To Cuba and Back · Chapter
XVIII explained
The narrator describes a Sunday in Havana, beginning with morning sea baths and observing the chain gang.
What happens
The narrator describes a Sunday in Havana, beginning with morning sea baths and observing the chain gang. He attends Mass at the Belén church, noting the reverent Jesuit manner and the congregation's social and racial mix. After service, he breakfasts with a priest and attempts to gather companions for visits to charitable institutions, but customs prevent a young American lady from joining. He visits the Casa de Beneficencia, an orphanage, asylum, and home for the aged run by Sisters of Charity, and the Military Hospital, where he witnesses the devoted care of the nuns and their serene chapel prayers, contrasting the suffering of young Spanish soldiers with the sisters' heroism.
Themes in this chapter
Religion and Moral Hypocrisy
The chapter contrasts the reverent Jesuit Mass and the heroic devotion of the Sisters of Charity with the rigid social customs that prevent a young American woman from visiting charitable institutions.
Colonial Oppression and Despotism
The chain gang laboring on Sunday and the conscription of young Spanish soldiers sent to die in Cuba's tropical climate highlight the oppressive colonial system.
Slavery and Racial Hierarchy
In the Belén church, Negroes worship alongside the wealthy, but are distinguished by plain shawls; the Countess Villanueva is led by her Negro servant, illustrating racial hierarchies even in worship.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
The narrator attends Mass at Belén, visits the Casa de Beneficencia and Military Hospital, and observes the Sisters of Charity.
- Father Antonio Cabre
Young Father Cabre, professor of physics, is recognized in the choir at Belén.
- The Jesuits
The Jesuits at Belén conduct Mass with slow, orderly, and reverential ceremony, in contrast to the Cathedral.
- Sisters of Charity
The Sisters of Charity run the Casa de Beneficencia and Military Hospital, caring for orphans, the insane, the aged, and sick soldiers, often dying from yellow fever.
- Spaniards
Young Spanish soldiers, conscripted from rural Spain, lie ill with fevers and smallpox in the Military Hospital.
- Cubans
No Cuban women have joined the Sisters of Charity; the order relies on recruits from France and Spain.
Key passages
“The Señora’s reply was, “You are are American, and may do anything.” This settled the matter in the negative, and we went alone.”
The lady of the house told Miss ⸻ that as an American she could do anything, which ironically meant she could not join the visit, so the narrator and the priest went without her.
Highlights the social constraints on women in Havana despite the apparent freedom of Americans.
“The number of the Sisters is not full. As none have joined the order from Cuba (I am told literally none), they are all from abroad chiefly from France and Spain; and having acclimation to go through, with exposure to yellow fever and cholera, many of those that come here die in the first or second summer. And yet they still come, in simple, religious fidelity, under the shadow of death.”
No Cuban women become Sisters of Charity; all are foreign recruits who often die from disease within a year or two, yet they continue to come out of religious devotion.
Emphasizes the sacrifice and dedication of the nuns in the face of deadly tropical diseases.
“It was affecting to see the wistful eyes of these poor, fevered soldier boys, gazing on the serene, kind countenances of the nuns, and thinking of their mothers and sisters in the dear home in Old Spain, and feeling, no doubt, that this womanly, religious care was the nearest and best substitute.”
The young Spanish soldiers, sick with fever, looked longingly at the nuns, reminded of their families back in Spain, finding comfort in the nuns' maternal care.
Illustrates the emotional impact of the nuns' presence on the conscripted soldiers far from home.
