Passivity

One of the strongest characteristics of Rivera's protagonist, Teresa, is her passivity. Despite the fact that she intuitively acknowledges that her lover is avoiding her, lying to her, and refusing to pay any attention to her, she remains faithful to him. She waits on him, fetching medicine for his aching stomach and making him a cup of coffee while he makes a phone call that Teresa suspects is to another woman. She never directly confronts him on any issues. She also waits on him in another sense: the passage of time. For fourteen years she swallows his lame excuses for not marrying her, accepting the insults that he heaps onto her and her family's economic and social status without much more than the nodding of her head.

However, Teresa's passivity is somewhat misleading. Although she accepts Armando and his excuses on a conscious level, on a subconscious level...