60 pages • 2 hours read
Sandra BenitezThe Weight of All Things
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 7-9
Chapter 7 Summary
Nicolás and Blanca search the riverbank for Tata. He shares his tortilla with Blanca and washes the statue of Our Lady in the river. Then Nicolás wades into the water to wash his sweaty body. The water only reaches as high as his waist. He admires the beauty of the landscape and the water and reflects on his schoolteacher who showed him the Sumpul on a map. She taught him that this river forms a border between El Salvador and Honduras, but Nicolás didn’t understand this concept as a child. To him the river was a source of water, fish, and fear. The river is supposedly haunted by “La Ziguanaba, the mad woman of legend with the savage looking eyes and the long wild hair. La Ziguanaba who had abandoned her small son and who, because of it, was sentenced to roam the riverbanks in search of him” (40). He is terrified of this mad woman and remembers his mother trying to calm his fears. The thought of her makes him sob and call her name. He dunks under the water to wash away his tears and returns home with Blanca.
Nicolás sits by the fire he has made after eating his dinner. He thinks of his mother and wonders what to do. He finds the address of his mother’s employer. He decides that it will be safer for him to spend the night in the cave since Tata has not returned home. In the cave, Nicolás lights a candle that transforms the space. He sets La Virgen Milagrosa on a ledge near the entrance. He places the candle near her so that it resembles a church niche. With a machete next to his hammock he falls asleep. He is awoken in the middle of the night by a voice seeming to come from the statue. Beams of light come from her hands as she says, “fear not, Nicolás, I am your mother, too, and I am with you” (43).
Chapter 8 Summary
Nicolás awakes and sees that Tata has not returned. He tries to divine possible reasons but knows that in all his years Tata has never not returned home. Nicolás looks at the statue of La Virgen and remarks on the fact that she spoke to him in the night. He wonders if he had really seen the beams of light and if she really had spoken to him. He looks at the box of his mother’s letters and knows that he must travel to San Salvador, where her employer lives. Blanca runs away toward home and Nicolás scurries after her. He sees that Blanca was drawn to a commotion in their yard: “There were strangers in the yard. They had rifles. They were dressed in the ragtag uniform of the people’s army, the FPL” (46).
Chapter 9 Summary
Nicolás runs down the hill, hoping to hide in the cave. He falls in his hurry and before he can get away a guerrillero steps out of the bushes and asks where Nicolás is going in such a hurry. He is a man in his 20s, carrying a rifle. Nicolás tells him he lives here, and the man tells him to try the climb again a little more carefully. Nicolás wishes he hadn’t left his machete in the cave. Suddenly his dog, Capitán, comes happily barking toward him. Nicolás realizes Tata must be home. Nicolás runs to find his grandfather and they hug each other as Nicolás sobs uncontrollably.
His grandfather soothes him and leads him toward the garden bench. Nicolás sees guerrilleros with rifles posted around their home. Before Tata can explain who these people are, a woman named Dolores comes out of the cooking shed wearing an M16 rifle. Tata introduces Nicolás to her, explaining that he is supposed to be in San Salvador with his mother. Tata continuously asks Nicolás what he is doing there and why he has come back. Nicolás decides he’s not ready to tell Tata the truth, so he claims they heard that El Retorno had been bombed and he came back to check on Tata. Dolores disgustedly refers to the army bombing the village, then thanks Nicolás for his hospitality. Nicolás doesn’t understand what this means so Tata says, “she’s the captain...she’s the one in charge” (50).
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Chapter 7 depicts Nicolás returning again to the safety and security of the cave. The cave comes to metaphorically represent the maternal. The tight, tunnel like entry and exit points and “the odor of exposed earth and deep enclosure” (42) conjure a womblike image. This is reinforced by La Virgen’s appearance to Nicolás in the cave. She tells him to “fear not, Nicolás, I am your mother, too, and I am with you” (43). Nicolás is metaphorically protected in the mother’s womb, kept safe from the world at large. Indeed, it is as soon as he leaves the cave that he encounters more danger in the form of the FPL.
When Tata sees that Nicolás has returned from San Salvador, he is visibly upset. The reader is meant to understand that Tata wanted Nicolás to be with his mother, where he would be safer. The novel frequently underscores the idea of the maternal as safety, and the paternal as danger. Though Tata loves Nicolás, he does not feel that Nicolás is safe with him. Chapter 9 introduces the idea that the Army represents the force of patriarchy, while the People’s Liberation Forces (FPL) represent matriarchy. The first leader of the FPL that Nicolás meets is Dolores. She is referred to as “the boss” (50), and she is the only female leader introduced in this novel. It is important to note that Nicolás emerges from the womblike cave only to be introduced to Dolores, who resembles the kind woman that served Nicolás tortillas after his mother died. In the Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary is sometimes referred to as Our Lady of Dolours (Dolores), or sorrows. For Nicolás, Dolores symbolically represents the loss of his mother and the losses and struggles of the El Salvadoran people in general.
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By Sandra Benitez
