Prayers for the Stolen

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-11

Part 2

Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Character Analysis

Ladydi

When Ladydi meets the blonde British prisoner Georgia, she says that after “her blue eyes and my black eyes met” (174), she “knew she was thinking, so, this is the dark and ugly creature who has my beautiful princess’s name!” (174) Ladydi is named after the late Princess Diana by her mother, as a strange way of showing solidarity with women who have been mistreated. However, her name and this incident also come to symbolize many of the contradictions affecting Ladydi’s character throughout Prayers for the Stolen. On the one hand, Ladydi is fiercely loyal to Chulavista, Guerrero, and Mexico. She identifies strongly with the resilience and ferocity of the people, especially the women, in these places. She also comes to associate these qualities with the fauna of the jungle world, its iguanas, its parrots, and even its red ants. On the other hand, she is highly influenced by Western culture that she consumes via television. This is particularly evidenced in her veneration of Diana and Western ideals of beauty and femininity.

Ladydi’s attitude toward men throughout the novel exhibits a similar tension. Her life is overshadowed by her father’s abandoning her and her mother at a young age. Her community is torn apart by the machista world of drug trafficking, and one of her best friends is abducted because of it. Worst of all, Mike, one of the only consistent male figures in her village, implicates her in two murders that he committed, landing her in prison. However, despite all this, Ladydi shows a startling naivety when it comes to men. When her teacher, Jose, kisses her when she is only 13, she romanticizes the encounter rather than recognizing it is inappropriate. She falls instantly for the gardener, Julio, despite scarcely knowing him. Even after hearing all the other inmates’ stories, she becomes besotted by the art teacher, Mr. Roma. As she says, after one kiss, “I could imagine living in this jail for years and living for every workshop day and that male kiss on my cheek” (196). As Ladydi acknowledges, this naiveté is, in part, rooted in being brought up in a world with a scarcity of men. Nevertheless, the novel leaves the question open of whether she will develop a more cautious and self-preserving attitude in the US to help protect herself and her child.

Rita (Ladydi’s mother)

Ladydi states that if her father ever came back, her mother would cook him a special dish: “She would have cooked up a stew of fingernails, spit, and shredded hair. She would have mixed it with menstrual blood and green chilies” (18). Not only that, but it “would have tasted delicious” (18). In this way, Ladydi offers an insight into her own mother as a comical, strong, and endearing character. Revenge motivates her, but this need for vengeance is honest, imaginative, and resourceful. It uses the very body and land that Ladydi’s father abandoned, as well one of the roles of the traditional wife as cook, to repay him for his actions. It also demonstrates a refusal of sentimentality and false consolations. She stops going to church because she “did not like all the forgiving business” (19). She does not accept the notion that one can forgive a deep injustice or make life better by appealing to a mystical authority. Instead, she tells Ladydi to “pray for spoons” (12). In other words, she suggests that energy should be invested in the practical business of survival, not religion.

At the same time, Rita cuts a somewhat tragic figure in the text. Despite everything that has gone wrong in her marriage, as the outsider Aurora realizes about Rita, “Her dream and hope was that Ladydi’s father would come back” (193). Underneath her fantastical ideas of revenge and brutal honesty lies a lingering desire for Ladydi’s father’s return. This is captured by the image of the clearing, the only place in the village where cell phones work. There, like so many others, she sat for “days that became weeks, months, and years” (61) waiting for a call, without her phone ringing. She eventually develops an addiction to alcohol. It is only her daughter’s own desperate need that eventually prompts her to abandon the “beer cemetery” and the clearing, along with her remaining faith in Ladydi’s father’s return.

Maria

Ladydi recalls that, as children, she and her friends saw a poisonous snake on the ground. All of them screamed and tried to move away except Maria, who “looked at the snake and said, so you think you have an ugly face, well, look at my face!” (16) This story sums up Maria’s peculiar status of Maria in the village. As in many cultures, in the village Maria’s harelip is viewed as a deep and irreparable disadvantage. As Ladydi explains, “Her mother told her she would never get married or have children because no man would ever love her” (17). As in Shakespeare’s Richard III, love and, thus, a chance at happiness, seem to have “foresworn her in her mother’s womb.” The traditional female roles of wife and mother appear to be unavailable to her due to the stigma surrounding her condition. However, her perception of this fact has left her fearless. As shown by the story of the snake, she is able to confront challenges and dangers in a way that others cannot. She transcends the passivity that, at least initially, is typical of the other female characters in the novel.

Further, this duality is reinforced by the special circumstances of their village. On one level, Chulavista remains a fairly traditional and superstitious place. As such, Maria’s harelip is interpreted as “God’s curse” (85) caused by the affair between her mother and Ladydi’s father. It is also regarded as an “omen” or harbinger of tragedy for the village that will precipitate something terrible, but it is also the very thing that helps Maria survive. In a world where beauty brings the constant risk of abduction, a harelip—and, later, her scar from its removal—can offer a woman a significant advantage. Indeed, this is a key reason why Maria is able to evade the traffickers and live to help save Ladydi from imprisonment.