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Chapter 11
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
When Noemí wakes in the morning, she feels silly for being so afraid last night. In the daylight the house hardly seems cursed or haunted. She meets with Francis, and he drives her to town. Noemí walks to Marta’s house, who invites her inside. Marta gives Noemí the remedy for Catalina and tells her that one or two tablespoons will be enough. It won’t solve Catalina’s problems, though, because High Place is cursed. Noemí asks Marta if she knows why Ruth killed her family. Marta says that an explanation requires that she tell another story. She makes some coffee for the telling. Noemí drinks it, hoping it might help restore her appetite. She’s been feeling ill lately and hasn’t been very hungry.
Marta reinforces that there’s a supernatural explanation for the problems at High Place. Noemí is unwilling to believe this, even though she’s been sleepwalking, feeling ill, and having nightmares—just like Catalina.
Themes
When Howard Doyle reopened the mine, it was big news; people came from all over Hidalgo for the chance at a job. Where there’s a mine, there’s money, after all. But folks began complaining quickly—Howard Doyle treated his workers like animals. Both Howard and his brother Leland had no mercy on the Mexican mining crews. After a few years, the house was completed and the mine was operating smoothly. Howard was still hard, but he paid on time and the miners also got a small quota of silver—the partido, which is the way things have always been done.
The Doyles’ mine demonstrates that while the colonial system provided jobs, the indigenous workers were often underpaid and abused. It was a racist system where the white men on top benefited by mistreating the indigenous workers whose very land was being reaped for its resources.
Themes
A few years after the first epidemic, Howard remarried, and that’s when things began to turn sour. There was a second sickness, which killed a lot of workers. Then Howard decided to end the custom of the partido. There was a miner named Aurelio who convinced the other miners to go on strike: the pay was bad, they were treated terribly, and the work was dangerous. In response, Howard and a gang of trusted men went to the miner’s camp with rifles and threats, but Aurelio and the others fought back. Soon after, Aurelio was found dead. He didn't die of sickness, though. People who saw the body said he looked like he died of fright: his eyes were bulging and his mouth was open like a man who’d seen the devil.
That Howard violently puts down a movement to improve working conditions and pay shows how little he values his worker’s lives. He cares for profit, and not much else. Though Aurelio’s death is mysterious, it was certainly no accident. The implication of his death seems to be that Howard is like the devil, but it remains to be seen how he could possibly frighten a man to death.
Themes
The mine went on, Howard remarried, and his new wife gave birth to a girl, Ruth. Years passed. Aurelio’s nephew, Benito, worked in the house. Though Ruth was supposed to marry her cousin, she fell in love with Benito. When Howard found out, he nearly killed Ruth, Marta mutters. Noemí imagines Howard wrapping his fingers around the girl’s slim neck, and the image is so visceral that Noemí has to close her eyes and grip the table for support.
Howard’s belief in eugenics means that he carefully arranges his family’s marriages, in order to maintain what he believes is his family’s superb genetics. Ruth’s love for Benito not only threatens this deliberate planning, but also Howard is a racist, and the prospect of an interracial marriage for his daughter is something that greatly upsets him. That he beats his daughter into submission reveals just how terrible he is.
Themes
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Marta continues her story. After Howard found out, Ruth was punished. Benito vanished. Some said he ran off, others said Howard ordered him killed. Either way, Ruth was still expected to marry her cousin Michael that summer. One night before the wedding, Ruth grabbed the rifle and shot her father while he slept, because of what he’d done to her lover. But Noemí knows that Ruth didn’t stop after shooting her father, she killed other relatives too. She asks Marta what the others had to do with Benito, but Marta doesn’t know. Maybe Ruth thought they were guilty too, or maybe Ruth had gone mad. As she has already said, that house is cursed.
This passage begins to explain Ruth’s actions. Her attempt to kill Howard seems more justified now; Howard beat her and likely killed the man she loved. But Ruth’s murder of her other relatives still doesn’t make sense. Marta’s suggestion that Ruth was mad is one that is used to explain the actions of different women throughout the novel (such as Catalina’s letter, and some of Noemí’s later actions). But this explanation is doubtful—there’s a long history of labeling women “hysterical” as a way to dismiss their concerns, and Moreno-Garcia seems to be commenting on that history.
Themes
Marta asks Noemí if she’s ever heard of “mal de aire.” They’re places where the air itself is heavy because evil weighs it down. The bad air will get into the lungs of anybody who breathes it in. That’s what’s wrong with the Doyles, Marta says. She rises and gives Noemí a bracelet, which she says will protect her from the evil eye. Noemí takes it in order to avoid hurting Marta’s feelings, but she doesn’t believe that it’ll do anything. She then grabs Catalina’s medicine and walks back to town.
Marta’s explanation of “mal de aire” seems to coincide with an earlier theory of Noemí’s: that, like in the Victorian age, a dye in the wallpaper is releasing noxious fumes.
Themes
As she walks, Noemí notices that she has a rash on her wrist, so she decides to stop at the clinic. Dr. Camarillo examines the rash and finds it odd; it almost looks like Noemí came into contact with mala mujer, but the plant doesn’t grow around El Triunfo. He applies some ointment and wraps her wrist in a bandage. Noemí asks the doctor if he knows what would cause a person to start sleepwalking again. It’s something that she did when she was very young, but she hasn’t done it in ages—until last night. Dr. Camarillo suggests that it could be anxiety, and he apologizes that he can’t be more helpful. Noemí thanks him and leaves.
Mala mujer is indeed a plant, but its name translates to “bad woman,” which could be a nod towards Florence, or perhaps that golden woman that Noemí sees in her dreams. That Noemí has started sleepwalking again is evidence of her declining mental state, which the doctor indicates when he suggests that it could be caused by anxiety.
Themes
Noemí stops at a small store and buys a pack of cards to play with Catalina. She sends a letter to her father at the post office and then meets Francis. Rather than go back to High Place and face Virgil and Florence’s questions, Francis napped in the car while he waited for Noemí. Francis doesn’t look very attractive in the sunlight—he has a small upper-lip, heavy-lidded eyes, and his eyebrows arch a little too much—but Noemí likes him nevertheless. She teases him a little and then plants a kiss on his cheek.
Francis displays his allegiance to Noemí by remaining in town so as not to arouse suspicion in Virgil and Florence. Noemí’s comment that she likes Francis despite his bad looks displays her changing attitude toward men. In chapter One Noemí explained that she dated Hugo Duarte simply because he looked attractive. In contrast, here she kisses Francis in spite of his unattractiveness.
Themes
Francis asks Noemí if she finished all her errands, and she tells him that she talked to someone about High Place and the murders Ruth committed. Ruth wanted to run away with her lover, but instead she shot her whole family. It doesn’t make sense—why wouldn’t she just run away from High Place? Francis tells her it’s not so simple, you can’t just leave High Place. Noemí objects; Ruth was an adult—she could leave if she wanted to. Francis points out that Noemí is an adult woman. Can she do anything she wants, even if it upsets her family? This gives Noemí pause. Would she ever risk an outright rebellion against her family?
Though Ruth’s story doesn’t seem to have much bearing on Noemí’s current troubles, she thinks about it again and again. This exposes Noemí’s concern for other women—particularly women who’ve been wronged by men. Francis’s explanation that Ruth was unable to leave High Place sounds similar to something that Florence said about herself: the Doyles are meant to live and die in High Place—they cannot leave.
Themes
Francis continues. He tells Noemí that his mother, Florence, tried to leave High Place, but she came back. There’s no escaping it, and Ruth knew that. That’s why she did it. Noemí suggests that Francis almost sounds proud of Ruth. He turns and looks at her gravely. No, he isn’t proud, he says. But truth be told, he wishes that Ruth would have burned High Place to the ground.
Francis’s statement here is outright rebellious, and it reveals his true attitude regarding his family. He wishes that he could leave, but he feels trapped. He empathizes with Ruth, even though she did something terrible. Finally, it’s noteworthy that he can only make statements like this outside of High Place, away from his intrusive family.
Themes
