What are the literary elements used in the whole story?

Below you will find literary elements cited in GradeSaver's study guide for this unit. Check out the study guide for additional examples.

Cologne as Smoke (Simile)
In Act 1, Scene 3, after Juan Julian reads a selection from Anna Karenina, the Alcalar women discuss his prowess at reading while they work. Ofelia comments on his mellifluous and melodic voice, and Marela, for her part, comments on the fragrance released when Juan Julian dries his forehead with a handkerchief: "The fragrance wraps itself around the words like smoke" (27). This simile, adding an almost visual element to the scent of Juan Julian drying himself while he reads, is significant because it foregrounds the multivalent nature of smoke in the play. Cigar smoke is something that represents the fruits of one's labor, but it is also emblematic of leisure and hearkens back to a sacred religious tradition. And here, as we see, cigar smoke is also something distinctly sensuous and inviting, something that seems to envelop the whole play in an atmosphere of tangled love affairs.

Lovers as Actors (Metaphor)
When Conchita details her affair with Juan Julian in Act 2, Scene 2, she also explains to Palomo the ways in which Juan Julian has taught her to love again. She tells him that she felt like an actor in a theater, with each of them playing a sexual role. When Palomo then asks Conchita to do the same for him, she says that, like an actor, he would have to surrender himself entirely in order to do so and "enter the life of another human being"—her (64–65). With this extended metaphor of sex as a kind of romantic role-play, Conchita thus frames loving another person as something that cannot involve any walls being put up. In order to love another person fully, they must assume the body and mind of their partner, occupying them in the way that an actor occupies a role. Otherwise, one is not truly giving all of themselves to their partner, and love is lost.

Skin (Motif)
One image that recurs throughout the play is that of skin. This image is introduced in Act 1, when Marela, Conchita, and Ofelia have their jocular conversation with Juan Julian regarding the difficulty of hiding from light. When Juan Julian suggests that he may want to hide from "the type of light that reflects off the skin," he is told by Marela that this light is "the most difficult one to escape" (23). This introduces the idea of skin as the site of sensuality and contact with another, which seems inevitable and almost gravitational. Later, in Scene 3, Marela says, "When Juan Julian starts reading, the story enters my body and I become the second skin of the characters" (29). Here, then, we see the way in which skin is also something not just sensual, but also sensuous, mediating our experiences of the world and facilitating our ability to become one with another through empathy or amorousness. In sum, then, skin becomes motific in the drama and reveals the additional importance of interpersonal contact and love for the play's characters, even though such contact or love may be transient, ephemeral, or shallow (like skin, which is shallow and fragile).

The Irony of the White Hat
At the beginning of the play, the Alcalar women are waiting at the harbor to receive their new lector, Juan Julian. They are looking for signs of recognition among the many men who are disembarking, but Marela eventually asks her mother Ofelia how the lector will recognize them. In response, Ofelia says that she wrote to him saying that she will be the one wearing a white hat. Ironically, and rather humorously, Marela then points out that this will not make the lector’s job easier, since more than 50 women on the pier are also wearing white hats (17).