Of Love And Other Demons

The novel explores the blurring of the lines between religious faith, secular faith, and superstition. The Bishop, the Abbess, and the Holy Office, represent the religious side, while Abrenuncio represents the secular side. The Marquis, Father Delaura, and Father Aquino seem to straddle the divide, sometimes swinging more to one side than the other. Faced with Sierva's situation, the Bishop assures the Marquis that "God has provided us with the means to save her soul" (57), a position to which he firmly adheres until the novel's end. The Bishop sees exorcism as the only solution to the problem. Though religious, the Abbess, like Sagunta, follows a kind of superstitious logic when considering Sierva. Sagunta believes the city is "threatened by a plague of rabies" (15) based on an upcoming eclipse, and the Abbess blames Sierva's presence for all kinds of strange things. The Holy Office looms over the novel as an invisible, though powerful, entity with the authority to ban books and punish heretics based on religion. 

Abrenuncio, as a Jewish atheist, is unrestricted and unafraid to experiment beyond the perceived limits of faith and medicine. He claims that life experiences have helped him cure more diseases than the knowledge he's gained from his extensive library. From the beginning, Abrenuncio insists that Sierva's diagnosis is "not alarming" (32), and that her only ailment, a fever, can be cured by "happiness" (33). He never believes that she has rabiesor a demon living inside of her. When the Marquis doubts Abrenuncio's diagnosis, the doctor offers him the only other option: "Put your trust in God" (50). 

The Marquis flounders between trusting Abrenuncio, trusting the Bishop, and trusting Sierva María. Father Delaura, as a priest, starts out trusting in God, but quickly discovers that the Catholic method for treating Sierva is inhumane and unnecessary. Abrenuncio recognizes this uncertainty in Father Delaura, commenting that the only problem with his eclipse-damaged eye is that it "sees more than it ought to" (113). Delaura tries to reconcile his religious faith with his real-world experiences but finds them incompatible. Father Aquino, who has a Spanish education but ministers to the city's poorest residents, seems most capable of understanding how to apply religion to the everyday.

Sierva María's fate is determined completely by the circumstances under which she's born and raised. These circumstances can't be understood without some knowledge of Spanish colonial South America. As "the daughter of an aristocrat and a commoner" (42), Sierva enters the colony's rigid caste system in a liminal state, without a solid claim on her identity. Additionally, the Marquis is a criollo, or "American-born" (34) noble. Unlike the peninsulares, or Spanish-born nobility, criollos live in close proximity to the black African slaves and indigenous peoples upon whose backs Spain's empire in South America was built. For this reason, the Marquis has "the congenital fear of American-born nobles” (38), namely that his slaves will murder him in his sleep. This fear drives him to, once he finally takes an interest in Sierva, distance her from the black slaves with whom she identifies. The Marquis tries to teach Sierva how to be white, and most of the novel's white characters identify the cultural knowledge Sierva learns from the black community as signs of her demonic possession.

Additionally, the Catholic Church wielded enormous power in the Spanish Empire's administration. In the New World, the Church, its religion, and clerics were used to subdue, forcefully assimilate, and control native populations. Along with the viceregencies, the Church provided a connection between Spain and its colonies. The Holy Office, or Spanish Inquisition, used repressive and violent tactics to maintain its authority. The results of these modes of control determine the Marquis' choice to turn to the Bishop in his time of need, and also determine the Bishop's intransigence in his dealings with Sierva.