On Reading Fuentes: Plant Lore, Sex, and Death in "Aura"

Author(s): John T. Cull

Source: Chasqui , Nov., 1989, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Nov., 1989), pp. 18-27
Published by: Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29740176

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On Reading Fuentes:
Plant Lore, Sex, and Death in Aura

John T. Cull
College of the Holy Cross

"All witchcraft comes from carnal

lust, which is in women insatiable."
(Malleus Maleficarum I. Q. 6)

A convention of fantastic literature that many critics agree on is the process by which
something supernatural irrupts in the midst of an otherwise routine and normal
environment. The intrusion of the paranormal gives rise to a tension, or vacillation, that
continues unabated until the disturbing phenomenon passes or is explained in terms of the
known physical laws of the universe. At times, as in the case of science fiction, there is no
attempt to reconcile the reader's world with that depicted in the work of fiction. However,
in order for the reader to leave the text with a sense of satisfaction and comfort, many
successful examples of fantastic literature reach or intimate some form of resolution. The
knowledge that the reader brings to the text contributes, then, to the dissipation of the
sensation of the uncanny, once in possession of the code that deciphers the mystery.1 For

* The sources for my ideas on the fantastic are, primarily, Harry Belevan, Teor?a de lo fant?stico: Apuntes para
una din?mica de la literatura de expresi?n fant?stica (Barcelona: Editoral Anagrama, 1976); Tzvetan Todorov,
The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Cornell
18

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John T. Cull 19
the naive reader of Carlos Fuentes' Aura, a sense of disbelief is at work throughout the
narration, and the final revelations serve to attenuate the vacillation only partially.2
However, a more informed reading of the textual clues allows the reader to resolve the
fantastic process long before the novella's chilling denouement. This study explores the
way Fuentes uses certain recurring motifs and ancient plant lore to forge a haunting tale of
seemingly irreconciliable opposites that are nevertheless masterfully interwoven: reality
and fantasy, past and present, sex and death.
On a more fundamental level, Felipe Montero's trajectory takes him on a passage from
innocence to experience, from light to darkness, from life to death. Fuentes plants the
seeds of the outcome from the very beginning. The address towards which the protagonist
feels a hypnotic attraction is "Donceles 815." One of the definitions of doncel is "a man
who has not carnally known a woman," as if Felipe were a sacrificial virgin magically
drawn to some pagan altar. The second significant indication to be gleaned from the initial
page of the narrative, numbing in the incantatory drone of its second-person narrator, is the
statement "no hay tel?fono" (11). Felipe succumbs to some inexplicable force, a figurative
siren's call, and is drawn into an enclosed, walled-in space, where he is utterly
incommunicado from the rest of the world. Montero's destiny is in many respects a return
to the womb, a notion to be developed in more detail below. The sense of claustrophobic
isolation is reiterated throughout the novella: Felipe's erroneous belief that "en el viejo
centro de la ciudad no vive nadie" (13)3 (a harbinger of the morbid sterility of the house
and its occupants); the "ventanas ensombrecidas" (13) that keep out the light; Consuelo
Ll?rente's explanation that "nos amurallaron, se?or Montero. Han construido alrededor de
nosotras, nos han quitado la luz" (29) (a clear suggestion of entombment); the widow
"parapetada contra los almohadones" (38), as well as Felipe's impression of Aura as
"encerrada como un espejo, como un icono m?s de ese muro religioso" (42).
Nevertheless, it is not a feeling of confinement nor entrapment that sets in motion the
fantastic process. Rather, the narration only acquires its irrevocably fantastic dimension
when Felipe crosses the threshold of Consuelo's house and "penetrates" a new reality:
"Cierras el zagu?n detr?s de ti e intentas penetrar la oscuridad de ese callej?n techado?
patio, porque puedes oler el musgo, la humedad de las plantas, las ra?ces podridas, el
perfume adormecedor y espeso?. Buscas en vano una luz que te gu?e" (14). The young
historian's entrance into the ominous house hints at the act of sexual penetration. It is a
liminal experience that marks a transition from innocence to initiation. Felipe will never
disentangle himself from Consuelo's web. His crossing the threshold is an act that has
some parallels with Lazarillo de Tormes' arrival at the house of the escudero.4 At the same

University Press, 1975); and Louis Vax, Arte y literatura fant?sticas, trans. Juan Merino (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Universitaria, 1971).
2 Jaime Alazraki notes that the presence of the uncanny in Aura is probably not intended to induce fear in the
reader (95). After summarizing Fuentes' debt to La Sorci?re, he concludes: "one must look for Aura's
originality not so much in the sources from which the bulk of its story comes, in this element or that motif,
as in the disposition of its materials" (98). "Theme and System in Carlos Fuentes' Aura" Carlos Fuentes: A
Critical View, eds. Robert Brody and Charles Rossman (Austin: Texas University Press, 1982), 95-105.
3 I assume that Felipe Montero is the narrator of Aura. In light of my interpretation of the herbs in the garden,
I cannot agree with Frank Dauster that "it is never indicated that Felipe has been altered physically" (107),
nor that Aura is "a classic case of the unreliable narrator as madman" (108). "The Wounded Vision: Aura,
Zona sagrada, and Cumplea?os" Carlos Fuentes: A Critical View, eds. Robert Brody and Charles Rossman
(Austin: Texas University Press, 1982), 106-120. Santiago Rojas, on the other hand, offers the provacative
theory that Consuelo is the narrator, and that Felipe Montero is not a real entity, but rather another
conjuration of the witch. "Modalidad narrativa en Aura: Realidad y enajenaci?n," Revista Iberoamericana 46
(1980): 487-497.
4 I do not wish to imply that Felipe is a picaro. Nevertheless, he shares traits in common with Lazarillo. They
are both relatively innocent and naive until they cross the thresholds that lead to a dark and gloomy
initiation from which neither will manage to extricate himself. The house into which Lazarillo enters is
certainly a figurative tomb: "y abri? su puerta, y entramos en casa. La cual ten?a la entrada obscura y l?brega

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 20 On Reading Fuentes: Plant Lore, Sex, and Death in Aura
time, Felipe's initial impression, with its unusual emphasis on olfactory sensations,
prefigures the orgy of non-visual senses that characterize his sojourn at Donceles 815." It
is precisely this symbolic blinding that constitutes the reader's first identifiable motivation
for a sensation of the uncanny; a sensation that in reality is deftly implemented through the
choice of a second-person narrator, through symbols, and through plant lore.
Before examining in some detail the nature of the plants whose aromas are like a sleep
inducing perfume ("aura," after all, can mean "a subtle emanation or exhalation from any
substance, e.g., the aroma of blood, the odor of flowers," OED), we will consider some of
the other repeated symbols that, in combination with plant lore, allow the reader to capture
some of the subdeties of Aura. The most elusive of these is the omnipresent door, the
word occurs no fewer than 44 times in the brief narration. Most often it is with reference to
a special kind of door: the puerta de golpe, one that requires a special effort to close
properly; one that is inviting and suggestive of permitting unimpeded access and egress. If
the house is indeed a womb, its doors cannot help but be sexually symbolic, much in the
same way that the protagonists of Cort?zar's "Casa tomada" are born into the world
through the house's puerta cancel. At the very least, the door at "Donceles 815"
symbolizes the passage from one reality to another.
A number of recurring motifs in Aura contribute to the atmosphere of unbridled and
sickly lust that permeates the novella. The color green, whether in Aura's green eyes, in
her green clothes, in the disgusting green slime that covers the wine bottle from which
Felipe drinks (24), or in the greenish curtains over the windows (13), is a well-established
symbol of sexuality (Cirlot, 54), especially in the tradition of Lorca's "Romance
son?mbulo." In addition, the cats that seem to materialize at significant junctures in the
narration are a "symbol of laziness and lust" (Ferguson, 8). This aspect of their nature
seems evident when we see Consuelo crawling a gatas (28,44), and notably in the passage
of General Llorente's memoirs that reveals infertile Consuelo's hatred of cats and her erotic
delight in torturing one: "un d?a la encontr?, abierta de piernas, con la crinolina levantada
por delante, martirizando a un gato y no supo llamarle la atenci?n.. .e incluso lo excit? el
hecho, de manera que esa noche la am?, si le das cr?dito a tu lectura, con una pasi?n
hiperb?lica" (41).
Another recurring symbol of lust, and an ironic foil to Consuelo for its legendary
fecundity, is her compa??a or compa?era (18-19), the rabbit which she seems to be able to
metamorphose into Aura. The rabbit is "a byword for fecundity in all ages and hence a
symbol of lust" (Hall, 257; Ferguson, 18). A final emblem of lust is the he-goat. Felipe
surprises Aura in the kitchen while she is ritualistically slashing the throat of a macho
cabr?o. This act can be interpreted as a symbolic castration, since "to pagan antiquity the
goat generally symboloized lust" (Hall, 139). This emasculation can be viewed as
Consuelo's revenge upon her husband for her inability to bear a child. Felipe's reaction is
one of nausea: "el vapor que surge del cuello abierto, el olor de sangre derramada, los ojos
duros y abiertos del animal te dan n?useas" (42). There is obviously a systematic intent in
Aura to associate apparendy inexplicable happenings with perverse sexuality.
There can be no doubt that Consuelo Ll?rente is a witch whose obsessive lust is
motivated by her sterile desire to bear chidren. This is made explicit only when Felipe
unearths the truth in General Llorente's papers: "s? por qu? lloras a veces, Consuelo. No
te he podido dar hijos, a ti, que irradias la vida" (56-57). The protagonist confirms this
barreness when he refers to the product of his union with Aura as a "concepci?n est?ril de
la noche pasada" (51). The paradoxical image of a sterile conception in turn suggests
something aborted or stillborn. Consuelo's sterility may in fact be a real or imagined case
of mal de madre, an hysterical disease of the womb included in many ancient medical
treatises. Fray Agust?n Farf?n, for example, in his Tractado breve de medicina (Mexico,
1592), dedicates a chapter to this malady, most common in widows. According to Farf?n,

de tal manera, que paresce que pon?a temor a los que en ella entraban" (131). La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y
sus fortunas y adversidades (1554), ed. Alberto Blecua (Madrid: Cl?sicos Castalia, 1972).

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John T. Cull 21
these women can die from "retention of the seed", and the remedy to the affliction is the use
of medicines that provoke sneezing or expectoration (ff. 72-74). This malady could indeed
explain some of the many medicines Felipe notices on Consuelo's night-table: "los frascos
de distinto color, los vasos, las cucharas de aluminio, los cartuchos alineados de p?doras y
comprimidos, los dem?s vasos manchados de l?quidos blancuzcos que est?n dispuestos en
el suelo" (17). More to the point, the mal de madre, as described by Farf?n, also clarifies
the reason for the widow's coughing fits (28), and especially, the expectorating and
sneezing to which Felipe is a queasy witness: "pasa a tu lado sin mirarte, son?ndose con
un pa?uelo, son?ndose y escupiendo continuamente (54), and "apoyada en ese bast?n,
escupiendo, estornudando como si quisiera expulsar algo de sus v?as respiratorias, de sus
pulmones congestionados" (55). The futile attempts to expel phlegm hint at Consuelo's
inability to give birth. Indeed, Consuelo's lack of fecundity, established in previous
studies, is inextricably bound to witchcraft. The Malleus Maleficarum, the late medieval
handbook on witchcraft for the use of Inquisitors, states that "it is witchcraft...when a
woman is prevented from conceiving" (I. Q. 11,66).
Virtually all of the elements of Consuelo's gloomy retreat enumerated above are
traditionally associated with witchcraft. As such, the Malleus, or The Witches' Hammer
(1490), is a useful tool in interpreting some of the episodes in Aura, as in Michelet's La
Sorci?re.5 For example, if Consuelo does in fact reside on the street of "male virgins", and
Aura is a conjured succubus that serves her bidding, a precedent is found in the Malleus:
"it may happen that men or women are by witchcraft entangled with Incubi or Succubi
against their will. This chiefly happens in the case of certain virgins who are molested by
Incubus devils wholly against their will" (II. Q. 2, Ch. 1,164). The same source indicates
that Felipe is likely victim, for "the veneral act can be more readily and easily bewitched in
a man than in a woman" (167). There are many parallels between the Malleus (M) and
Aura (A). They include: the devil's ability to agitate and disturb the senses (M, 58; A, 26);
his use of herbs to change the disposition of the body and the emotions (M, 40,168,234);
his interposing himself between two bodies to prevent them from touching (M, 55,168; A,
19); his use of dreams to create illusions in men's minds (A?, 50; A, 37), and the belief that
witchcraft is practiced during particular phases of the moon (M, 40; A, 47, 60-61).
Nevertheless, the perceptive reader is aware that witchcraft depends not on the supernatural
intervention of demons, but rather on the creation of illusions of the supernatural. One of
the keys to the recognition of these illusions, and subsequently the resolution of the
fantastic process, are the plants in Aura/Consuelo's garden.
"Garden" is a word that conjures up images of sensual delights, of the unencumbered
eroticism we associate with prelapsarian man in paradise. Etymologically, paradise derives
from the Persian word for "walled garden", though "garden" in Aura represents both
paradise and prison (Parkinson Zamora, 324-326). The nefarious use to which Aura's
garden is put causes it to be linked to darkness, humidity, fetidness, and rot (14).
Consuelo informs a curious Felipe that her "niece" uses the garden to cultivate "algunas
plantas de sombra. Pero eso es todo" (33). The significance of the plants in the garden is
revealed in Felipe's first dream in many years, the night he is apparently joined carnally
with Aura. The predominant sensation in Felipe's recollection of the dream is Aura's
fragrance: "hueles en su pelo el perfume de las plantas del patio" (38). An element of
unfettered sexuality envelops the plants from the very beginning.
It is not until Felipe's furtive visit to the garden that its contents are made manifest.
Montero, as historiographer of the Golden Age, recognizes the herbs in the garden from his
knowledge of cr?nicas viejas (46). The plants include: bele?o (henbane: Hyoscamus
niger); dulcamara (bittersweet or woody nightshade: Solanum dulcamara); gordolobo
(great mullein: Verbascum thapsus); and belladona (deadly nightshade: Atropa belladona).

^ The role of Jules Michelet's La Sorci?re on Aura has been exhaustively studied by Ana Mar?a Alb?n de
Viquiera, "Estudio de las fuentes de Aura de Carlos Fuentes," Comunidad 2.8 (1967): 396?402, and Janice
Geasler Titiev, "Witchcraft in Carlos Fuentes' Aura" Revista de Estudios Hisp?nicos 15 (1981): 395^*05.

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 22 On Reading Fuentes: Plant Lore, Sex, and Death in Aura
All have a long tradition in folklore and witchcraft. The narrator's recollection of their
alleged properties is only partial: "t? recreas los usos de este herbario que dilata las
pupilas, adormece el dolor, alivia los partos, consuela, fatiga la voluntad, consuela con una
calma voluptuosa" (46-47). The reader is immediately aware that these plants offer a
sensual consolation to Consuelo for her inability to bear children. Their significance,
however, is even greater, as established in both ancient and modem chronicles. The lore
surrounding these plants that thrive in the shade, along with their real properties, help
clarify some of Aura9 s many ambiguities.
Henbane?Felipe's ability to sleep and dream in Consuelo's eerie house is attributable
in part to the different types of henbane: "hacen enloquecer, y engendran sue?os muy
graves" (DLM IV.70, 417). The sixteenth-century translator of Dioscorides, like Felipe
afflicted with insomnia, relates a curious anecdote of how an old witch cured his insomnia
with henbane. The narcotic properties of the plant explain Felipe's hypnotic, trance-like
state, and his inability to discern reality from illusion. Henbane, a foul-smelling plant,
could be administered internally or externally. In fact, one of the reasons for Aura's
ritualistic cleansing of Felipe's feet may have been to administer the drug: "to wash the feet
in the decoction of Henbane causeth sleepe; and also the often smelling of the floures"
(Gerard, 88).
Henbane also served Consuelo. A traditional plant of witches, henbane was an
ingredient in the narcotic ointment with which witches smeared themselves before "flying
off' to their sabbats (Gordon, 91). The numerous references in the novella to the witch's
teeth (40, 44, 61, etc.) may be a result of the apperance of the henbane plant: "the old
healers believed that a seeded branch of henbane resembled a jaw with teeth" (Gordon, 91).
Consuelo doubtless employed henbane in a love potion. This narcotic plant, a hallucinogen
and sedative, is a known stimulant to lust: "witch doctors, sorcerers, and herbal specialists
were responsible for many deaths through the dispensing of numerous love potions
containing henbane... Sorcerers applied an ointment made from henbane leaves.
According to ancient Greek mythology, when the dead entered the underworld they were
crowned with garlands made of Henbane" (Stark, 43). The properties of henbane, real and
legendary, in addition to illuminating some aspects of Aura that at first glance seem
supernatural, also fuse the themes of sex and death, haunting constants in the pages of
Aura.
Bittersweet?Also known as woody nightshade, this second plant in Aura's garden
is not as rich in lore as is henbane. It has been used as a menstrual medicine (Stark, 43).
In this capacity, bittersweet can be seen as a plant that comforts and draws attention to
Consuelo's infertility. Bittersweet was also used "to remove witchcraft both in men and
beast" (Culpeper, 30). This suggests the possibility that Consuelo employed the plant to
counteract her magical spells and potions, in order to allow Felipe to continue his work on
the general's diaries. However, the most intriguing justification for the inclusion of
bittersweet in Aura's garden is that it has "been used for obstinate skin diseases"
(Culpeper, 30). That is to say, Consuelo may use a decoction of bittersweet to counteract
the repulsive erysipelas rash that covers the hag's legs: "las piernas se asoman como dos
hebras debajo del camis?n, flacas, cubiertas por una erisipela inflamada; piensas en el roce
continuo de la tosca lana sobre la piel" (27).6
Like henbane, bittersweet is a narcotic, and it is even capable of paralyzing the central
nervous system (Culpeper, 30). Both herbs help explain Felipe's trance-like somnolence.
The acidez pastosa that Felipe experiences on his tongue the morning after Aura feeds him
what appears to be a communion wafer (49), may be due to the fact that the bittersweet
berries taste sweet at first, but leave a strong, unpleasant aftertaste (Gerard's Herball, 83
84).
6 It is perhaps not coincidental that Farf?n's chapter on the "cura particular de la Erisipela" follows that on
"mal de Madre." His recommendation for the patient's bedroom clarifies the need for darkness in the house:
"est? muy oscuro y con poca luz, porque el resplandor enciende la Erisipela" (ff. 78v-79r).

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John T. Cull 23
Great mullein?Several reasons justify the appearance of great mullein in the garden.
On the most pragmatic level, Consuelo needs the stalk of the plant for the wicks of the
candles that bum constantly at her altar to evil (DLM IV. 105,442-443). Nevertheless, the
plant's significance for Aura is due to its use in witchcraft: "mullein had a darker and more
sinsister side. Cricc used it in her incantations and therefore it was the plant of all witches
and sorceresses since it served to light them in their rites?hence the names hag-taper and
pig's taper" (Gordon, 119). The reference to Circe is important, and will be taken up
again. It is perhaps germane to mention that mullein was used to dye dark hair blonde in
ancient times (Gordon, 119), since Fuentes places emphasis on Consuelo's pelo plateado
or pelo blanco on several occasions (16,61). Both of these properties of mullein, as taper
and hair dye, seem to coincide in the final visual image of the novella: "hundir?s tu cabeza,
tus ojos abiertos, en el pelo plateado de Consuelo, la mujer que volver? a abrazarte cuando
la luna pase, tea tapada por las nubes" (62). Tea is cand?ewood, and it allegedly bums like
a torch.
Belladonna?Deadly nightshade is the plant most notably steeped in lore of those
found in Consuelo's sinister garden. If the root of the plant is taken with wine, "representa
ciertas im?genes vanas, aunque muy agradables a los sentidos: y bebi?ndose en cantidad
doblada, tiene fuera de s? al hombre tres d?as: y de hecho le mata, si se bebe cuadruplicada"
(DLM IV.75,420). Felipe's wine from the slimy bottle may have been spiked. Andr?s de
Laguna's annotations to the chapter on belladonna contain an anecdote about a pair of
witches which sheds some light on the symbolism of the omnipresent color green in Aura.
Among the possessions discovered at the witches' dwelling "fue una olla medio llena de un
cierto ung?ento verde, como el del popule?n: con el cual se untaban: cuyo olor era tan
grave y pesado, que mostraba ser compuesto de hierbas.. .cuales son la Cicuta, el Solano,
el Bele?o, y la Mandragora" (DLM IV.75, 422). Laguna observes that a jealous woman
covered with the salve has "los ojos abiertos como conejo, pareciendo tambi?n ella
propiamente una liebre cocida" (DLM IV.75, 422). This could explain the apparent
transformation of a rabbit into Aura in Fuentes' text. It is also interesting, in view of
Felipe's erotic dreams or experiences with Aura/Consuelo, that the woman observed by
Laguna enjoyed erotic sensations while under the spell of the potion or ointment. Upon
being awakened from her reveries, she complained bitterly and berated her husband:
"taca?o, h?gote saber que te he puesto el cuerno, y con un gal?n m?s mozo y m?s estirado
que t?" (DLM IV.75,422), a fantasy that elicits this commentary by Laguna: "todo cuanto
dicen y hacen las desventuradas brujas es sue?o, causado de brebajes y unciones muy
fr?as" (DLM IV.75, 422).
Belladonna is also important as a plant intimately related to death. Its generic name,
atropa, comes from ?tropos, the Fate responsible for cutting the thread of life (Gordon,
21). Death and sexual stimulation are joined in the nefarious plant: "aphrodisiac values are
present in Deadly Nightshade, but its extreme toxicity nullifies its effectiveness as a sexual
stimulant and physchedlic" (Stark, 67). Belladonna is the most potent weapon in
Consuelo's deadly garden, and a fitting emblem of her infertility. The sex act does not
generate life for her or for her victims, but a spiritual and perhaps physical death. The plant
belladonna, in short, is a plant tended to by the devil himself, except on Walpurgis night
(May 1), when he prepares for the witches' sabbath (Stark, 67). On this night of pagan
debauchery, this "devil's herb" may "metamorphose into an enchantress lovely to behold,
but deadly to the viewing" (Emboden, 126).
Felipe Montero's evening meals are invariable: wine, kidneys, and tomatoes. The
spiked wine of Bacchanalian orgies purportedly contained belladonna, along with other
narcotics. As part of the magical potions and ointments of medieval witches, "the mixture
was used as an ointment rubbed onto the body or introduced via the mucous membranes of
the vaginal labia" (Emboden, 127). This unguent recalls, of course, the mysterious
substance inside the voodoo doll that Aura rubs on her thighs before making love with
Felipe: "coloca ese objeto contra los muslos cerrados, lo acaricia, te llama con la mano.
Acaricia ese trozo de harina delgada, lo quiebra sobre sus muslos" (49).
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 24 On Reading Fuentes: Plant Lore, Sex, and Death in Aura
Henbane, bittersweet, mullein, and belladonna: these are the herbs that make Consuelo
Ll?rente a modern Circe.7 Like the famous sorceress celebrated for her knowledge of
herbal medicine and delight in voluptuousness, Consuelo lures men into her trap by feeding
them a spiked drink. The nature of these herbs in the witch's garden explains ?Se sensation
of impudicia hipn?tica (25) that Felipe feels powerless to control. The papers of General
Ll?rente substantiate this contention: "le advert? a Consuelo que esos brebajes no sirven
para nada. Ella insiste en cultivar sus propias plantas en el jard?n. Dice que no se enga?a.
Las hierbas no la fertilizar?n el cuerpo, pero s? en el alma" (57). If Felipe is indeed the
reincarnation of the general, perhaps the diet of kidneys is an attempt to exact revenge by
making him sterile as well: "dicen que si [el p?pulo blanco] se bebe con el ri?on del mulo,
causa esterilidad" (DLM 1.89, 67). Other interpretations of Felipe's diet would seem to
argue the opposite: "se cre?a que el tomate ayudaba a las mujeres est?riles, que ten?a el
poder de excitar la voluptuosidad. Hist?ricamente, se asocia con la fertilidad. Los r??ones
y otros ?rganos de animales se com?an con el fin de provocar la concepci?n" (Dickinson
Carter, 116).
Consuelo Llorente's ominous house is a sterile womb that enshrouds the widow and all
who dare to venture inside. Felipe Montero embarked on a symbolic journey deep inside
this matrix. No return to light is possible. He will not be reborn, unless it is in an aborted
form. Felipe is doomed to the same fate that Consuelo casts for herself towards the
beginning of the novella: "s?lo muerta me sacar?n de aquf ' (29). In the words of Zeitz,
"Aura relata la muerte de Felipe Montero: su salida del mundo 'exterior', de los vivos; su
entrada al mundo 'interior' sin vida, de la casona; su incorporaci?n a esta casa, o sea, su
fallecimiento y su concomitante uni?n con Consuelo" (81). Felipe is unaware of his being
figuratively buried alive, although in his chosen profession as historiographer, he is
constantly attempting to go back in time; to return to within the womb, and beyond.
Montero is unable to appreciate the horror of Aura's reply to his suggestion that the two go
"afuera, al mundo" (53). She counters with "hay que morir antes de renacer" (53).
The reader, however, is by now aware that Montero is, in a sense, a dead fetus in the
womb of Consuelo and her house, something akin to the/ito canino (13) that serves as an
emblematic door knocker to the surprises that await beyond the threshold. Death is what is
needed for Felipe to be stillborn back into the world. This is perhaps the meaning of
Consuelo's words before the altar: "llega, Ciudad de Dios; suena trompeta de Gabriel; Ay,
pero c?mo tarda en morir el mundo!" (28). Even though Michelet appears to be Fuentes'
inspiration here (Geasler Titiev, 403), St. Augustine's City of God, which deals at length
and almost obsessively with death, cannot be ruled out as a source. It forcefully urges man
to remember that all of life is a process of death and decay:

From the moment a man begins to exist in this body which is destined to die, he is
involved all the time in a process whose end is death.. .the whole of our lifetime is
nothing but a race towards death, in which no one is allowed the slightest pause or
any slackening of the pace.. .everyone is in death from the moment that he begins
his bodily existence. For what else is going on, every day, every hour, every
minute, but this process of death?... The same thing happens in the passage of
time; we try to find the present moment, but without success, because the future
changes into the past without interval. (Bk. XIII, 518-520)

7 Fuentes admits that the Circe myth influenced the genesis of Aura (537). More important is his admission
that the three intertwining narrative threads of love, death, and timelessness, have an antecedent in the
Spanish Golden Age (the time of the cr?nicas viejas studied by Felipe): "You have already noticed, of course,
that the true author of Aura...is named Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas" (531). "On Reading and Writing
Myself: How I wrote Aura" World Literature Today 57.4 (1983): 531-539. One wonders whether the
description that Ca?izares gives of her witches' art in the Coloquio de los perros contributed to the
elaboration of Aura. The line that begins the prediction of how the dogs will be transformed back into men is
suggestive in its vocabulary that coincides with a leitmotif of Aura: "Volver?n en su forma verdadera" (338).
The motif of "return" appears at crucial moments in Aura (18, 61).

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John T. Cull 25
For Consuelo, the finality of death is heightened all the more by her infecundity, and
perhaps by the realization that the effort involved in materializing Aura saps the little life she
has left in her.
One of the most frightening features of Aura is that its protagonist, the young Felipe
Montero, who by profession lives like a parasite on the deeds of the dead, must confront
his own mortality precisely at the moment he awakens into manhood and sexual initiation.
The beginning marks his end. Mexican mythology, of course, is particularly rich in
associations between death, fertility, and sexuality, as Cuervo Hewitt has shown for Aura.
The true horror of Fuentes* text lies in the reader's final realization that sex and death are
inextricably bound: "every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and
enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death" (Malleus I. Q. 7, 52).8 The mind-altering plants in Aura's garden
precipitate this epiphany by eliminating the temporal boundaries that normally separate
sensuality and mortality. The terror is heightened by Felipe's passive resignation to his
fate.
The degree to which Aura participates of the fantastic is a direct function of the
knowledge a reader brings to the text. It is certainly not true that "la acci?n es banal y las
situaciones son planteadas en una forma tan evidente, que es imposible lograr ese aire de
misterio propio de un cuento fant?stico" (Tous, 279). The sense of mystery is not
diminished by the textual slips (deslices textuales) planted by Fuentes throughout the
narrative, especially evident to a reader versed in Natural History. The legendary and
established properties of plants that grow in the shade of Consuelo's enclosed garden not
only illuminate the events that transpire in the novella, but the drugs in this modern
pharmacopoeia simultaneously alleviate the sensation of the uncanny that a fantastic text
should generate. Nevertheless, resolution of doubt and fear in the reader only ends the
fantastic process; it does not prevent the text from being classified as fantastic. Aura does
function as a fantastic narrative, but with the important difference that the world familiar to
the reader, and which serves as a point of departure, is virtually exiled. As Gloria Duran
correctly observes, "el hecho de que muchas de las obras de Fuentes no reflejen el mundo
exterior tal como lo conocemos no indica...que est?n desligadas de la realidad o de los
problemas sociales" (51).
To the medieval and Renaissance mind, the order of the universe was everywhere
evident. The entire natural world constituted a codified system, a book in which the
informed reader could decipher the divine intention. Everything in existence contained a
meaning that pointed beyond itself. Plants were endowed with signatures that revealed a
use more substantial than the merely decorative. In Aura, Fuentes transplants that
harmonious natural order to a walled-in corner of an urban garden, in a world topsy-turvy.
As a result, the plants that should illuminate the path to virtue and wisdom, on the road to
paradise and eternal life, instead lead to the fleeting lure of eroticism, decadence, death, and
nothingness. Fuentes' startling claim that Quevedo is the true author of Aura is perhaps not
as far-fetched as it sounds.

WORKS CITED
Alazraki, Jaime. "Theme and System in Carlos Fuentes' Aura." Carlos Fuentes: A
Critical View. Eds. Robert Brody and Charles Rossman. Austin: Texas University
Press, 1982. 95-105.

8 Alazraki, op. cit., quotes Paz's insights on Aura from "La mascara y la transparencia": "through love Fuentes
perceives death... The eroticism is inseparable from the horror, and Fuentes outdoes even himself in the
horror, both erotic and grotesque" (95-96). Linda B. Hall finds a mythical goddess who represents this
duality of seduction and destruction: "the Aztec diety Coatlicue is at once mother earth from whom all gifts of
food grow and a devouring mother in her form as the Cipactli monster, who is at the same time both womb
and grave" (246). 'The Cipactli Monster: Woman as Destroyer in Carlos Fuentes," Southwest Review 60
(1975): 246-255.
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