Infertility is a hardship that many women have difficulty coming to terms with. In the novel, Corregidora, we are introduced to the main character and our narrator of the story, Ursa. She
struggles with a psychological hollowness brought on by a miscarriage, as well as, a forced hysterectomy. We learn that not only does Ursa have to deal with the tragedy of her loss, but now she carries a heavy weight on her shoulders in not being able to pass down the stories of her grandmother and great-grandmother’s slavery. Ursa’s family have stressed to her the importance of passing down these stories her entire life, so to realize that she will never be able to fulfill their wishes, creates a psychological burden for her and adds to the sense of inadequacy that she already feels from her inability to have children. We can see the psychological burden this places on her with the constant flashbacks, throughout the novel, to her grandmother and great-grandmother’s descriptions of the terrible abuse that they endured during their time as slaves in Brazil. We can’t help but to feel sympathetic towards Ursa as we see her continue to dwell on the stories that she will never be able to pass on, and the toll that this begins to take on her emotionally and psychologically.
“It was as if their memory, the memory of all of the Corregidora women, was her memory too, as strong with her own private memory, or almost as strong”(129)
In this line we can see the serious impact of her psychological suffering, as she dwells on the memories of her grandmother and great-grandmother stories as if they were her own memories and she was the one who went through the slavery. It is clear that Ursa thought that having children was of the upmost importance to her existence, and without the ability to carry out this significant duty of womanhood, Ursa feels useless and inadequate. She projects this anger out towards her first husband, Mutt, and this anger along with the anger she carries about the abuse her family endures, Ursa eventually begins to build a hatred towards all men.
In many of the novels and articles that we have read so far, such as Herland and The House in Paris, there is a prominent central theme of the importance of motherhood and being a “good” mother. This novel is the first piece that poses the question: What if motherhood isn’t an option? We wonder what type of impact infertility can have on the way a woman views herself and her role in society. Ursa’s story shows us the psychological and emotional impact that infertility can have on a woman, and the distress caused by the inability to meet the expectations created for women and mothers alike.
After everything that Ursa has endured we know that she is a strong women, but as exhibited by this novel even the strongest of women can lose their sense of identification when stripped of the ability to fulfill the expectations of motherhood.
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