ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a close reading of selected scenes and details in the novella as they relate to the themes of fashion, competing models of femininity, the embodiment of modernity and self-determination within love relationships, topics which can be familiar to readers acquainted with Burgos's repertoire of concerns. It considers the implications of the work's use of biblical images and language, which consistently refer to loss and redemption in terms reminiscent of the archetypal story of Adam and Eve. In Carmen de Burgos's novella, the protagonist Adela's desire for an updated hairstyle is a matter of relatively minor significance that takes on grandiose proportions, and she reflects that despite "being such a small thing, it was going to cost her hole life's happiness". In employing religious language for mundane matters, Burgos certainly calls attention to the seemingly inescapable gender dynamics of patriarchal authority and feminine rebellion so central to the archetypal story of Adam and Eve.
