Family and orphanhood
Eva Luna wasn't born an orphan. Instead, she and her mom survived her father's death and were living as a small family when the mother died. Their life was already hard enough without the father, but when Eva's mother dies choking on a chicken bone, Eva realizes in a panic that she is orphaned. She doesn't have the framework to understand this, but she does realize that she is alone in the world, without enough understanding to survive on her own.
Prostitution as human trafficking
Eva didn't choose to be a prostitute because she loves sex and wants to earn money that way. Instead she was kidnapped by a trafficker under false pretenses and forced to have sex with money, but not money for herself. She was an underaged sex slave. This horrible imagery is the truth for many people in the world, especially disenfranchised people like orphans. The imagery is a full-blown depiction of not having a choice in life. She is doomed to it.
Injustice and victim-blaming
Although she is not a bad person, but merely one forced against her will into prostitution, the community perceives her as an immoral person. This tendency toward injustice leads to a peak moment when the imagery is made fully explicit. Halabi takes Eva in and offers her safety in exchange for sexual favors, and his wife kills herself. When the police arrive, they accuse Eva of the murder, when in reality, she and Zulema were co-victims of a heinous man's decisions.
Patriarchy and warfare
Patriarchy is experienced from Eva's point of view as a kind of hopelessness and a lack of freedom. She is unable to make a way without some man to help her, and those who help her tend to misuse her because her community tends to objectify her as an object to be enjoyed by men. From the inverse point of view, patriarchy is experienced through the imagery of warfare. The competitive tendency of patriarchal societies leads to absolute power struggles where the least enfranchised go to war for the most enfranchised in a community. This is shown through the side story of Rolf Carle, Eva's would-be husband.
