... such a reading: Father Vaillant's nickname Trompe-la-Mort, (because he "had outwitted death so often, there was always the chance he would do it again" (120); and the grimly comic interlude of Doña Isabella, tearfully subtracting years from her biological age. The novel's essential temporal doubleness may be still further illuminated by Peter Brooks's provocative psychoanalytic speculation concerning narrative structure ... of the detour is repetition or return, both as an attempted mastery of death and as a way of binding or taming instinctual energy toward its eventual full discharge...

• Word Count: 7335
• Approx Pages: 29
• Grade Level: Undergraduate