Promises and Pomegranates

Elena has struggled with obedience for her entire life. As a child, she sought to please her parents—especially her father—and so she tried to prove herself over and over, either through submission to their rules or through a violent, personal independence. She often fought with other children to prove that she could hold her own and deserved greater freedom to make her own choices. Elena sought to prove that she was more than Rafael’s “little Mafia princess” and should be allowed to “live the life [she] wanted” (49). Ultimately, however, Elena’s desire for freedom defeats her wish for parental acceptance via filial duty. This is shown in her decision to embrace Kal even though it means severing ties with her parents, since choosing him represents not only sexual fulfillment but also a rejection of a family system that demanded obedience above all.

Elena’s hasty, forced marriage to Kal upsets everything she’s ever thought about her place in the world and what her future would look like. Incredulous, she asks Rafael, “Do I get a say in anything?” (34). The unsaid answer, of course, is no, not with her family. She is appalled at the abrupt change, from her engagement to Mateo de Luca, the abusive and narcissistic heir to a Boston media company, to a hasty, impromptu wedding to Kal; she never would have slept with Kal if she knew that it would “result in this, in the complete stripping away of any semblance of freedom [she’s] ever had” (35).