Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

Consider the colonization of the region that is now Mexico by Spain. During which period was this region colonized? How did this colonization shape the region’s political, economic, and social spheres? How has the legacy of colonization been immortalized in Latin American literature?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer provides the opportunity to introduce the themes of Identity, Doubling, and Colonialism and Memory and History in connection with the setting of the novella: mid-20th century Mexico. Colonized by Spain in the mid-16th century, the region that is now Mexico experienced significant political, social, and religious turmoil as Spanish conquest and diseases brought from Europe decimated Indigenous populations of the region while simultaneously enforcing a strict Spanish Catholic way of life. Fuentes’s exploration of colonialism is a crucial backdrop to the setting of the story. Although the protagonist is living in a postcolonial and independent Mexico, the majority of the story takes place under the heavy presence of Mexican colonial history: The house represents the pre-modern amenities of colonial days; Señora Llorente’s husband straddles the cultural lines between Europe and Mexico; and Felipe is a historian who focuses on a romanticized Spanish colonization of Mexico.