The narrator said, “I don’t know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and at the start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine” (Bolano). Evident in the story is the fact that women will quickly lose their attraction to a man who overtly portrays his affection for them without tinges of subtlety and indifference. If perhaps Clara’s lover had been aloof about his deep love and indifferent to her actions, he would have had a better opportunity with her. Clara refuses to commit to her friend when he asks to move in with him in Barcelona. In her rejection letter, she highlights the “intolerable pressure” that the moving in the suggestion is putting on her. Before she rejects him, everything is okay between them because they spend time doing fun things and also make love on several occasions. Their bone of contention arises when the man wants to change the dynamic of their relationship.
Clara is challenged by psychological problems for a reasonable period of time throughout her life. “She used to dream about rats; at night she would hear them in her bedroom, and for months” (Bolano). The nightmares she has every now and then about rats take a heavy toll on her. She is so seriously affected that she develops some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes her avoid her bedroom and sleep in the lounge.
Nonetheless, “Luis was a sensitive guy” (Bolano). Luis breaks up with Clara she lapses to depression once more. Clara had never been left in her life by a man, and when Luis ended their marriage, it was not easy for her. To mitigate her trauma, she starts to see a psychiatrist and takes an anti-depressant prescription. The story shows how Clara takes her frustrations seriously such that she becomes unhappy in life. She seeks inner peace for a long time now; sometimes Clara thinks she would find it if she is able to travel and paint as much as she wanted.
The story is about dysfunctional relationships and midlife crises. First we are able to meet Clara, who has had a number of unsuccessful unions with men. Moreover, the man who Clara made love to for the first time remains hung up on her for the rest of his life. He never moves on, and this is evident because he keeps initiating contact with her; an inherent need to keep tabs with what transpires in Clara’s life. Clara is bothered about the paintings she has not been able to do, the places she is yet to travel to. This is a midlife crisis on her part. Unfortunately, it is one of the reasons for her depression.
Work Cited
Bolano, Roberto “Clara.” The New Yorker. 04 April 2008. Web. 10 May 2015.
< http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/08/04/clara-2>.
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