Study Guide

Dreaming in Cuban Chapter 7: Celia's Letters: 1942-1949

By Cristina García

Chapter 7: Celia's Letters: 1942-1949

This is another epistolary chapter, beginning with Celia's observations on life after the Spanish Civil War—dictators in both Cuba and Spain.
She reflects on her obsessive and persistent letter-writing to a man she no longer knows.
Celia reports about the tidal wave and how it damaged her piano. She frets about being able to play Debussy again.
As her letters continue, Celia pushes against her ordinary, dull life. We think the word ennui sums it up.
In 1946, she gives birth to her son Javier. We haven't heard anything about Javier really up to this point (something worth noting). Now we learn that he takes after Celia's father.
Celia tells Gustavo that she doesn't know why she was saved from her depression by Jorge. What was it all for?
Her final reflection in this series of letters has to do with suffering and imagination: can they be separated?