Mexican Gothic

Fairytales, with their happy endings, supernatural touches, and fairly rigid gender roles for women, are an important motif that Moreno-Garcia uses throughout the novel to reinforce feminist themes.

When Noemí makes her journey to High Place and sees the house, she initially recognizes the forests and house as fairytale-like settings, although the wildness of the surrounding forests foreshadows the subversion of the natural order at High Place.

Noemí also sees Catalina as a fairytale figure who tried to live out all the conventions of the fairytale—marrying a handsome stranger, setting up house like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, and finding something monstrous instead. By the time Noemí becomes more aware of how much is wrong at High Place, she can see that the darkness in the house can also be found in some of the fairytales she remembers from childhood. The failure to secure a happy romantic ending, the inability to escape a place or expectations, and corruption of human bodies and the natural order are all elements of fairytale traditions.

By the end of the novel, Noemí has cast herself as a creator of new stories, ones broken people like Francis need to hear to have hope in the face of uncertainty.