Of Women and Salt

Violence in various forms recurs throughout the novel and connects with its themes in several ways. Sometimes, violence is a tentatively positive force: For example, though María and Dolores express more hesitation about their respective revolutions, in both cases the violence of the revolutions is at worst a necessary evil. In both cases, the situation of average people like María and Dolores is untenable: Most people in María’s time struggle to get by (María’s mother literally works herself to death), and many are still slaves. For Dolores, work is so difficult to come by and inequality so stark that she can barely feed her children while her husband is off fighting. Consequently, while María and Dolores provide the necessary human perspective on violence and its results, the novel doesn’t condemn the revolution’s violence itself.

The more common way that violence manifests in the novel is interpersonal—domestic and sexual. Most women in the novel experience violence of some kind, usually at the hands of their partners: Julio abuses both Carmen and Jeanette in different ways; Mario hits Jeanette at one point, and although the extent of this behavior is unclear, it’s enough to make them both sober up and separate; although Antonio doesn’t hurt María, he doesn’t stop the factory owner and even other workers from doing so; and, most viciously, Daniel nearly kills Dolores.