The Mexican wife

Reddan, Erina

The Mexican wife

Reddan, Erina

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2005

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Reddan, Erina
dc.date.accessioned	2017-01-23T23:04:30Z
dc.date.available	2017-01-23T23:04:30Z
dc.date.issued	2005
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/75816
dc.description	University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.	en_AU
dc.description	NO FULL TEXT AVAILABLE. Access is restricted indefinitely. The hardcopy may be available for consultation at the UTS Library.
dc.description.abstract	NO FULL TEXT AVAILABLE. Access is restricted indefinitely. ----- The morning after successful businessman and pillar of Bostonian society, Bill Bixton, celebrates his retirement from public life he wakes up in a panic. He is plunged into despair, realising that all his life he has strived for wealth and position, only to find at the end of it that they mean nothing. Despite his wife of forty years and two grown daughters he has no real connection with anybody. In the depths of his despair he blames his father. His father had deserted Bill and Bill's mother when Bill was just eight years old, leaving them in financial and social ruin. The two were forced to leave their mansion for a one-room apartment. In confronting his anger, it occurs to Bill, for the first time, that it doesn't make sense that his father had abandoned his family in order to go to Mexico to marry a woman, Lilia De Las Flores, particularly when she'd already been linked with the premature death of an earlier husband. Given that Bill's father also died in suspicious circumstances three years after his marriage to Lilia, and his wealth subsequently disappeared, Bill now wonders whether he has misjudged his father, blaming him, when he should have considered him a victim of treachery. Before he dies Bill must find out what happened to his father. Thus begins his journey retracing his father's footsteps. While his father's footsteps are faint, Lilia's are firm and everywhere. She is a legend as a revolutionary, a murderer, a healer, a devil, a saint. Just like his father before him, he becomes obsessed with her, only by now she is twenty years dead. The subtext mirrors the dominant text, as Angela, Bill's daughter, also travels to Mexico, ostensibly to help her father, but covertly to confront him with her own sense of abandonment. It's in their final confrontation that they realise that false memories and altered perspectives can change the course of one's story. This powerful realisation demonstrates that they have the power to re- map their lives. Before Bill can do that he has to rid himself of his obsession with Lilia and more importantly of his attachment to his quest for what happened to his father. Ultimately the answer becomes irrelevant. It's not about what happened to his father fifty years ago, it's about what's happening right now in his own life. Ifs in confronting his demons that he reclaims his soul.	en_AU
dc.format	Thesis (MA)
dc.language.iso	en_AU	en_AU
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.title	The Mexican wife	en_AU
dc.type	Thesis	en_AU
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access

Abstract:

NO FULL TEXT AVAILABLE. Access is restricted indefinitely. ----- The morning after successful businessman and pillar of Bostonian society, Bill Bixton, celebrates his retirement from public life he wakes up in a panic. He is plunged into despair, realising that all his life he has strived for wealth and position, only to find at the end of it that they mean nothing. Despite his wife of forty years and two grown daughters he has no real connection with anybody. In the depths of his despair he blames his father. His father had deserted Bill and Bill's mother when Bill was just eight years old, leaving them in financial and social ruin. The two were forced to leave their mansion for a one-room apartment. In confronting his anger, it occurs to Bill, for the first time, that it doesn't make sense that his father had abandoned his family in order to go to Mexico to marry a woman, Lilia De Las Flores, particularly when she'd already been linked with the premature death of an earlier husband. Given that Bill's father also died in suspicious circumstances three years after his marriage to Lilia, and his wealth subsequently disappeared, Bill now wonders whether he has misjudged his father, blaming him, when he should have considered him a victim of treachery. Before he dies Bill must find out what happened to his father. Thus begins his journey retracing his father's footsteps. While his father's footsteps are faint, Lilia's are firm and everywhere. She is a legend as a revolutionary, a murderer, a healer, a devil, a saint. Just like his father before him, he becomes obsessed with her, only by now she is twenty years dead. The subtext mirrors the dominant text, as Angela, Bill's daughter, also travels to Mexico, ostensibly to help her father, but covertly to confront him with her own sense of abandonment. It's in their final confrontation that they realise that false memories and altered perspectives can change the course of one's story. This powerful realisation demonstrates that they have the power to re- map their lives. Before Bill can do that he has to rid himself of his obsession with Lilia and more importantly of his attachment to his quest for what happened to his father. Ultimately the answer becomes irrelevant. It's not about what happened to his father fifty years ago, it's about what's happening right now in his own life. Ifs in confronting his demons that he reclaims his soul.

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