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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mexican Gothic, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Sexism, Female Independence, and Power
Nature vs. Love
Colonialism
Life, Death, and Rebirth
Summary
Analysis
Noemí hears a heart beating so loudly that it wakes her up. She ventures carefully out of her room to find it. In the hallway she sees a woman staring back at her. It’s Ruth. She wears a white dressing gown, and her hair is like a golden halo. She holds a rifle between her hands. Ruth and Noemí walk side by aide, their movements perfectly synchronized. Noemí hears the heart beating inside the walls, and the walls themselves seem to be made of flesh. Ruth opens a door, and Noemí sees a man lying on a bed. His pale body overflows with blue veins, and tumors flower on his legs, hands, and belly.
Ruth’s appearance makes her seem angelic—her hair looks like a halo and she’s wearing white. But she’s like that mushroom, the destroying angel, because she’s also holding a rifle. Noemí and Ruth are described as being “perfectly synchronized,” as if one was a reflection of the other. This foreshadows events that take place later in the novel.
Themes
The man sits up and extends his arms towards Ruth, as if demanding an embrace. Ruth raises the rifle, and Noemí turns her head away. She hears the blast of the rifle, the scream of the man, and then a throaty moan. Noemí thinks the man must be dead. Ruth walks past her, back into the hallway. She turns to Noemí and says that she’s not sorry. Then she presses the rifle against her chin and pulls the trigger. The suicide does not unnerve Noemí, however. She feels that this is the way things should be; she feels soothed.
Ruth’s admission that she isn’t sorry for shooting her family members seems merciless. Either she had a reason for shooting them that made her feel justified, or she was mentally deranged. That Noemí feels soothed by Ruth’s actions seems to indicate that Ruth was justified in what she did.
Themes
But then she sees the figure standing in the hallway, watching her. It’s the golden woman, with a blur of a face, rushing toward Noemí and looking ready to eat her alive. Now Noemí is terrified. A hand on her shoulder jolts her awake. It’s Virgil. He’s standing in the middle of the hallway in a plush velvet robe with a pattern of gold running up the fabric. He has an oil lamp in his hand. He repeats her name, smooth on his lips. He tells her that he found her sleepwalking in the hallway. Noemí feels stupid, standing there in her night gown, gawking at him.
The identity of the golden woman is still a mystery, but apparently, it isn’t Ruth. Also, the woman is full of rage and continues to be an antagonistic force. That Noemí has begun to sleepwalk indicates that her mental state is continuing to decline.
Themes
Noemí hears a throaty moan, like in her dream, and it makes her jump. Virgil explains that his father is ill. He suffers from an old wound that never quite healed, and it pains him. Virgil offers his robe to Noemí. She refuses, but he places it on her shoulders anyway. He walks her back to her bedroom. His lantern casts an eerie glow, and Noemí thinks for sure that this house is haunted. When they get to her room, she finally feels at ease.
The moment when Virgil gives Noemí his robe mirrors an earlier moment between Francis and Noemí, when Francis gives her his sweater. In the earlier moment Francis obtains Noemí’s consent, then gives her his sweater. In contrast, here Virgil forcefully places his robe over Noemí’s shoulders. This small gesture reveals much about the two men’s personalities.
Themes
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Noemí lights a candle in her room and then begins to take the robe off, but Virgil stops her by placing his hand on her shoulder. He tells her that she looks very fine in his clothes. Noemí knows that the comment is inappropriate, but she finds herself unable to respond. It wasn’t really that bad of a comment, and she doesn’t want to start a fight over nothing. Virgil smiles and bids her goodnight, but there’s an edge to his smile that isn’t quite masked. Noemí thinks she sees a glimmer of gold in Virgil’s blue eyes, and she turns her head abruptly and stares at the floor. Virgil dims the lamp and steps away, marching down the hallway.
Virgil quite inappropriately flirts with Noemí, the cousin of his ill wife. Yet Noemí is unable to condemn him—she doesn’t want to start a fight over nothing. There’s a huge power imbalance between these two characters, and Virgil uses that in order to get away with small, inappropriate gestures.
Themes
