57 pages • 1 hour read
Ingrid Rojas ContrerasFruit of the Drunken Tree
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapter 2-Petrona [1]Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Girl Petrona”
Seven-year-old Chula lives in a gated community in Bogotá with her nine-year-old sister Cassandra and their mother, Alma (Mamá). Mamá hires a new maid, the 13-year-old Petrona. Petrona lives in an “invasión,” a term for “government land taken over by the displaced and the poor” (4). Mamá grew up in an invasión, but she climbed the socioeconomic ladder to the upper middle class—perhaps by disreputable means (19).
Before Petrona’s arrival, Mamá consults tarot cards regarding Petrona’s trustworthiness. Because she draws a card depicting a fool, Mamá worries that Petrona might betray the family. The girls’ Papá, Antonio Santiago, is absent for long stretches because he works “at an oil site far away in Sincelejo” (5). Mamá is beautiful, commanding, and superstitious. Male admirers visit her while Papá is away, and the girls know not to tell their father about these visits.
When Petrona arrives for her first day of work, Mamá warns her to stay away from the tree in their yard. The girls call it “el Borrachero, the Drunken Tree” (7) because its flowers and fruits are poisonous. The scent alone causes dizziness and fainting, and the fruit and flowers are used in a “date-rape drug” (8) called burundanga that causes drowsiness, inhibition, and amnesia. Petrona is taciturn; her mysterious nature captivates Chula. Chula and Cassandra watch TV shows frequently interrupted by newsflashes. They are accustomed to hearing a battery of confusing acronyms referring to various militant groups involved in the Colombian conflict. Ever-present is the name Pablo Escobar, the infamous cartel leader.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Mosquita Muerta”
The girls are so fascinated by Petrona’s silence that they begin counting her syllables when she speaks: never more than six (“Sí, Senõra Alma,” “No, Señora Alma” [13]). Chula imagines Petrona as a saint because she resembles a church statue. Mamá is leery of Petrona and watches her vigilantly. Mamá derides people she dislikes with the epithet mosquita muerta, or “little dead fly” (15). She is fanatical about liberal presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán. The girls go to Catholic school, but the family is not very religious. When Papá is home, he is obsessed with the ongoing national conflict, and Chula marvels at his encyclopedic understanding of the various groups involved. Mamá tells the girls that Petrona is her family’s breadwinner, and Chula pities her.
Petrona [1] Summary
This chapter is the first of many chapters titled “Petrona,” which are interspersed throughout the novel. In these chapters, the narrative shifts to Petrona’s first-person perspective.
Petrona lives with her mother and siblings in an improvised hut in a highland invasión in Bogotá called the Hills. The family sought refuge in the Hills after the paramilitary burned their farmhouse in Boyacá and captured Petrona’s father and two brothers. At age 13, Petrona starts menstruating, so her asthmatic mother, Doña Lucía (Mami), orders her to “Marry or go to work” (20); Petrona finds employment as the Santiagos’ maid. Petrona’s earnings support her whole family, and Mami tasks her and her eight-year-old sister Aurora with all domestic work so their brothers can pursue loftier careers; it is more common for boys in the invasión to join a militant or criminal group than to find work. Petrona has flashbacks of their burning farmhouse.
Chapter 2-Petrona [1] Analysis
These three expository chapters introduce major characters, political and cultural settings, and significant themes of the novel. Chapters 2 and 3 establish the structures and routines of home life at the Santiagos’ house: Mamá, who is superstitious, shrewd, and manipulative, presides over the household’s “kingdom of women” (7); Cassandra is imperious and crafty in her middle leadership role of older sister; and Chula, curious and sensitive, yields to the will of her mother and sister.
Class tension become apparent as Mamá reckons with her current privilege and her past poverty. Her quest to hire a young maid from the invasión seems motivated by a deep urge to justify her own socioeconomic ascent, but her self-protective instincts cause her to mistrust the very girls she most wants to help. Mamá’s ambivalence toward her own social station, and her occasional subversiveness against it, are encapsulated in her choice to plant the poisonous “Drunken Tree” in the family’s front yard. By keeping and cultivating this dangerous plant in the family garden, Mamá draws attention to the proximity of danger; Mamá’s decision implies that not even the wealthy, protected residents of their gated community are completely safe. Neighbors resent this symbolic reminder of danger in their midst and repeatedly attempt to have it removed, but Mamá protects it.
Another reminder of the looming danger comes in the form of TV and radio news broadcasts, a recurring feature of the narrative that emerges in these chapters. Chula absorbs news of national violence through newsflashes and broadcast snippets. These details situate the novel historically in late-1980s Bogotá and illustrate the bewildering nature of the conflict from the point of view of a child. Because the true causes of the conflict lie in an overwhelming “ocean of acronyms” (10), Chula clings to one memorable character—Pablo Escobar—who grows sensational in her imagination.
Petrona is a mysterious silhouette of a character until the first “Petrona” chapter, in which the reader finally hears her voice. Her narrative style is similar to Chula’s in the way that each sentence carries emotion, but Petrona is more subdued and less curious than Chula. The “Petrona” chapters are formatted in an unusual. Rather than using conventional quotation marks and line breaks, these chapters italicize direct quotes within unbroken narrative paragraphs, which gives the impression that the dialogue is occurring within Petrona’s head, away from the external world.
