Vida's Ocean Sophia Dalal College

Vida, by Patricia Engel, is a story that deals with, among other things, ideas of agency, responsibility to oneself, and responsibility to others. Although the story is told through Sabina’s eyes, the drive of the story comes from the desire to learn as much about Vida as possible. And as Sabina learns about Vida, she discovers that she really is two people: the person she was in Colombia and the person she is in Miami. I argue that the ocean represents the division between these two parts of her life: sometimes it is an un-crossable boundary, and at other times it is fluid, allowing Vida to access parts of her past. Like tides on a shore, the ocean pulls on Vida in opposite directions periodically throughout the story. It physically separates her from her life in Colombia but also connects her to the freedom of childhood.

The most obvious reading of the ocean in Vida is as a symbol for separation. Both Vida’s arrival from and return to Colombia are marked by ocean imagery. Within the first paragraph of the story Sabina, the narrator, relays what she knows about Vida: “In Colombia she was never called anything but her given name, [Davida,] but over here Vida stuck, which she said was okay with her because that plane ride over...