Importance of papa

This character is Mama's husband, which makes him Chula and Cassandra's father. He is portrayed as being mostly absent from their lives, in the first part of the novel for reasons related to work; in the second art of the novel, for reasons having to do with his having been kidnapped and held for ransom. In both sets of circumstances, Chula loves him but sees him as being more than somewhat disengaged from her and her life: that does not, however, stop her from idolizing him in the first part of the narrative. Her love for him makes their kidnapping-defined separation that much more painful for her, while her love for who he was and what he represented makes it that much more difficult for her to accept who he has become in the aftermath of his long imprisonment.