Found in the last of Gabriela Mistral’s published books of poetry, Una mujer (A Woman) reflects the maturity and skill of its author. Lagar (Wine Press) is the product of an experienced poet, although the volume reflects the issues that interested Mistral throughout her life.

Known as a teacher, diplomat, and poet, Mistral was also interested in women and women’s issues; much of her poetry, including Una mujer, demonstrates that concern. Although she dabbled in Buddhism, Mistral was primarily a Christian poet, though never doctrinaire. Instead, her poetry was often imbued with a quiet sense of divinity inherent in the Creation.

Una mujer, from the section entitled Locas mujeres (Crazy Women) in Lagar, may be interpreted on a number of levels, from the purely autobiographical to the spiritual. Like the woman in the poem, Mistral lost a child—her adopted son, Yin Yin. And like the woman in the poem, Mistral gained comfort in envisioning a future in which they might again meet. But Mistral’s own past does not necessarily yield the most fruitful analysis of the poem. Instead, Una mujer should be regarded as a consummate blend of Mistral’s feminist leanings and her religious devotion.

An excellent example of Mistral’s lyric poetry, the poem examines the fate of an unnamed woman who apparently has lost all: her house has burned, she is isolated, her son is dead. The woman may be cautiously associated with the Virgin Mary of Christian tradition, although no explicit identification is made.

The poet speaks of the pine of Aleppo, a tree said to have originated in Aleppo (a region of northern Syria linked to early Christianity) and whose wood has been connected with the original Cross. More telling is the speaker’s identification of the Aleppo pine with her child and her description of his death. Because these allusions are subtle, the woman may more truly represent any mother, including Mistral herself.

Despite the permanence of death, the woman in the poem is not without hope, and the poem is not pessimistic. In parentheses the poem observes that “El día vive por su noche / y la noche por su milagro” (The day lives for its night, the night for its miracle), suggesting that the irreversible sadness of the woman is but half of the reality.

The woman also envisions her son in every tree, seeing his presence still around her, and “en el fuego de su pecho / lo calienta, lo enrolla, lo estrecha” (She warms and wraps and holds him close / to the fire of her breast). Despite his physical death, her love has not ended, and their separation is not eternal.

Though her loss has been devastating, the woman is not destroyed; her own emotions save both her and her memory of her child. In her namelessness she is universal; she is truly una mujer, a woman, any woman.

Bibliography
Mistral, Gabriela. Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral. Translated by Doris Dana. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971.

Categories: Chilean Literature, Literature, World Literature

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