Corregidora

“I couldn’t help feeling I was forcing something with Tadpole. What our talk was leading to. Something I needed but couldn’t give back. There’d be plenty I couldn’t give back now.”

Ursa and the female family members who came before her have been conditioned to see their sexuality as inherent to their value. Ursa anticipates that her inability to “give back” sexually to Tadpole will cause the downfall of their relationship.

“What my mama always told me is, Ursa, you got to make generations.”

In addition to feeling inadequate because she no longer has the capabilities usually associated with her assigned gender, Ursa feels a deep guilt over not being able to procreate. Her family sees it as necessary to their vindication, and she feels like she is betraying her family members.

“A good little piece. My best. Dorita. Little gold piece.”

Corregidora refers to Great Gram as if she were an object, and not just any object, but one that is known both for its beauty and its ability to be traded. This conflation of the Corregidora women with currency continues throughout the novel.

“They didn’t want to leave no evidence of what they done–so it couldn’t be held against them. And I’m leaving evidence. And you got to leave evidence too. And your children got to leave evidence.”

Great Gram wants vindication for the life she and her daughter were forced to lead. Despite the fact that post-slavery Corregidora appears to have been able to walk away from the slave business scot-free, Great Gram believes that she will eventually be able to prove he raped her and Grandmama when people see the light skin color of their children. When Ursa can’t conceive children, she feels like she has lost the ability to prove her family’s suffering.

“It’s worse when you touch it than when you look at it.”

While Ursa is ostensibly talking to Tadpole about her scar, this line of thought permeates the novel. Ursa has no problem with the men in the audience looking at her, but when men cross the line and try to touch her, she feels an undeniable pain and anger.

“Right now’s the not time for you to be grabbing at anything. Any woman to be grabbing at anything. Out of fear.”

Cat warns Ursa that dating Tadpole “out of fear,” and not love, is going to end badly. She tries to explain that romantic relationships based in convenience or need will short-circuit Ursa’s ability to be perceived as equal.

“Maybe it’s just a man can’t stand to have a woman as hard as he is.”

Throughout the novel, Ursa struggles with gender roles. In this moment, Ursa starts to realize that Mutt’s pride was damaged by her ability to support herself. She realizes men are often angered by, rather than attracted to, women of equal power.

“Shit, we’re all consequences of something. Stained with another’s past as well as our own.”

Ursa is constantly depicted as experiencing generational trauma and carrying the pain from her own past as well as those of her relatives. This idea that humans are never pure, but rather always an amalgam–of past and present, of ethnicities, of cultures, of good and bad–is also hinted at here.

“Tadpole got between my legs.”

The language here reveals the lack of intimacy and connection between Ursa and Tadpole. Rather than use a slew of romantic alternatives to describe having sex with Tadpole, this bare-bones description reveals a relationship that is mechanical and confined to the body, rather than including the mind and soul.

“Ain’t even took my name. You ain’t my woman.”

Nomenclature is highly important in the novel. The fact that his victims continue to bear his name proves that Corregidora remained a powerful presence in their lives, even after his physical control of the women was gone. When Ursa chooses to keep Corregidora as her last name, Mutt sees that as an attempt to usurp his own power, thereby showing the patriarchal and misogynistic tendencies in both men.

“I knew about that other shit in the hospital.”

In this statement, readers get their first real glimpse of Tadpole’s poor performance as a husband. He refers to Ursa’s medical condition as “that other shit” in order to demean and objectify her body. He also proves that he is willing to withhold information if he thinks it will somehow benefit him, paving the road for his future lies.

“You a hard woman to get into.”

The idea that Ursa is hard–her voice, her attitude, etc.–is consistent in the novel. On this occasion, Ursa’s mind and body are both being accused of inaccessibility by her boss. Ursa is trapped in a cycle where people keep making her harden, which in turn causes more people to harden against her.

“Do you still fight the night?”

Much of Corregidora is dedicated to proving how deep patterns can run. In this case, readers see how Ursa’s waking life cannot be separated from her sleeping life. Disturbed by her family’s history of suffering and her own experiences with predatory men, Ursa cannot escape her fears at night, but rather has nightmares about them.

“You don’t look like your mama, you look more like your grandmama.”

The observation that Ursa is closer in appearance to her older relatives than her mother helps set the stage for Ursa and her mom’s distant relationship. Although they are closer in age, Ursa knows less about her mom’s past than she does about her older relatives’ past. This shows readers that the older relatives had more of an impact on Ursa’s life than her mother did.

“The lived life, not the spoken one.”

Ursa and the other characters in this book are constantly living two separate lives: an inner and an outer one. We hear Ursa’s inner thoughts, but then see how they don’t always translate into action. This idea of the doublelife sometimes leads Ursa to be suspicious. In this moment, however, Ursa sees the life people lead outside of the public eye as more realistic than the social one.

“I didn’t feel like no woman then.  Sometimes even after I had you, I still wouldn’t feel like none.”

Ursa’s mom is telling Ursa about her personal struggle with gender roles. The fact that Ursa’s mom still could not feel feminine even as a mother is significant to Ursa because Ursa was previously convinced that losing the ability to conceive had robbed her of her femininity. The fact that her mom felt this way even after childbirth shows Ursa that her feelings of inadequacy may stem from more than just the incident with Mutt.

“I ain’t never known a woman take her life less it was some man.”

This conversation takes place during Ursa’s childhood, when she hears her mother and grandmother discussing the suicide of a local woman. The early timing of this conversation shows readers that men having been causing women pain for a long time, and that Ursa is entering into a pre-existing power struggle, rather than one she invents herself.

“A daddy’s got ways the police ain’t.”

This discussion proves that race plays a large role in American society. The woman who committed suicide was African American and therefore did not receive the proper justice and legal attention she deserved. The implication is that American power structures do not treat all races equally, and that therefore some have to develop their own systems of justice.

“She called it bleeding […] I had been taught to call it monthly or time of the month.”

May Alice has a much more vulgar way of describing menstruation than Ursa. This vulgarity foreshadows May Alice’s actions; she is much less tender and private with her sexuality than Ursa. It’s telling that May Alice is a few years older than Ursa, as well; May Alice is more hardened, and Ursa, as she ages, will grow more hardened, too, and more vulgar.

“You know a boy won’t quit.”

This comment by May Alice foreshadows the actions of Mutt and Tadpole, both of whom wear Ursa down through their persistence. She tries to prepare Ursa for the way that sexual intercourse creates a permanent connection, one that it is hard for a woman to break.

“If we ever in a public place, you better take my hand.”

When Mutt makes this threat to Ursa, it becomes clear that he is interested in sustaining his pride more than he is in being in a romantic relationship. The comment is also reminiscent of something a parent would say to a child, further driving home this attempted power grab.

“I don’t like to use that word ‘discovered,’ cause it’s already there, ain’t it?”

This comment, made by a drunken audience member, calls attention to the way that Ursa often discovers things that were already there. For example, her mother’s past had been there all along, but Ursa is just now able to know the details about it, and how these details apply to Ursa herself. Additionally, Tadpole was a bad husband all along, but Ursa only later discovers this truth. The implication is that nothing is ever discovered; rather, it’s just finally seen.

“I was a free woman now, whatever that meant.”

Twenty years after her disastrous marriages to Mutt and Tadpole, Ursa is independent and alone. She questions this freedom, because while she is no longer being outright hurt, she is perpetually lonely, which feels like a cage in itself.