(MLA Citation):

  Rodoreda, Merce. "The Salamander." The Weird. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 2012. 406-10. Print.

Author’s Country/Continent of Origin: Spain

Originally Written in: Spanish (new translation into English by Martha Tennent)

Some Points to Review:

-          Has theme of ignorance in story (keep this in mind throughout)

-          People fear what they don’t know/ what is strange to them

-          Unknown change from human to animal and vice versa

A Few Choice Passages:

-          “…And when the water grew still again his face appeared beside mine, as if two shadows were observing me from the other side.  So as not to give an appearance of being frightened………..I could not run away” (p. 406)

-          “….she grabbed me by the hair, whispering ‘witch.’ Softly” (p. 407)

-          “…But ever since the day his wife took him away, people in the village have looked as me as if they weren’t looking at me, some furtively making the sign of the cross when I walked by” (p. 407)

-          “Witch, witch, witch.” (p. 407)

-          (All of left column on p. 407)

-          “That night, when I sat down, I suddenly realized I had nothing left to hope for: my life face the past, with him inside me like a root inside the earth” (p. 407)

-          “…and the children begin to sing the song about the witch who burned at the stake.  It was a very long song, and when they finished, the old men announced that they couldn’t light the fire, I wouldn’t let them” (p. 408)

-          “…and behind the water, every man every woman, every child was like a shadow, happy because I was burning” (p. 408)

-          “…..I thought I heard someone say: She’s a salamander.” (p. 408)

-          “……never questioning why I was doing it.  It was if someone were telling me: do this, do that.” (p. 409)

-          “I began to pray for myself, because inside me, even though I wasn’t dead, no part of me was wholly alive.  I prayed frantically because I didn’t know if I was still a person or only an animal or half-person, half-animal.  I also prayed to know where I was because there were moments when I seemed to be underwater and when I was underwater I seemed to be above, on land, and I could never know where I really was.” (p. 409)

-          “It was all the same. You alone, he would say.” (P. 409)

-          “…..I had trouble breathing because he was smothering me.” (p. 409)

-          “I was on both sides: in the marsh with the eels, and partially in that other world, without knowing where it was.” (p. 410)

Questions for Discussion:

-          Did the man rape her? Was it even a man?

-          Why did the village turn on her?

-          What is the significance of her turning into a salamander?/what does it mean?

-          Is she human or animal?/what world is she in?

Significance/Things to Think About:

-          How people treat things that are strange/unknown to them; how people respond to the “weird”

-          How the treatment from the villagers transformed her

-          As a salamander, she was still treated as something weird/unknown; was still tormented