Going through motherhood: Linea Nigra and La hija Única - Orígenes Romero

Writing these lines first requires a confession: I am not a mother, nor I can be one because I am a man. I am a son and a bad son. I am a man, and for being so, I am a privileged man; I can be a father without any pain, without seeing changes in my body. Thus, the works I analyzed led me to reflect on maternities in the plural. Also, I understood how necessary the reading of these works is for men.

It is important to understand otherness in an increasingly globalized society. Guadalupe Nettel and Jazmina Barrera see pregnancy as the development of an “another being” in women’s bodies. Hence, how painful the reading of La hija única y Linea nigra (The only daughter and Nigra Line) can be for a large part of today’s society, where motherhood is assumed as a state of glorification of women, as a desirable and unavoidable situation.

In La hija única, Nettel intends to tell the story that a friend of her told her. We ignore what place this woman occupies in the story, we do not know her alias. Nettel somehow attempts to create a fictionalization of real events that approaches the chronicle in several moments, without daring to be a non-fictional story.

The narrative links three women: Doris, Alina, and Laura. That is, three ways of understanding motherhood through which Nettel makes a manifesto for the sake of motherhood as desired. If it is not desired, it will not be. The work is surprisingly easy to read, although at certain moments it dangerously falls into an exercise of self-help literature, as it offers in certain pages positions worthy of an essay, but which do not fit in the novel.

The end of the book may be disappointing after witnessing the wonderful development of Laura, the lead role, a woman remarkably similar to Guadalupe Nettel herself, as she is a writer on the verge of consecration –in this, she differs from the already consecrated Nettel–On the other hand, there is Alina, also an artist who, like Laura, rejected the idea of being a mother; finally, there is Doris, who is perhaps a tribute to Doris Lessing, the English writer who won the Nobel Prize in 2007, whose work The Fifth Son surely inspired La hija única. The European writer does not fit in this comparison between two Mexican authors.

Doris is perhaps the most interesting character and the one who produces the most shocking episodes in the novel. She is already a mother, her husband has passed away, and she has a terrible relationship with her son, little Nico. The three stories sometimes take place in parallel and others, they are linked to show us three ways of facing motherhood, always respecting the principle that maternity will be chosen or it will not be.

Alina faces, if not medical malpractice, then diagnosis errors and clumsy physicians. Herein lies a valuable plea for a humanized medicine. However, Nettel writes notoriously from her ringside seat, being a shortcoming in the novel’s approach to its subject. The most

expensive hospitals in Mexico City are mentioned, actions take place in an affluent neighborhood, and there is no voice for the fourth type of motherhood: the one of the poor women. Being a Mexican work that intends to explore different forms of maternity, the lack of the experience of birth in the IMSS is resented; motherhood carried out under the conditions of our public healthcare system.

On the other hand, we have a quite different approach: Jazmina Barrera offers us a pregnancy journal. A work where chronicle and essay are mixed with great success. The author delivers us the testimony of her pregnancy and her relationship with the writer Alejandro Zambra (author of Poeta chileno).

Barrera’s work does not intend to be an analysis of different forms of motherhood, but a realistic reflection on pregnancy. Therefore, it cannot be reprimand for the same as Nettel. Linea nigra is a journey through a rich variety of readings that the author has been doing in order to understand her situation; works ranging from science to poetry provide the reader with a myriad of experiences that overthrow the romantic myth of pregnancy.

The fragmented structure of the work allows for different voices within the same author. Not every day you wake up in the same mood, and Barrera did not want to be pregnant every day. The author reveals a reality: pregnancy is not comfortable and sometimes, women would like to get rid of that being that drains their energy. And it is not that they do not want to have their baby. Jazmina has decided to have her child, his name will be Silvestre, but that does not stop her from experiencing pain.

Linea nigra is a testimony to the responsible desire to be a mother. It is a constant reflection on all those women who are forced to carry a burden for which they do not consider themselves prepared. In addition, through a journey into the family history, the author revisits the experiences of those who were mothers before her; in this journey, Barrera uncovers for readers the veil of sanctity that shrouded the mothers of the last century. It leads us to understand that the self-sacrificing woman turned into a factory of babies is nothing more than an imposition.

Understanding her motherhood is to understand that other maternities have not been easier either, but it had never been noticed. On the other hand, Linea nigra offers a window to her visits to several gynecologists; with this, we once again point out the need for a humanized gestation process, as well as medical practices. In the end, both works are necessary –and at the same time, are produced– within a context in which the legal interruption of pregnancy, i.e., the right to choose motherhood, is being discussed. Linea nigra and La hija única are great efforts to invite us, to those who can and cannot go through motherhood, to rethink a state that has historically been considered sacred and desirable.

Humberto Orígenes Romero Porras

Holds a degree in history from the Universidad de Guadalajara. A former Paralympic athlete (2006- 2017), he won a medal at the 2015