Who Would Have Thought It?

Who Would Have Thought It?

Author	María Ruiz de Burton
Cover artist	Andelaida Mendoza
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Publication date	1872
Pages	438
OCLC	16651194

Who Would Have Thought It? is a novel written by María Ruiz de Burton that was published in 1872.

This novel was the first to be written in English by a Mexican living in the United States. It details the struggles of a Mexican-born girl, Lola, in an American society obsessed with class, money, race, gender, and religion.

According to critics Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita, in the novel "Ruiz de Burton carries out an aggressive demystification of a series of national foundational ideologies. By variously deploying allegory, satire and parody, the author effects a critique driven by a perceived crisis in the body politic of the United States itself."

Critical History

Who Would Have Thought It? was published in 1872 anonymously by María Ruiz de Burton. One of the author's hesitations in revealing her name came from an anxiety that readers would be prejudiced towards her work. Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita note that "Ruiz de Burton was concerned that readers knowing that English was not her native language would be more inclined perhaps to find fault with the text". It is critical that Ruiz de Burton's novel be read in the context of the American Civil war, a time of "dramatic economic, political and social changes to the United States" As a native of Baja California who moved to Alta California in 1847, Ruiz de Burton's background allowed her to incorporate several insights and different points of view in her novel.

Period

The story is intimately connected to the displacement of borders. The territorial boundaries are constantly negotiated. The civil war was ongoing and the nation was splitting apart. People were removing themselves from the nation in the hopes of establishing independence. Ruiz de Burton found herself greatly involved. "In 1849, one year after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago, she married Colonel Henry S. Burton, who was sent to Baja California to quell a Mexican uprising".

Plot summary

The novel begins in the middle of a conversation between the Reverend Mr. Hackwell and his crony the Reverend Mr. Hammerhard as they make their way to the railroad depot of a small New England town. During their conversation the two men show themselves to have some rather questionable attributes though they are the so-called "Reverends" of the town. For example, at one point Mr. Hammerhard says, in reference to their desire to replace their decrepit wagon, "All the rich people of our town belong to your congregation--all the rich and good. Make them shell out, Hack. You are the fashion". As they continue on their way to the depot where they are to meet Dr. Norval--who they insinuate is thought of as a "social delinquent" by the people of the town--we are introduced to Mrs. Cackle, to Mrs. Norval, and to several other characters. We learn much about Mrs. Cackle through the leisurely and derisive conversation of the Reverends. Mr. Hackwell quotes her as saying, "'To me they are all alike--Indians, Mexicans, or Californians--they are all horrid. But my son Beau says that our just laws and smart lawyers will soon "freeze them out". She is portrayed as ignorantly jingoistic and bigoted.

Dr. Norval is returning from a trip to the Southwest of the United States. From the railroad depot he rides to his house in a separate wagon, loaded with large boxes, following the Reverends. The first thing that Mrs. Norval, her daughters, and the other women notice is a figure wrapped in a red shawl who is in the arms of the doctor. Mrs. Norval originally imagines that it the figure is a tall woman and feels jealous that this is how her husband has returned home after fours years of being away. As Dr. Norval carries the figure to the house the shawl falls off and the women see that it is a little girl who appears to be black. Mrs. Norval is immediately even more astonished and disgusted. She and everyone else other than Dr. Norval begin commenting on her "blackness," making many bigoted remarks. Because of certain characteristics noted by the Reverends and women--such as the whiteness of her palms and her "red and prettily-cut lips"--they believe she must be some sort of mix of "Indian and negro". These comments only further reflect their notions of race and the depth of their prejudice. Mrs. Norval seems especially disturbed by the little girl's blackness and treats her grudgingly and coldly. For some reason Dr. Norval has withheld from the group the little girl's name, her background, why she is with him, and that she speaks English. At dinner he finally hints to them that she has understood everything they have been saying, and they discover that her name is María Dolores Medina, though she goes by Lola or Lolita. Yet, Dr. Norval reveals ironically that Mrs. Norval is a strict adherent and admirer of the teachings of the famous abolitionists of the day, while he is a Democrat who "doesn't believe in Sambo but believe[s] in Christian charity and human mercy". This is one of the first moments in the novel in which irony reflects the hypocrisy of many of the "good" characters. Ruiz de Burton portrays every character but Dr. Norval in this moral New England town as being racist to at least some degree. . Also, it is here that we discover why Dr. Norval is considered to be a "social delinquent" in the words of the Reverends: he is a Democrat with supposed Southern sympathies at a time in which there was increasing tension between the North and the South. This made him party to the South's support of slavery in their minds, though as we later learn he was the only person in the town to aid black people who went from house to house looking for help.

Lola's treatment continues as before with only Mattie (the Norvals' youngest daughter) and Lavinia (Mrs. Norval's sister) treating her with any kindness and the doctor protecting her from Mrs. Norval's abuse as much as possible. Matters change course quite suddenly when it is revealed by Dr. Norval to his wife that Lola is rich, the heir of an enormous fortune, and that she is from an aristocratic Mexican family. Lola's mother gave the doctor guardianship of Lola before she died. She had been a prisoner to a tribe of Native Americans in the Southwest after being captured by them while pregnant with Lola. She had Lola as a captive and collected a fortune over the years after discovering large amount of gold and precious gems. It was these that filled the large boxes loaded on the wagon Dr. Norval rode from the railroad depot. After the doctor has told this to Mrs. Norval she is already scheming up ways to keep Lola with them and to get her money.

Characters

Dr. Norval

For four years Dr.Norval had been absent from his family. Upon his return he is accompanied by Lola, the "little black girl" who is instantly judged for her skin colour. Dr.Norval, unlike the other characters of the novel, opens his heart to Lola and showers her with unconditional love. His refusal to accept half of Lola's immense fortune, offered to him by her mother for taking temporary guardianship of Lola, shows that he is not drawn to Lola for her gold and jewels but to the love that she reciprocates. "The only man who doesn't pretend to be a saint. Because he is the only one in this village who has a soul, but makes no parade of the trouble it gives him to save it."

Lola

For the first ten years of her life, Lola and her mother lived in captivity. The Indians insisted they be painted with a special dye that would change the color of their skin from white to black. Their skin mimicked their captors. When she moved to New England, the dye eventually faded and her skin soon resembled the Norval's white skin. She seems to constantly adapt yet never really fits in. "[S]he undergoes numerous changes in racial status which overlap and effectively generate her simultaneous acquisition of material wealth and cultural capital. Yet, as Lola racially changes, so too does the economic position that the Norvals hold in New England culture, metaphorically representing how Anglo America and the northern United States economically prospered economically from Mexican lands after the treaty." Although Lola is the rightful heir to the gold and jewels, she never controls her fortune. The Norvals provide her with a comfortable lifestyle yet deprive her of the luxuries that her fortune has supplied the family. Despite being the financer of the Norval family, she is never fully accepted. Lola is the example of a mestizo position. Lola's character reflects the paradox of Ruiz de Burton's novel, “the belief of many Californio elites that they could profit from Anglo economic and cultural expansion into California in much the same way Californios profited from Spanish and Mexican colonization of Indian lands.”

Mrs. Norval

"Mrs.Norval fashions herself as a Yankee in a Puritan mould, governed by principles of order, restraint, and self-discipline. But in the face of extreme wealth, all of these principles are discarded with unseemly haste."

• Reverend Hackwell

  Julian

  Lavinia

  Emma Hackwell

  Cackles

Allusions

• Renaissance Period:

Virtues of the book

Class

Manifest Destiny

Race

Money

Social Status

Gender

• Feminist novel?

Religion

Technical Devices

Irony

Satire

Allegory "Mrs.Norval's hostility towards Lola is heightened upon leaning that she is Catholic, which to her is 'abominable idolatry' but she is very taken with the idea of Lola's wealth. Of course, she considers that Lola, a heathen and savage, can have no just claim to this wealth and, when her husband departs on a self-imposed exile(during which he is reported dead), her attempts to possess this wealth by plotting and intrigue know no bounds. In this way, Mrs. Norval's appropriation of the Hispanic girl's inheritance functions as an allegory of the American annexation of Mexico's land and mineral wealth."

Anonymity

Publication History

“The fact that her two works remained relatively unnoticed in American literary studies for over one hundred years speaks to Ruiz de Burton’s exclusion from American literary history and more generally to the marginalization of Mexican Americans in the construction of American history.”

References

• Alemán, Jesse (2007), "Citizenship Rights and Colonial Whites: The Cultural Work of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's Novels", in Goldstein, David S.; Thacker, Audrey B. (eds.), Complicating Constructions: Race, Ethnicity, and Hybridity in American Texts, Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, pp. 3–30, ISBN 978-0295986814.
• Rivera, John-Michael (2006), The Emergence of Mexican America: Recovering Stories of Mexican Peoplehood in U.S. Culture, New York: New York University Press, ISBN 978-0814775578.
• Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo (1995), Sánchez, Rosaura; Pita, Beatrice (eds.), Who Would Have Thought It?, Houston: Arte Público, pp. vii–lxv, ISBN 978-1558850811.
• Sánchez, Rosaura; Pita, Beatrice (1995), "Introduction", Who Would Have Thought It?, Houston: Arte Público, pp. vii–lxv, ISBN 978-1558850811.

External links

• Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo, Who Would Have Thought It?, Indiana University, Wright American Fiction 1851–1875, retrieved 2008-10-18. The novel's entire text, online.