Adelita Character Analysis in Let the Great World Spin

A nurse at a nursing home where Corrigan picks up elderly patients to give them time outside. She has three young children and is from Guatemala, where her husband died and where she trained to be a doctor (when she moved to the United States to escape the Guatemalan Civil War, though, her university credentials didn’t transfer). Seeing an assortment of bruises on Corrigan’s arm one day, she diagnoses him with TTP, a blood disorder. In the time following this diagnosis, she massages Corrigan’s arms to get the blood moving, and this is how the two establish their romantic connection. Adelita and Corrigan fall in love, though Corrigan’s vows of celibacy make their relationship difficult until their time together is tragically cut short by Corrigan’s death.

Adelita Quotes in Let the Great World Spin

The Let the Great World Spin quotes below are all either spoken by Adelita or refer to Adelita. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

We seldom know what we’re hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what it really was, what it meant.

Related Characters: Ciaran Corrigan (speaker), John Andrew Corrigan (“Corrigan”), Adelita

Page Number and Citation: 47

Explanation and Analysis:

I know already that I will return to this day whenever I want to. I can bid it alive. Preserve it. There is a still point where the present, the now, winds around itself, and nothing is tangled. The river is not where it begins or ends, but right in the middle point, anchored by what has happened and what is to arrive. You can close your eyes and there will be a light snow falling in New York, and seconds later you are sunning upon a rock in Zacapa, and seconds later still you are surfing through the Bronx on the strength of your own desire. There is no way to find a word to fit around this feeling. Words resist it. Words give it a pattern it does not own. Words put it in time. They freeze what cannot be stopped.

Related Characters: Adelita (speaker), John Andrew Corrigan (“Corrigan”)

Page Number and Citation: 278-9

Explanation and Analysis:

Adelita Quotes in Let the Great World Spin

The Let the Great World Spin quotes below are all either spoken by Adelita or refer to Adelita. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

We seldom know what we’re hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what it really was, what it meant.

Related Characters: Ciaran Corrigan (speaker), John Andrew Corrigan (“Corrigan”), Adelita

Page Number and Citation: 47

Explanation and Analysis:

I know already that I will return to this day whenever I want to. I can bid it alive. Preserve it. There is a still point where the present, the now, winds around itself, and nothing is tangled. The river is not where it begins or ends, but right in the middle point, anchored by what has happened and what is to arrive. You can close your eyes and there will be a light snow falling in New York, and seconds later you are sunning upon a rock in Zacapa, and seconds later still you are surfing through the Bronx on the strength of your own desire. There is no way to find a word to fit around this feeling. Words resist it. Words give it a pattern it does not own. Words put it in time. They freeze what cannot be stopped.

Related Characters: Adelita (speaker), John Andrew Corrigan (“Corrigan”)

Page Number and Citation: 278-9

Explanation and Analysis: