And Of Clay We Are Created Analysis

Azucena and Nihilism: Because This Story isn 't Depressing Enough

"I felt how in that instant both were saved from despair, how they were freed from the clay, how they rose above the vultures and helicopters, how together they flew above the vast swamp of corruption and laments. How, finally, they were able to accept death." (Isabel Allende: And of Clay We Are Created) And of Clay we Are Created is a depressing tale of a girl 's inevitable death. But what is often missed after the first reading is the nihilistic undertones of this already sad story. Behind this tragic tale is a girl learning to accept her demise and an already broken man internalizing this further until the sheer weight of existence becomes too much for him, leaving the once main source of hope in this story to an inactive shadow of his former self. Azucena 's life-or-death struggle embodies elements of nihilism in that she succumbs to the futility of her situation. First and foremost, no human force could conceivably save her, which bears the metaphorical

Watching this girl die is what it took for Carle to embrace something he possible already knew, life is horrible. Carle used escapism to detach himself from watching people die at concentration camps, his mom being used, his father abusing him, and abandoning his sister. And it worked. By being detached he managed to find a new life in South America. He found love, recognition, and fame. In fact he didn 't even remember these moments up until meeting Azucena. But the "floodgates that contained Rolf Carle 's past...began to open" (Allende 3). And after watching this girl accept her own inevitable death, escapism no longer worked. "you do not write or sing; you sit long hours before the window, staring at the mountains." (Allende 4). Carle accepts the nihilistic belief that life is meaningless and becomes inactive. He becomes as passive as Azucena was at the beginning of the story, simply content with awaiting the sweet