Aura

Aura immediately grabs the attention of the reader, pulling you into the story and the experiences of Felipe Montero, the young historian, by using second-person narration. By addressing the reader directly, we become Felipe Montero and follow the story through his eyes. There are a few other ways in which Carlos Fuentes intrigues the reader, leaving you curious about the unfolding of events. First off, the atmosphere inside the Consuelo’s house is pitched-black, which creates a lot of mystery on his surroundings and leaves the reader feeling uneasy on what he experiences is real or fantastic, especially in distinguishing the physical and characteristic differences between Aura and Consuelo. This generates further curiosity and tension in the reader when the two women begin showing similarities in their actions and in their presence. Situation like they’re eating dinner at the table the two women have almost identical actions and “the Señora becomes motionless, and at the same moment Aura puts her knife on her plate and also becomes motionless” (69), leave you apprehensive to their connection and anxious to uncover the truth. Carlos Fuentes also draws in the reader through his use of magical realism by placing the real along with the fantastic, presenting unexplainable events that Felipe disregards and odd or unusual, although as the reader we want to pause and evaluate the situations and know the truth. Moreover, I found Aura quite attention grabbing through the different techniques that Carlos Fuentes utilizes in his writing.