The Inhabited Woman

Published in 2004, the magical realism novel The Inhabited Woman, by the Nicaraguan author, novelist, and poet Gioconda Belli, combines the genres of action-adventure, thriller and romance to tell the story of a woman who slowly grows from an apathetic observer of injustice to a member of the resistance. Inhabited by the resurrected spirit of a woman warrior who died centuries before, the novel’s protagonist finds herself becoming invested in the fate of her country and its people despite not having much to lose personally from the oppressive dictatorship that has taken over. Melding the stories of the ancient warrior and the modern activist, the novel analyzes the power of women to resist both the political and cultural powers that push them down.

One of the novel’s two narratives is the first-person story of Itza, a Native woman who lived through the invasion of the Spanish Conquistadors during the 15th century. As she tells us, when she was alive, she and her husband Yarince fought valiantly against the Spanish forces in order to defend their people in pre-Colombia South America. Itza’s story is a poignant one – despite the fact that she is willing to face death to save others, her rejection of stereotypically feminine behaviors makes her a pariah within her tribe. At the same time, she is treated as inferior by the other fighters, who don’t let her plan attacks or make decisions and expect her to continue cooking and tending the wounded—traditional women’s work. Itza decides to delay having children until the Spanish have been defeated, but because she fights alongside her husband, she is accused of being a texoxe, or a witch. Yarince believes in women’s strength and is happy to be a warrior alongside his wife as equals, but those around them believe that the only way he could be  okay with her being a warrior is through black magic.

Itza is eventually killed by the colonizers, but several centuries later, in the 1970s, she finds herself reincarnated in an orange tree in the courtyard of a house that is now in the main city of the fictional South American country of Faguas, a thinly veiled analog of Nicaragua.

The novel switches to an omniscient narrator to tell us that this house belongs to Lavinia Alarcon, a 23-year-old woman who grew up in an aristocratic family wealthy enough to send her to college abroad in Italy. After getting her architecture degree, Lavinia has returned to Faguas and is working at an architecture firm.

From the outside, Lavinia is a liberated modern woman: she lives alone and supports herself through her work rather than depending on her father’s money, she goes out to bars and dance clubs with friends, and she refuses to settle down into family life. But at the same time, this personal liberation has made her blind and apathetic to the situation in the country as a whole. Faguas is under an oppressive military dictatorship run by Grand General Somoza: political opponents are being jailed, killed, or disappeared; hunger and violence are rampant. For the bourgeois class that Lavinia belongs to the danger is less immediate.

Living in the house with the Itza-infused orange tree, Lavinia starts to absorb some of that long dead woman’s fighting spirit – partly through proximity, partly when she eats the oranges that the tree produces. Soon, Lavinia realizes that her modern womanhood won’t allow her to transcend the biases of the patriarchy around her – she will never really be able to climb the ladder at her job, for instance. This makes her take a more profound interest in both social justice and feminist concerns.

At the same time, she becomes romantically involved with Felipe, her boss at the architecture firm. When she learns that he is also a leader in the National Liberation Movement that is fighting against the Somoza dictatorship, Lavinia is drawn into the movement by the spiritual presence of Itza and her own newly dawning political ideas.

The union of Itza and Lavinia is given mystical significance: Itza’s rebirth and growth in the tree is “watered” by the growing strength of the resistance movement, and her influence on Lavinia symbolizes the important legacy of the pre-Columbian cultures. At the same time, they are connected by their shared experience of being women in patriarchal societies that refuse to acknowledge their strength or competence.

Ultimately, Lavinia questions her relationship with Felipe. Despite the fact that she believes in his fight against the dictatorship, Felipe’s firm stance that women do not belong in the resistance disappoints her. Subscribing to the traditions of the macho society around them, Felipe would prefer Lavinia to be a married woman who raises children. Even so, after an extended period of separation while Felipe is away on resistance business, Lavinia welcomes him back into her life.

Lavinia eventually receives an offer to design a new house for Somoza’s right-hand man, General Vela. She accepts, intending to use this opportunity to pass information to the resistance. An attack codenamed “Eureka” is planned on Vela’s house, but Felipe is shot dead just prior to the assault. Before passing, he implores Lavinia to assume his position in the attack. Lavinia resolves to take his place, fully committing herself to the resistance.

Unfortunately, the assault has dire consequences. Lavinia ends up in the same room with General Vela. Both are armed, and both fire, each shooting the other. Vela dies, and although Lavinia dies too, her valiant actions ensure “Eureka” is a success.