Maria Judite De Carvalho; translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Empty Wardrobes by Maria Judite De Carvalho, translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa, is about three generations of women. The primary focus is on Dora, a wife and mother. Her mother-in-law is the gregarious Ana; her daughter is the vivacious Lisa. The three generations correspond to the three phases in a woman’s life—the virgin, the mother, and the crone.
The novel opens years after the death of Dora’s husband. The story unfolds in the voice of Manuela, Dora’s friend. She tells Dora’s story out of sympathy for her since both have suffered in the hands of men. According to Manuela, the Dora before marriage loved to dance, dress up, and embraced life with exuberance. But the Dora after marriage is the opposite. She mirrors her husband, adopting his spartan life-style, his disdain for the simple pleasures of life, and his total lack of ambition. She loses her identity, her voice, and her agency. She wears dowdy clothes, neglects her appearance, and seems to have lost all energy for life. She persists in this manner for a decade after her husband’s death until her mother-in-law reveals that he had been planning to leave her for another woman. The shock jolts Dora back to life. She transforms her appearance and resuscitates the former Dora who embraced life. Unfortunately, her enthusiasm is short-lived. She is, once again, betrayed by a man who leaves her emotionally and physically scarred.
The novel depicts the deleterious impact of male-dominated society on the lives of three generations of women. Dora, the wife/mother, has been socialized, in the words of Virginia Woolf, to reflect her husband at twice his natural size. She stifles her voice, engages in de-selfing, adopts his attitudes as her own. She has no life without him, lives through him and for him.
Ana, the mother-in-law and post-menopausal female, has internalized the values of a culture that worships all things young, firm, and perky. Consequently, she adopts measures to camouflage her aging body through heavy make-up and flamboyant clothes. And Lisa, the young virgin, opts to abandon her dream of independence, self-sufficiency, and autonomy. She agrees to marry a man twenty-four years her senior simply because he is wealthy, thereby becoming totally dependent on him financially. Her grandmother, who has always encouraged her to marry rich, applauds her decision.
The fate of the three generations of women—the virgin, the mother, and the crone—is told in simple, unadorned language. As the title of the novel suggests, all three are empty shells, victims of a male-dominated society that has stripped them of identity, valorizes youth, and keeps them financially dependent on the men in their lives.