A theme from “My Cloud” is the inevitability of aging. This theme connects to the theme in “Aura” because Consuelo desires youth and beauty over the reality of old age. “…I don’t have many years ahead of me, Senor Montero, and therefore I decided to break a lifelong rule and place an advertisement in the newspaper” (834). Consuelo is desperate for Filipe to finish her husband’s memoirs, knowing that she will die soon. She also knows that she will slowly lose her beauty as she ages, so she wants Felipe to finish as soon as possible. Her strong need for lasting youth and beauty has triumph over the actual reality of death. When Felipe reads the General’s journals, he notices Consuelo’s strong obsession with youth. Consuelo is insecure about her old age because she wants to stay youthful for her husband. (Ivy)
One theme from “My Cloud” is the search for youth and regaining what has already been lost. I feel like this connects to the theme in “Aura” because Consuelo is on a quest to recapture her youth and trying to regain what’s been lost. One quote that I found in the story is, “You plunge your face, your open eyes, into Consuelo’s silver-white hair, and you’ll embrace her again when the clouds cover the moon, when you’re both hidden again, when the memory of youth, of youth re-embodied, rules the darkness” (852). Consuelo’s main motivation throughout the story is to recapture her youth. When Felipe meets her, she is obviously really old and shows it. She changed in her time apart from the General and began to experiment to find a way to relive her youthful days. Her desire to relive the past is also related to her love for the General. (Alexandria)
Adding onto what Ivy and Alex had said, a theme from “My Cloud” that has floated about was the desire for everything to be exactly as it was during their youth. The very last quote from “Aura” went as “She’ll come back, Felipe. We’ll bring her back together. Let me recover my strength and I’ll bring her back…” (852). Where in “My Cloud” when it states “ It doesn’t taste like my cloud from when I was young” shows how the cloud even though changed for the better or worse, will not be the same as the cloud as it was before, which was so adored. In “Aura” the quote explains how in the end, Aura turns out to be Senora Consuelo. However Felipe only loves Aura which was the youthful Senora Consuelo. Even if Aura was crafted as a replica of the youthful Consuelo, Felipe would much rather prefer the young version that is Aura than Consuelo. (Michael)
4 responses so far ↓
d.kim5 // Apr 16th 2016 at 3:53 am
I totally agree with Alexandria’s opinion; I have a very similar opinion on the theme that connects between “Cloud” and “Aura.” I thought so too that Consuelo’s main motivation throughout the story is to recapture her youth. She wants it back. That is why she created Aura in the first place. She wants to be young again, meet the General again, and feel how she felt when she was young and with him. That’s why she uses Aura to be with Felipe who is just like the General or maybe the young version of the General.
z.huang1 // Apr 16th 2016 at 5:02 am
I agree with Michael’s idea toward the theme that people miss their innocent youth. By the end of “my cloud”, the narrator say “It doesn’t taste like my cloud from when I was young”, which directly express his melancholy feeling about the way he used to be. He intentionally use the verb “taste” to a layer of personal feeling. He is not only thinking about his memories when he was young. He tries to experience it, which shows how he misses his youth.
f.falconite // Apr 16th 2016 at 7:30 am
I also agree that the theme of growing old is both a theme in Cloud and Aura. In Aura, it is all about Felipe and Consuelo trying to remember and regain their youth even though they are growing very old. The quote that I like that you used is, “I don’t have many years ahead of me, Senor Montero, and therefore I decided to break a life long rule and place an advertisement in the newspaper.” This quote shows how Consuelo knows that she is growing old and still has things to do get her life to be complete. She insists on her husbands memory’s recorded, even though she is a sick old lady who has other things to worry about. The theme of the inevability of aging, as you said,is a very strong theme in this story.
mt070235 // Apr 16th 2016 at 11:59 am
I agree that the quote that you have chosen “She’ll come back, Felipe. We’ll bring her back together. Let me recover my strength and I’ll bring her back…” connects to the “Cloud”, because one the one hand, the old lady can’t let go her youth and wants to keep it forever. On the other hand, in “Cloud”, the narrative compares his/her cloud’s taste to the one from the youth: “it doesn’t taste like me cloud from when I was young”. The narrative misses being young and tries to alter and change her cloud to perhaps return what’s missing.
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