The Surrogate
SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS, by Nora Carranza
Carla is twenty
years old and studies at a college. Patrick is a Shakespeare and XVII century
poetry lecturer. He is seven or eight years older than his students.
He is tall and
thin, has a small beer belly and wears glasses. Maybe he isn’t particularly good-looking,
but Clara, in the circle of chairs of the lecture room, loves all his gestures
and body details.
Despite her
feelings, the girl is aware that she is only an average student, although
sometimes the professor remarks some of her sharp views. She has no expectations;
she believes she is not beautiful: at school, the kids called her “frog
face”.
Clara, after the
reading of an old moving poem, understands that she is shut out the professor’s
life.
Anyway, Clara dreams
about Patrick permanently, she spends hours imagining varied situations that
would allow them both to meet, and that eventually he would fall in love with her. In her
favourite scene, they walk through a green meadow and reach a gate that opens
to a wood. The scene has a romantic atmosphere, and crossing the gate represents
the passage from their single life to their life together. However, when the
fantasy reaches the moment of kissing, Clara gets lost, confused, and she cannot
go ahead. This is not the real thing.
At the second year
at college, Clara was short of money and got a job in a pub, not at all a fashionable
place like the old traditional pubs. No students or lecturers go there for a
beer, but groups of men to watch sports in the TV screens.
One evening, while
attending normal duties, Clara for a moment believed that Patrick was there, and
she panicked. But the man there only looked like Patrick, in many aspects.
Nonetheless, he didn’t have the educated accent of the professor and seemed
very shy.
Yet the man came
back with his friends again and again. She knew that he (whose name is not
mentioned) wanted to see her, and his friends made fun of it.
The differences
between the pub visitor and Patrick were evident for Clara, but all the same,
she initiated their singular relationship.
For a couple of months,
they didn’t really go out together, they did only one thing together, until she
went on holidays. She pretended that it was Patrick who made love to her, but eventually
admitted he wasn’t. In fact, the lover was Dave, here is the name he had.
Surprisingly, the
story changes a lot because, after some time, Patrick and Clara got married! He
had always loved his student, and one day he went for her. The dream came true.
With the time and
life together, love changes, ideals disappear and everybody has to deal with
real persons. Clara accepts that, and thinks she loves her husband, and they
make a good couple.
She never met Dave
again, she doesn’t even know his surname. When she remembers that time, Clara feels
quite embarrassed, thinking how she treated him, wondering why he accepted
that, what feelings he had.
A new surprise
arrives with the end of the story: Clara is having fantasies again; this time
Dave goes to her house, as the gas engineer he was, and, instead of repairing
the boiler, audaciously starts kissing Clara.
Is this another
dream to come true?
Does Clara need to
escape her everyday life changing protagonists in her fantasy? Does Clara want
to compensate her previous behaviour with fantasies?
Do we need fantasy to cope with real life? Do we always have fantasies about hidden desires and keep them secret?
QUESTIONS
-Does being in love with one’s teacher improve one’s
learning? Why so? Why not?
-Why do you think we move our hands when we speak?
-What details that aren’t particularly attractive did
the narrator like in her teacher?
-What do you know about Much
Ado About Nothing? What “freedom of choice” is there in the play?
-Do teachers prefer getting in love with clever
students or with attractive ones?
-What do you know about the Henry King and his poem mentioned in
the story?
-Do you like reading poetry? Do you have a favourite
poem / poet?
-What was the meaning of the image of the field with
“bullocks jostling and clambering on to one another’s back”?
-What could be a difference between infatuation and
real love? Was Carla only infatuated, or was she in love? How do you know?
-Tell us about Patrick and Carla’s personality and
physical appearance.
-Why wasn’t any sex in her dreams?
-What do you know about Coleridge and The
Ancient Mariner?
-Have you ever been to an English pub?
-What kind of job is a waiter / waitress? Is it well
paid? Is it a qualified job?
-The surrogate was shy and so perhaps not very clever,
according to the narrator. Do you think there is a relation between character
and talent?
-What could be the difference between sexual
harassment and seduction?
-“People come in physical types.” How true is this
sentence?
-According to the narrator, flirting with the
surrogate wasn’t dangerous because she wasn’t in love with him. Why love could be dangerous?
-What do you think about cleaning your car / flat in
expectation of a flirt?
-She was bored when the gas engineer told her about
his job. What is the kind of conversation that bores / bothers you most?
-“He was a man: he didn’t turn me down.” Is it always true? Is it a cliché? Have a look at this: No means no in older times: scene of Love for Love, by Congreve (Act II, Scene XI)
-What is your opinion about the theory that says love
only lasts three years?
-Would it be a good idea to tell Patrick about Dave?
Why?
-Why, in your opinion, does she dream now about Dave?
-Why was there in her dreams a transition from romanticism
to pseudo pornography?
VOCABULARY
lectures, smitten, moonly, picked --- out, average, quirky,
insight, delude, singled --- out, strip lights, bullocks, exacting, investment,
stranded, calling, muggers, aftermath, Dispiriting, gloomy, atmosphere, quaint,
local, old-timers, optics, besotted, cap sleeves, demeaning, heated-up, seeped
--- in, lurches, hurtling, infatuated, hoarded up, pliably, contrive, hover, serve
up to, reckless