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Chapter 6
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Name is Emilia del Valle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Self-Discovery
Femininity and Feminism
The Power of Love
Challenge and Character
Class Exploitation
War
Summary
Analysis
Where most of the aristocracy have fled into the countryside or abroad, Paulina del Valle, who isn’t afraid of creating a stir, still lives defiantly in her grand home in Santiago. When she returned to Santiago after many years of living in San Francisco, it was with a much younger husband (later identified as Frederick Williams) in tow. People suspect that he used to be Paulina’s butler, but they’re too scandalized to truly accept that idea, so most people claim he’s minor British royalty.
It's obvious from this introduction that, no matter how rocky their initial meeting may be, Paulina and Emilia are destined to at the very least understand and respect each other. Both are strong women who don’t let others (or society’s opinions) dictate their actions.
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Mrs. Egan, who is friendly with Paulina, arranges for Emilia to call on her great-aunt. Paulina’s house is a study in the kind of extravagance and excess considered poor taste among the Chilean elites. Emilia briefly explains that she believes Gonzalo Andrés del Valle to be her father and that she’d like to meet him. Paulina won’t accept Emilia as a relative without proof, but she will help Emilia meet Gonzalo Andrés, whom she describes as a “slippery and cowardly” former rake who has since become a penitential Catholic. Emilia also elicits Paulina’s views on the civil conflict, which Paulina blames on President Balmaceda’s dictatorial actions and betrayal of the aristocratic class.
The extravagance of Paulina’s house emphasizes her willingness to do things her own way—again, much like Emilia. For Emilia, family is important because of the emotional bonds of love and support she shares with her mother and father. They’re also free to pay attention to these alone at least in part because they don’t have wealth or power. Paulina’s sense of family is clearly driven both by personal affection but also by an awareness of her status and a desire to protect the family resources (both money but also the political influence of the name). And, she gives Emilia yet another set of reasons for the civil war. Everyone is angry, but no one seems to agree on solutions. This makes the conflict, in a general sense, unwinnable. No matter what happens, some people will still be unhappy, and many will still be oppressed.
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Before Emilia leaves, Frederick Williams (whom Emilia recognizes as the butler who spoke to Molly on that long-ago day when they visited Paulina’s San Francsico mansion), returns from a walk. He states his fear that violence might break out at any moment. But he speaks kindly to Emilia, confirming much of what Paulina has said about Gonzalo Andrés’s turn toward religion.
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Three days later, Emilia receives an invitation to visit the Argentinian Ambassador, where she learns Gonzalo Andrés is among the asylum-seekers who are crammed into his residence. Because of his poor health and his personal connection to the ambassador, however, Gonzalo Andrés has his own room and a servant, (Rufina) tasked with his care. The ambassador turns Emilia over to Rufina, who will take her to her father, after he’s done with his prayers. After receiving confession with Father Restrepo, he always prays for at least an hour, she says. In the meantime, she offers Emilia a cup of tea.
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Emilia quickly learns that Rufina has worked in the Argentinian consulate for decades. And because Rufina reminds her of Molly and other women she grew up among in the Mission District, Emilia finds herself tearfully confiding her familial history. Rufina believes that Gonzalo Andrés suffers more from regret (and because of Father Restrepo’s fearful descriptions of hell) than from his lung disease.
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When Rufina finally shows Emilia into Gonzalo Andrés’s room, Emilia is surprised to find him frail and elderly. He recognizes Molly Walsh’s name and tacitly acknowledges his paternity by noting how much Emilia looks like he did when he was younger. He has no message, he says, for Molly. Emilia is about to leave when she realizes that he’s silently weeping. And that she is nearly as bitter toward him as her mother, but her bitterness melts away in the face of his evident suffering. She holds his hand.
Gonzalo Andrés is obsessed with and consumed by his guilt and regret, but Emilia also manages to engage him on other topics of conversation, including the current conflict. He despites President Balmaceda for unjustly (in his view) persecuting the elite. Punishments are meant to be handed down by the elites to the rotos and siúticos (upwardly mobile middle-class individuals trying to break into the ranks of the aristocracy), not the other way around. In almost the same breath, he proudly claims that any Chilean who works hard can get ahead, that no one who lacks birthright should belong to the elite, and that elites have earned their place in society through hard work and effort.
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Both because she’s a woman and because of their family’s elite status, Gonzalo Andrés is somewhat scandalized that Emilia earns a living as a journalist. He’s also deeply interested in what happened to Molly after he left, and he peppers Emilia with questions about her mother and her childhood. She tells him a version of the truth that emphasizes the good things and leaves out many of the bad ones, out of kindness toward him.
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Over the next few weeks, Emilia visits Gonzalo Andrés several times. She finds his social views “appalling” but also recognizes a great deal of her own character in him (or at least in who he was as a young man). She also learns about his youth. His own father died under mysterious circumstances when Gonzalo Andrés was young and inexperienced. Raised in wealth and comfort, he had no idea of how to manage the family’s estate and quickly squandered their wealth through mismanagement, gambling, and extravagance, leaving his mother and sisters destitute. He is desperate to feel connected to Emilia. He wants to know whether she thought about him or missed him when she was little. She lies and says she did.
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