SOURCE: “María Luisa Bombal's Heroines: Poetic Neuroses and Artistic Symbolism,” in Hispanofila, Vol. 28, No. 1, September, 1984, pp. 103-13.

In the following discussion of La última niebla, La amortajada, and “El árbol,” Bente examines the “neurotic” demeanor of Bombal's woman protagonists. The critic concludes: “her literature of neuroses and frustration, illustrated through clearly defined women protagonists and executed through poetic and artistic symbolism, achieves the highest tradition of life and literature as a conveyance of the perplexities of the human condition.”

Whether due to increasing appreciation of the short stories and novels of María Luisa Bombal as a precursor of the Spanish American New Narrative, or to contemporary interest in the status of women in Spanish American society, the last several years have seen a partial redress of the semi-obscurity of critical interest in Bombal's work. Indeed, a number of convincing studies have appeared and will appear, bearing...