44 pages • 1 hour read
Alice HoffmanIncantation
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Angels”
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “Stone”
The arrests begin in Encaleflora with the Arrias family, the deMadrigals’ neighbors. The father, Juan, is beaten and the mother dragged out while screaming. The little girls are taken from their home. Estrella’s grandmother explains that the girls could be given away to Christian families and that the Arriases have been accused of secretly being “marranos,” a dirty word for Jews. She frightens Estrella by telling her that the soldiers will cook the marranos like pigs and burn them alive. The Arriases were “Conversos” (new Christian converts), and Estrella’s grandmother says that it is traitorous for them to have continued their old faith in secret after converting. This disturbs Estrella because this family goes to her church (later revealed to be an entirely crypto-Jewish community).
Estrella’s grandmother warns her not to leave the house, and her grandfather forbids anyone from washing away the blood that was spilled outside. When Estrella vomits in the garden and tries to clean it, she sees that the brick is stained with the blood of the neighbors. Though comforted by her pig, Dini, the horrible thought of people cooking him upsets her. Looking at the Arrias house, she sees a blue stain on the stone where the girls were crying; it is the color Estrella’s mother described to her while looking at the sky. Holding the stone up to her ear, she can hear the sound of the little girls crying, and she throws it away.
Rumors spread around the town of the Arriases and their trial. Lies about them killing small children to make their sunflowers grow or using magic to curse crops spread rapidly. A judge comes into town and stays in the old Duke’s palace. Friar deLeon leads the congregation in a special prayer to St. Esther, and Estrella’s grandmother teaches her that St. Esther was so beautiful that she was believed by her persecutors. That evening, wearing her Sunday clothes and pearls, Estrella sees a shadow inside the Arrias house. She spies through the window and sees Catalina and her mother rummaging through the Arriases’ drawers and taking the special lace linens Señora Arrias made. Catalina and her mother then break open another drawer and steal the silver candlesticks that the Arrias family used on Friday nights. This sends Estrella back home shaking.
That evening she refuses to see Catalina and Catalina’s mother for a needlepoint lesson despite how much she wants to see Andres. To convince her to keep her promise to return later, Catalina asks to wear the pearl necklace. Estrella’s hesitation pushes Catalina to complain; to appease her, Estrella gives her the necklace and lies again, telling her she looks beautiful when in fact all Estrella can think is that the pearls belong to her.
A decree goes up in the Plaza telling citizens to report false Christians and warning them of judgment if they don’t. The Plaza is busy, but people surround the decree to read how to spy a secret Jew. Estrella realizes that her family does all the things listed. She learns that the reward for turning in a person suspected of being Jewish is half of the latter’s property.
Fleeing from the village, Estrella goes into the hills and runs instinctively to the grove where her father is buried among the pine trees. Stars are carved on the flat blue gravestones, and she reflects that her name means “star.”
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “Love”
The riots at the Plaza have resulted in people burning the lime trees and stealing. The terrible smell of the smoke covers the town. Andres waits at the edge of their neighborhood after seeing Estrella run from the village. He comforts her and assures her that he cares about her no matter who she is. She realizes that she is in love with Andres, and he kisses her at the gate of her house.
Unable to wait, Estrella says the rosary for courage and goes to speak with her grandmother. As her grandmother kneads dough on the old family table that has lasted for generations, she adds olives and garlic to make the bread pretty. Estrella asks questions, but her grandmother doesn’t look at her and doesn’t respond. She only stops and looks when Estrella asks, “Are you Sarah?” (35). Her grandmother reveals that they kept their Judaism from Estrella to save her from the burden of knowing but that they had planned to tell her the truth. Estrella runs to her room and throws herself onto the bed. Her grandmother follows. After remembering the marranos insult, Estrella insists they tell Luis too. She pictures how mad he will be after living a lie trying to become a priest. However, her grandmother reveals that Luis already knows. Estrella shouts at her grandmother, who instructs her not to trust a soul. She combs her fingers through Estrella’s hair and calls her Esther.
That night Estrella’s mother wakes her up from a dream in which a voice calls Estrella “Esther” and promises that those she loves will “not drown or burn. They will fly away” (36). Abra swears Estrella to secrecy and leads her to the woods, not noticing when their skirts catch on thorns and Estrella struggles to follow. Among the trees there are more hidden graves carved with stars. Estrella is taken to a mikvah, a pool made of cedar planks and filled with rainwater. Abra explains the purpose of this pool—to purify women who have come of age—and invites Estrella to join her. They take off their clothes and go into the bath. They float and look at the stars. Despite how beautiful the sky is, they can still smell the burnt lime trees.
After walking back into town, Estrella asks her mother why their great-great-grandparents didn’t just leave the town instead of converting. Her mother responds that the court takes a family’s children when casting them out, only returning them once the family converts. Although Estrella doesn’t understand, her mother explains that they couldn’t run away and leave all of their history and family behind.
Part 2 Analysis
Central to this section, which involves the rising conflict as neighbors turn against neighbors, is the question Estrella asks of her grandmother: “Am I Esther?” (34). By framing the question like this, the author highlights the division between Estrella’s private and public lives. Her grandmother has at times called her this name, but Estrella understood it as something like a pet term. In reality, the name is private not because it is a familial nickname but because it is a clue to their Jewish identity. Esther is an important figure in both Jewish and Christian tradition, but she is not a saint in the Catholic Church; that the deMadrigals’ church worships her as such establishes that they are an entire community of converts, practicing their faith at once openly and in secret.
Notably, Estrella’s grandmother does not respond to this question. Estrella wants a straightforward answer as to who she is, but her grandmother leaves this for Estrella herself to decide even as she explains the family’s decision. Moreover, her silence figuratively implies the character development Estrella has yet to undergo. The biblical Esther is responsible for saving her people; Estrella is not yet ready for this responsibility, but in fleeing Spain and thus preserving her lineage, she ultimately will play a similar role. The exchange thus centers on the question of Finding Identity Within Tradition.
Estrella also confronts her grandmother with her own secret name, Sarah. While it was not her grandmother’s sole decision to keep Estrella in the dark, Estrella’s grandmother is responsible for her own identity, and she feels compelled to answer. Notably, Estrella associates the name “Sarah” with the warmth her grandmother shows to her husband and her grandson. Estrella notes that “[her grandmother] had never looked at [her] in this way. She had been too busy hiding things from [her]” (35). The decision to keep this part of herself from Estrella accounts for the coldness in their relationship, suggesting the mental and emotional toll associated with living in hiding.
However, Estrella’s grandmother is right in recognizing that this information will change the way Estrella lives her life. When she runs to her room upset, the text reads, “My pallet was made of fresh straw, but I was like the lime now and not the flower. Bitterness longs for bitterness” (35). As the smell of the burning lime trees is featured more and more as an omen of what is wrong in Encaleflora, Estrella’s feelings surrounding her hometown parallel her new complicated feelings about herself. At the same time, the very fact that this metaphor still associates Estrella with her home shows that her new understanding of her identity does not change the fact that this is where her family has lived for over 500 years.
What happens to the Arrias family demonstrates the dangers Estrella’s community is facing. The more connected Estrella becomes to the members of her church, the more she sees their suffering as foretelling her own. The most important foreshadowing comes from the voice in her dream that promises her loved ones “flight” instead of drowning or burning. Hoffman uses the motif of flight to mean freedom, but that freedom includes “freedom” from life. Estrella herself does not grasp the metaphor until she seeks a merciful death for her mother from a Muslim doctor, who tells her, “You understand me? […] It’s to let her choose her time so she flies away before the pain” (61). Here, flight signifies the mercy of a painless death. While Estrella cannot imagine the cruelties of the Inquisition, neither her grandfather, mother, nor brother die by drowning or burning.
The deMadrigals’ inability to stop what will happen is characterized by their watching the suffering of others. The moment Estrella watches Catalina and her mother ransack the Arrias home encapsulates the family’s response to the Arriases’ arrests and illustrates The Dangers of Silence and Bystanders; Estrella pays a heavy emotional cost as she is confronted with the callousness of her friend. The scene also reveals Catalina’s true nature, developing the theme of Jealousy and the Appearance of Wealth, as Catalina’s envy has distanced her from Estrella. To make matters worse, Catalina and her mother steal these luxury goods at a time when the people of Encaleflora are suffering (as becomes clear in Chapter 7, when someone breaks in to Estrella’s home because they are desperate for food). The juxtaposition of these two robberies highlights Catalina’s greed.
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By Alice Hoffman
