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believing in both ideals simultaneously is foolish (68). We can also deduce that this is foreshadowing to the destruction of the character of Charlotte itself, ending in her death. Charlotte is consistently described as an outsider in the place. Victor calls her a “silly woman” (44). Perhaps in the most scrutinizing paragraph, Grace tells us, In these prayers the child Charlotte routinely asked that “it” turn out all right, “it” being unspecified and all inclusive, and she had been an adult for some years before the possibility occurred to her that “it” might not. She had put this doubt from her mind. As a child of the western United States she had been provided as well with faith in the value of certain frontiers on which her family had lived, in the virtues of cleared and irrigated land, of high-yield crops, of thrift, industry and the judicial system, of progress and education, and in the generally upward spiral of history. She was a norteamericana. (60) Progress, virtue and the promise of a strong, effective government are ideals that do not exist in places like Boca Grande. Charlotte is not able to identify this issue – a failure which is exemplified by her belief of what Boca Grande “could become,” her spirit of hope, her deluded sense of progress, her capitalist mentality and her generally optimistic view of human nature (15). The corrupt leaders and government and the random guerilla violence in Boca Grande make Charlotte’s mentality obsolete, ignorant and offensive. Thus, the people of Boca Grande come to resent her – especially Antonio. Perhaps the most offensive part of Charlotte is that she refuses to take a political stance or acknowledge the political part she plays. Grace tells us that “Charlotte hears but doesn’t listen” (240). Her “unaware inflection” creates the façade that she does not know what is going on around her (235). Shortly after this description, Grace explains how grammar and consciousness are connected. She says, “it occurred to me that I had never before had so graphic an illustration of how the consciousness of the human organism is carried in its grammar. Or the unconsciousness…if the organism under scrutiny is Charlotte” (234). Even the way that Charlotte speaks and constructs language is telling of her ignorance. Her unrealistic point of view that everything is okay all the time comes through in her speech as well as her actions. This is of course just another layer of her difficult relationship with the population and land of Boca Grande. Furthermore, a series of serious political events occur to which she is completely oblivious. For example, a bomb goes off and all she can remember is that it happened when she was changing her tampon (250). She probably put the event out of her mind because it has no affect on her life at all. If the bomb had hit the Caribe Hotel where she stayed, perhaps Charlotte would have had a reaction. Since the event was completely out of her mind, not in her home country and not affecting her day-to-day visit in Boca Grande, “it doesn’t involve [her]” (198). Additionally, she continues to host political parties where people of equal privilege come to discuss “the existential situation of the Central American” (226). According to Grace, Charlotte never seemed to be listening to the conversation and then claimed, “actually I’m not ‘political’ in the least. I mean my mind doesn’t really run that way” (199). It is not possible for a person who hosts a gathering of “translators and teachers and film critics who supported themselves stringing for newspapers and playing at politics” to not have a political stake in the process (226). This is where Charlotte’s participation alone repeats itself as an act with a political motive, resembling her presence on the island itself. To
