Synopsis: The Last Summer (El último verano) is a short story by Amparo Dávila, published in 1977 in the book Árboles petrificados (Petrified Trees). It tells of the anguish of a middle-aged woman who, after having raised six children and feeling the wear and tear of the years, unexpectedly discovers that she is pregnant again. Far from joyfully receiving the news, she experiences a deep despair as her body and spirit are exhausted. As the sweltering summer progresses, her fatigue and sense of confinement intensify, plunging her into growing hopelessness. Soon, her everyday world begins to turn into a nightmare.
Warning
The following summary and analysis is only a semblance and one of the many possible readings of the text. It is not intended to replace the experience of reading the story.
Summary of The Last Summer by Amparo Dávila
The Last Summer, by Amparo Dávila, tells the story of a middle-aged woman who receives the unexpected news of a new pregnancy after having had six children and leading a life marked by physical and emotional exhaustion. The protagonist, whose name is never mentioned, experiences a profound uneasiness when she compares herself to her younger self, reflected in a portrait on her dressing table. Her body and spirit are worn out by years of incessant effort, and the idea of starting over with a baby fills her with despair.
The pregnancy arrives in a sweltering summer, accompanied by intense fatigue, dizziness, and nausea that aggravate her state of mind. At first, she attributes her ailments to menopause, so she consults a doctor in the hope of receiving some treatment. However, the diagnosis takes her by surprise: it is not that she is going to lose her fertility, but that she is going to continue to be fertile. The news does not bring her relief or joy but rather an unbearable feeling of oppression. Her life is full of worries: an indifferent husband, a precarious economy, and a house to support without help. Unlike Pepe, her husband, who receives the news with the serenity of someone who does not assume the domestic burden, she feels trapped in a sentence with no way out.
The weeks pass in a constant state of dejection. The summer heat and growing fatigue plunge her into a despair that prevents her from sleeping. At night, she gets up and sits by the window, listening to the crickets in the garden and letting the anguish consume her. Visits to the doctor do not alleviate her suffering; she only receives recommendations for rest and tranquillity, something impossible in her situation. Her exhaustion becomes unbearable, and finally, her body gives up: one night, while trying to cool down on the stairs leading to the vegetable garden, she feels a warm liquid running between her legs. Looking down, she sees a bouquet of leafless poppies on the ground. She immediately understands what has happened: she has lost the baby. Between the cold sweat and the dizziness, she calls her husband, who takes her to bed and seeks medical help. The doctor, with his professional indifference, confirms the miscarriage and insists that she rest. Before sleeping, she asks Pepe to wrap the clots in newspapers and bury them in the garden, out of sight of the children.
The next day, she feels relief and sadness when she wakes up. She has slept soundly for the first time in months, and the nightmare of pregnancy is over. Although she is pained by how it happened, the fact that she will no longer have to face that burden gives her an unexpected serenity. As the days go by, she tries to get back to her routine: she does the housework, looks after the children, and tries not to think too much about what happened. However, her mind refuses to forget. The trauma remains latent until a casual comment from her youngest son, Pepito, completely unhinges her. The boy refuses when she asks him to pick tomatoes from the garden because “there are worms.”
Immediately, a visceral terror paralyzes her. A cold sweat runs down her body while a horrible idea takes hold of her mind: Pepe, clumsy and careless as always, would not have buried them deep enough, and now… the worms have come out. From that moment on, her life spirals into paranoia. She can no longer concentrate on her daily tasks; any noise keeps her alert, and any shadow in the garden obsesses her. She becomes irritable and distant from her family. She spends more and more time watching the garden from the window, waiting… observing. Her obsession consumes her.
One afternoon, when she is home alone, her anxiety reaches its peak. Suddenly, she hears a slight rustling, a subtle but unmistakable sound of something crawling on the floor. She stands motionless, holding her breath. Certainty hits her with brutality: they are here. She sees a shadow under the door and realizes she can’t escape. In a desperate act, she takes a porcelain lamp, unscrews it, and soaks herself in the oil. Then, she draws a small circle around herself with the remaining liquid. Before lighting the match, she thinks she sees worms slowly entering through the crack in the door. But she has been more cunning: she will not allow them to devour her. She lights the flame.
The story ends in an instant of fire and delirium, in which the protagonist surrenders to her destruction, convinced that she has conquered the ghosts of her mind.
Analysis of The Last Summer by Amparo Dávila
Character analysis:
The story’s protagonist is a middle-aged woman whose name is never revealed. Through her perspective, Amparo Dávila constructs a complex and profoundly human character, marked by the physical and emotional exhaustion caused by a life of sacrifice. From the beginning, the protagonist is presented as someone who has lost her vitality and self-esteem. Her image reflected in the mirror contrasts with the youth immortalized in a portrait from the past, symbolizing her painful awareness of the passage of time. Her identity has become blurred between domestic responsibilities, incessant motherhood, and her husband’s indifference, to the point where she feels reduced to a shadow of her former self. The discovery of her pregnancy does not fill her with hope but rather an overwhelming feeling of defeat, as she perceives it as yet another sentence in an already exhausted life. Throughout the story, her deterioration is not only physical but also mental, leading her to a state of paranoia and delirium that culminates in her tragic end. Her character embodies the weight of the duties imposed on many women, the hopelessness, and the struggle against an implacable destiny.
Pepe, her husband, is an apathetic and conformist man whose presence in the story reinforces the protagonist’s isolation. His love for her, if it exists, is distant and mechanical. He responds with resignation and empty optimism when she confesses her pregnancy: “Every child brings its food and clothes, don’t worry.” His passive attitude makes him a frustrating figure, as he leaves all the emotional and physical burdens on his wife without trying to improve the economic situation or lighten her domestic load. Pepe is the typical absent husband who, although physically present, does not actively participate in his wife’s emotional life or the upbringing of their children. His negligence reaches a critical point when, after the loss of the baby, he does not bother to bury the remains properly, which triggers the spiral of madness of the protagonist. Although he is not evil, his indifference makes him an agent of his wife’s suffering.
The protagonist’s children play a secondary role, but their presence is essential to understanding her exhaustion and despair. There are six of them, and although not much is said about their personalities, it can be inferred that each represents an additional responsibility that she has had to assume alone. The mention of Pepito, the youngest son, is crucial in the story’s development, as his comment about the worms in the vegetable garden unleashes his mother’s terror and plunges her into a state of irreversible paranoia. Through the children, the story reinforces the idea of motherhood as an exhausting burden and the protagonist’s lack of options to escape her fate.
Although he appears in only a few scenes, the doctor is a representative figure of institutional coldness. His diagnosis of the pregnancy and his advice of rest and tranquillity show his disconnection with the reality of the protagonist. His paternalistic attitude, the pats on the shoulder, and the minimization of her concerns show how society treats women’s problems condescendingly and without offering real solutions. After the miscarriage, his last words, “Try to sleep; I’ll come and see you tomorrow,” show his total indifference to the woman’s emotional and physical pain.
Finally, although they are not characters in the traditional sense, the worms that obsess the protagonist function as an ominous presence in the story. They represent the fear of death, corruption, and inevitable destiny. Their final appearance, real or imagined, is the manifestation of the guilt and anguish that have eaten away at her mind to the point of self-destruction.
Setting in which the story takes place:
The setting of The Last Summer is an oppressive and suffocating space that contributes to the anguish and despair felt by the protagonist. The story takes place mainly in her home, a modest and routine place that has been the center of her life for years. Far from being a refuge, it becomes a prison where her physical and mental exhaustion develops. The protagonist carries out her daily tasks immersed in monotony and exhaustion, trapped in endless responsibilities. Every corner of the house reflects the passage of time and the burden of motherhood, becoming a silent testimony to her exhaustion. It is in her room where she confronts the image of her lost youth and abandons herself to her dark thoughts in the long nights of insomnia.
The vegetable garden behind the house plays a crucial role in the story. At first, it was just a space where she grew vegetables, an external but harmless place. However, as the narrative progresses, it is transformed into a disturbing place, a reminder of the trauma that triggers her madness. There, Pepe buries the remains of the miscarriage, but the idea that worms could come out of the ground and reveal what happened turns this space into a source of uncontrollable terror for the protagonist. Guilt and fear take hold of the image of the vegetable garden until it becomes the epicenter of her obsession. Every glance she casts out of the window, and every thought lost on the possibility of something emerging from the earth reinforces the idea that this place is no longer part of her everyday reality but has become a physical manifestation of her torment.
In addition, summer itself stands out as a fundamental element in the scenario. The suffocating heat, constant fatigue, and heavy atmosphere contribute to the deterioration of the protagonist. It is not only the temporal context of the story but a presence that oppresses her and intensifies her physical and mental discomfort. With its scorching climate, the season becomes a symbol of her own decline, her exhaustion, and the impossibility of finding relief. The feeling of suffocation, the inability to sleep, and the constant irritation intertwine with the climate, making the protagonist experience the summer as an endless nightmare.
In this confinement, heat, and exhaustion scenario, the protagonist becomes increasingly isolated. Her world is reduced to the house and the vegetable garden, where her thoughts and fears overflow. There are no open spaces or possibilities of escape; the environment reflects her mental and emotional state. Thus, the setting is not only where the story takes place but an essential component of the tragedy that unfolds in the protagonist’s mind.
Type of narrator and how it influences the development of the story:
The story The Last Summer is narrated in the third person by an omniscient narrator. This type of narrator allows in-depth access to the protagonist’s thoughts and emotions and accurately describes her fears, anxieties, and physical sensations. Although the story focuses almost exclusively on her, the narrator not only describes what she does but also penetrates her mind and exposes her memories, worries, and the progressive deterioration of her mental state. Thanks to this perspective, the reader witnesses her transformation from an exhausted but still functional woman to someone wholly consumed by paranoia and despair.
The narrator’s tone is intimate and almost confessional as if he were observing and understanding every nuance of her life. He doesn’t just describe her actions but delves into her darkest thoughts, the feeling of entrapment that consumes her, and the frustration that accompanies it. The narrator’s omniscience allows the reader to perceive how the protagonist’s objective reality and subjective perception become distorted until they become a single truth: her certainty that something dreadful is stalking her. As the story progresses, the intensity of the narrative voice increases, accompanying the spiral of madness that dominates the protagonist until the tragic denouement.
Despite the closeness to the protagonist, the narrator maintains a certain distance and does not make direct judgments about her or her actions. He does not try to justify or condemn her thoughts or destiny but exposes them with an almost documentary harshness. This neutrality contributes to the doom that pervades the story, as if the outcome were inevitable and the protagonist was trapped in a destiny she could never escape. Thus, the omniscient narrator is not only a technical device but a tool that amplifies the anguish and tragedy of the story.
Themes of the story:
The physical and emotional strain of motherhood. The protagonist has dedicated her life to the home, raising six children, and taking on all the responsibilities without help or rest. The news of a new pregnancy, far from bringing her joy, plunges her into absolute despair, as she feels that her body and mind no longer have the capacity to cope with another child. The story shows motherhood not from an idealized perspective but as an overwhelming burden that has exhausted the protagonist to the point of wishing for her end. The story challenges the traditional view of motherhood as a natural destiny for women. It exposes its darker aspects: exhaustion, loss of identity, and the feeling trapped in an endless cycle of sacrifice.
The passage of time and the loss of youth. From the beginning, the protagonist is confronted with the painful contrast between her past self, captured in a photograph, and her current reflection in the mirror. The image of her youth represents what she once was: a woman with dreams and vitality before the years and motherhood transformed her into a shadow of herself. The arrival of menopause, which she initially believes to be an experience, becomes a symbol of her fear of becoming irrelevant and crossing a line where she is no longer seen as a desirable woman or valuable according to the roles imposed on her. The unexpected pregnancy seems to deny that end, but instead of bringing relief, it causes terror, as it prevents her from resting and closing a cycle that she longs to end.
The oppression of gender roles. The protagonist is the portrait of many women whose lives have been determined by social expectations: to get married, have children, take care of the home, and resign themselves to an existence marked by silent sacrifices. Her husband, Pepe, embodies the traditional male figure, carefree and oblivious to domestic and emotional tasks. While he limits himself to empty words of comfort, she is the one who faces the burden of raising the children and running the household, with no possibility of rest or escape. The story denounces the unequal distribution of family responsibilities and the devastating impact this can have on women’s mental health.
Loneliness and emotional isolation. Throughout the story, the protagonist is surrounded by her family, but no one notices her suffering. Her children require constant attention, her husband is indifferent, and the doctor treats her condescendingly without really caring about her emotional well-being. Her anguish is solitary, confined to sleepless nights and her internal dialogue. This lack of support and understanding plunges her into a state of absolute despair, in which her mind distorts reality and creates a threat that only she can perceive.
Psychological deterioration and madness. As the story progresses, the protagonist’s tiredness and anguish become paranoid. Her mind, unable to process the trauma of the miscarriage, projects her guilt and fear onto the idea of worms emerging from the vegetable garden. Obsession takes hold of her to the point of completely altering her perception of reality. In her desperation, the only way out she finds is fire, an act of self-destruction that symbolizes her defeat and her last attempt to take control of her destiny. The story suggests that madness does not arise out of nowhere but is the result of accumulated wear and tear, a life of silences and resignations that eventually become unbearable.
Conclusions and General Commentary on The Last Summer by Amparo Dávila
The Last Summer, by Amparo Dávila, is a story that explores the physical and mental deterioration of a woman trapped in a cycle of motherhood, exhaustion, and loneliness. The story follows a protagonist who discovers she is pregnant again after having had six children and dedicating her life to housework. Far from feeling happy, the news plunges her into overwhelming anguish, as she does not have the strength to raise another child. As the story progresses, the fatigue, the suffocating summer heat, and the feeling of being trapped lead her to an emotional and psychological breakdown. Her mind is filled with dark thoughts until, in a chilling climax, her paranoia leads her to commit an act of self-destruction.
It is essential to analyze the protagonist’s emotional state to understand the story. From the beginning, Dávila shows us a woman who has lost her identity as a mother and wife. She is no longer the young woman in the portrait that adorns her dressing table but someone consumed by years of sacrifice. Her husband, Pepe, is not violent or cruel, but he is indifferent to her suffering. For him, having another child is something natural since he won’t be the one who has to raise it or spend sleepless nights. The protagonist, on the other hand, sees it as an unbearable burden. Herein lies one of the story’s key themes: motherhood is not always a gift, and, for some women, it can become a curse if they have no support.
Symbolism is fundamental to the story. One of the most powerful elements is the vegetable garden, a space that initially seems insignificant but becomes the epicenter of the protagonist’s terror. When she suffers a miscarriage, she asks her husband to bury the remains in the garden, but over time, the idea that worms might come out of the ground torments her to the point of obsession. This represents her guilt, her fear that her suffering will not remain buried and that something of her tragedy will return to torment her. The image of the worms is disturbing because it symbolizes decomposition and death, but also the weight of a trauma that cannot be ignored.
The story also plays with the idea of madness: Are there worms emerging from the vegetable patch, or is it the protagonist’s mind that imagines them? Dávila does not give us a clear answer, which makes the story’s horror even more profound. The protagonist is convinced that they are there, that they are coming for her, and her desperation leads her to make a radical decision: she douses herself in petrol and sets herself on fire before they can reach her. From her perspective, she has managed to overcome her fears, but in reality, they have entirely devoured her. Her madness does not come out of nowhere but is the result of years of exhaustion, frustration, and emotional abandonment.
Another interesting aspect of the story is its setting. Summer is not a time of joy or rest but quite the opposite: a suffocating and exhausting period. The extreme heat, the thick air, and the constant fatigue create an oppressive atmosphere that reflects the protagonist’s state of mind. She is consumed not only by the physical heat but also by the weight of her life, which is as overwhelming as the endless summer around her. This detail demonstrates how Dávila uses the environment to intensify the protagonist’s anguish and make the setting another character in the story.
In terms of narrative style, the story is told in the third person, with a narrator who allows us to enter the protagonist’s mind. This is crucial, as it allows us to experience her psychological deterioration from within. The narration not only describes what happens but also immerses us in her thoughts, doubts, and growing paranoia. In doing so, Dávila makes the reader feel the same sense of confinement and despair as the protagonist, making the ending even more shocking.
The message of the story is complex. It is not just a psychological horror story but a reflection on the role of women in a society that expects them to make constant sacrifices. The protagonist has no escape: her life has been marked by motherhood and domestic responsibilities, and when her body and mind can take no more, her only way out is madness and death. Through her story, Dávila shows us the price of a life of renunciation and how emotional abandonment can become a form of silent but devastating violence.
In short, The Last Summer is a story that combines psychological horror with a profound critique of gender roles. Its protagonist is neither a villain nor a heroine but a woman trapped in a life that has worn her down to smithereens. With a masterful use of symbolism, setting, and narration, Amparo Dávila immerses us in a disturbing, painful, and terrifyingly real story.
