The Role of Anger in Ferre's work

"Anyone would say that you did what you did on purpose, just for the pleasure of seeing us light a candle in each corner of the room, to see which one of us had won" (133). The initial reaction here is one of anger, and then moves to a recognition of the true motives: "to make us fade into each other like an old picture lovingly placed under its negative, so that our own true face would finally come to surface" (133). There is a melding of identities that occurs, demonstrated by the use of the pronoun "we" throughout the text. It is stated that Isabel Luberza and Isabel la Negra cannot be distinguished from each other, even if one is the lady proper and the other a prostitute. What do we think is the purpose of such a collapse in identity? What is the purpose of distinguish between these two aspects of her personality? She claims that there is an element of prostitution to all women, which is evident in such things as the way they cross their legs.

The pervading emotion here appears to be anger, which she feels even years later. How does this emotion affect the text and/or our reading of it? She speaks of "the legend of the lady and the prostitute," which indicates a permanence to the story that she attempts to tell, even if she struggles with her own identity(136). How does her story about these women affect how we perceive her identity?