If You Touched Worksheet

Title: If You Touched My Heart     Author: Isabel Allende      
Year of Publication: 1989 Genre/Sub-genre: Short story, drama, gothic

Language Style: sexual

Tone: twisted, false hope, surreal, fragile, dark, evil

Place/Setting: Agua Santa (82), old sugar mill (84), prison (91)

Social Class: abused/filthy/poor, upper class, gangs, prison, innmate, low class

Time Frame: Hour of siesta (82), week later (83), "one week later" (83), 47 years later (83), for a few weeks (85), before a month had passed (85), 9 days (86), months that followed (86), every Sunday (88), one afternoon (88), only a few hours (90), almost half a century (90)

Characters

• Amadeo Peralta: 32 years old, seduces girls and abandons them, hoarse voice (82), 80 years old (83), a man of authority, a patriarch, a great-grandfather (83), 9 legitimate children, indefinite number of bastards (84), arrogant (88), land owner, politician
• Hortensia: 15 years old, "the girl was simple" (83), idiot girl (84), she was was either destined to be a slave
• Wife: rich
• Indian woman: does not show pity, tight mouth

Ambiance: 

Themes/Motifs: secrets, darkness, money, gangs, power, abuse, false love, women, superstition, guilt(90), machismo, broken promises, marianismo, stong women, overcoming obstacles, loyalty, fear, power

Proper Nouns:

Senses

• nose: the scent of sugar (89), Cloying odor of mango marmalade in the air (82)
• eyes: white linen suit (82)
• ears:
• touch: Wallowed  like playful twins, swimming in amniotic fluid (85)
• ears: the music from the psaltery

Symbolic Images:

• yellow cotton dress (85) =  cheerful, sunny, young, energy hopful 
• 3 young boys (88)

Symbolic Elements

• yellow dress (84, 85)= hopful 
• mud
• blood (fight, war, family)
• silk worms (87) = money...silk fabric, nice things, expensive
• long table (88) =  final supper
• color black (88) = evil, twisted, corrupt
• river = supposbaly running water keeps supernatural creatures form crossing
• muddy bank (88) = corruption, confusion, misunderstanding, filthy
• white walls (purity)

Oddities:

• "He loves me, he always loved me" (85) =  he did not he was just lost in the moment and was using her as a means to escape and take adavantage of her
• "...She was not witness to her deteriation..." (87) = how could she not notice the slow sublte changes? That she was dying, rooting away.
• Town: no action to suspicion 
• The fact that she was ok with being a slave and living in the conditions that she was in. She was very mentally ill

Cultural Elements: guava sweets (82), chaperones (82), mango marmalade (82), sugar cane was a profitable crop (88), coffee (82). siesta (82), hot (88) = weather and region

Literary Devices: flashback

Intriguing Quote: "he did not know why he was inthat tomb, and gradually he forgot the world of light and lost himself in his misfortune." (91) = he is going through what she did. They are each other, he is being punished for what he did. "It was Hortensia, glowing with a mother of pearl phosphorescence under the steady beams of the fire fighters' lanterns, she was nearly blind, her teeth had rotted away, and her legs were so weak she could barley stand " (90) This quote reveals much of her character and the way in which Amadeo Peralta treated her over the course of fourty-seven years. "Crouched on the other side of the wall, Amadeo Peralta heard those sounds that seemed to issue from the depths of the earth and course through every nerve in his body" (91) - Spiritual type of shaking in his body?

"Through the ornamental iron grille he glimpsed an entryway of dark paving stones and white washed walls." - I forgot he page number this was on but this quote was extremely interesting how it goes from dark to light. The dark paving stones reminded me of Peralta (his name happens to mean Piedra) because he's such a dark and evil person. And the white walls reminded me of Hortensia because she's so pure like the color white and the walls dont speak and/or go anywhere just like her.

Foreign or Unfamiliar Terms: cacique (84), guacharos (84), psaltrery (82)

Dictionary Work: psaltery= nound; an ancient and medieval musical instrument like a dulcimer but played by plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum