Loving Che - Themes

Themes

Three major themes in the novel are:

1. Search for identity: Like many Cuban-Americans living in exile, the unnamed female protagonist seeks knowledge of her past in order to formulate her own identity. Displaced by Castro’s insurgence in 1959 and the resulting changes to Cuba’s political and social landscape, many Cubans like the protagonist, fled the country. Also, like many Cuban-Americans, the protagonist’s family was torn apart, and this left her feeling displaced from her family and her culture. Furthermore, without a strong sense of connection with her heritage, the protagonist has found it hard to adjust to the American way of life. Of particular concern for the protagonist is the reliability of memory and how it inhibits her desire to locate her mother and/or verify Teresa’s claim that she and Guevara are her parents.
2. The role of memory: The trouble the protagonist has locating information about her mother and/or verifying Teresa’s letters reveals the complexity of memory. When the protagonist confronts her grandfather about her mother, he tries to remember the incidents surrounding their exile from Cuba over twenty years earlier. However, because of his age and the length of time that has passed, he produces disjointed recollections. While he does produce an unsigned note that he claims the protagonist’s mother wrote to her over twenty years earlier, the lack of other supplementary evidence from the past does little to fill the ‘gaps’ in his disjointed story. When the package containing letters and photographs from Teresa de la Landre arrives from Spain, the role of memory is evident once again. Written over twenty years after the protagonist was born, Teresa’s memories of the events surrounding the time (she claims) the protagonist was born are at times sporadic. Possibly to make up for some of the ‘gaps’ in her memory, or perhaps as a persuasive device, Teresa includes countless photos of Che Guevara (the man she claims is the protagonist’s father). Although the photos of Guevara help fill many of the memory ‘gaps’ in Teresa’s story, without substantiating many dates, times, and locations, the protagonist is unable to ‘officially’ verify Teresa’s story.
3. Mothering: Two types of mothering relationships are evident in Loving Che: the mother-daughter relationship and Cuba as motherland. Although Teresa does not have a typical mother-daughter relationship with her daughter, Teresa’s letters reveal the type of relationship she wishes she could have had. By communicating with her daughter for the first time in over twenty years, Teresa is clearly trying to connect with her daughter. Likewise, the protagonist’s renewed search to verify Teresa’s letters and possibly locate her mother highlights her desire to connect with her mother. Although the protagonist never officially announces Teresa is her mother, she does let her feelings towards her slip near the end of the novel before quickly returning to call Teresa by her name. Near the end of the novel, the protagonist says, “I hoped to forget the strange packet of memories my mother bequeathed to me” (220). Because the only ‘official’ thing the protagonist received from her mother (via her grandfather) was the note pinned to her sweater twenty years earlier, it is clear that the protagonist is referring to the package Teresa sent. Cuba as motherland is another mothering relationship that occurs within the novel. Like many exiled Cuban-Americans, the protagonist’s loss of homeland or motherland has been significant. While she does not locate her mother or ‘officially’ verify Teresa’s story, the many trips the protagonist makes to Cuba helps her establish a connection with her country of birth. Only seeing the country as a “sad state” in the past, the protagonist now sees it with new, “amazed” eyes (181). This reassessment of the country highlights the protagonist’s willingness to accept her country of birth. When someone in Cuba asks the protagonist if she is British, she immediately connects with her country by announcing she is “Cuban” (185). Connecting with her motherland, and in part, connecting with Teresa, the protagonist no longer sees Guevara as such a strange, distant man. Instead, when she sees a photo of Guevara in a Manhattan store, the protagonist can understand why Cubans, including Teresa, would love such a man. Reflecting her new view of Guevara she states, “a beautiful stranger, who in a different dream, might have been the father of my heart” (226).