In Celia’s mind, there’s a distinction between so-called harmless superstitions, which give human efforts a boost, and wholesale religious practices, which demand surrender to the supernatural.
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Quotes
The day when Felicia attempts suicide is similar to the rest. Celia hitchhikes to Felicia’s house with food for Ivanito. She assures Felicia that her job at the beauty shop is still there for her. Then she threatens to take Ivanito. Felicia promises that she’ll take Ivanito to the beach the next day. Celia takes heart from this.
Felicia’s suicide attempt stems from Celia’s threat to take Ivanito away from her. Celia is too quickly assured that Felicia is responsive to reason, underestimating how much Ivanito has become an obsession for Felicia .
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Outside, Celia passes a couple of her half-brothers in Old Havana but has nothing to say to them. On the bus ride home, she recalls being a baby with many siblings. Celia’s father had had two families, with nine children each. The two families lived down the street from each other and attended the same church but never acknowledged each other. After her parents divorced, Celia was sent to live with her Great-Aunt Alicia in Havana. On the train ride there, Celia forgot about her mother.
Celia has a complicated family history too, shaped by infidelity and hypocrisy. Perhaps this background helps explain why Celia never follows through on reuniting with Gustavo and only pretends to write to him—she knows that a mere obsession is harmful enough without being acted upon. Perhaps Celia’s lack of a relationship with her parents also shapes her struggles to relate to her own children.
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When Celia reached Havana, she soon fell in love with it and with Alicia. Great-Aunt Alicia educated Celia about the capital’s culture and introduced her to the ancient ceiba tree. Alicia also mocked churchgoers, and she took Celia to see American movies; they named their pet canaries after American movie stars.
Great-Aunt Alicia was a complete change from Celia’s rural, provincial upbringing, and her influence has shaped Celia’s view of culture, religion, and the world in general. Whereas Lourdes is devoutly Catholic, Alicia’s influence apparently made Celia cynical of religion. Further, the fact that Celia was once a fan of American movies suggests that she was not always so vehemently pro-Cuba—it seems this devotion to her country emerged in adulthood.
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That night, Celia sleeps restlessly, and when she wakes up, she sends the Luz and Milagro to Herminia’s house to get her to drive them to Felicia’s house immediately. She repeats “Mi hija,” over and over again, as if this could save her daughter.
Despite the conflict between them, Celia has a deep connection to Felicia that allows her to sense when Felicia is in danger and ultimately to save her life, suggesting that their bond transcends illness and conflict.
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