Archetypal Nature Image in the Works of Maria Luisa Bombal

An archetype is a prototype of patterns or behaviors recurring during history. Those images transmit the cultural phenomenon from one generation to another. And the archetypal relation between nature and woman goes back to the very early days of the universe, and is interrelated to the myth of “The Great Mother” as shown by Erich Neumann. Nature has opposite functions: life-giving and devastating. Those characteristics of nature are detailed and exemplified by Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae, Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson as well. That interrelatedness can be traced in the elements of the literature such as character, theme, place or space. In the works to be analyzed, the “nature” archetype is traced through a “tree” as a motif and the protagonist as a character. The study aims to discuss the archetypal “nature” image in Maria Luisa Bombal’s short stories “The Tree” (El árbol) and “Braids” (Trenzas) with a Pagliaesk approach. Bombal is one of the distinguished Chilean authors of XX. Century and the dual structure of nature is strongly stressed in the works of the writer, particularly with a “tree” and a “female character”. Those characters are alive with nature and hold on to life, but they cannot breathe (both literally and really) when nature fades away.