The Yellow Bag (known as
A Bolsa Amarela in its original Portuguese) is a 1976
Magic Realism novel by Brazilian author
Lygia Bojunga Nunes. The story focuses on Raquel, a young girl in a large family who has three wishes: being an adult, being a boy, and being a writer. Afraid of what her family might think of her, as she is already mocked and ignored by them for being the youngest, she comes into possession of the titular handbag and decides to store her wishes there. From there, as more and more things start coming into her life, the titular bag keeps filling up, causing a tremendous weight on her life.
The Yellow Bag provides examples of:
- Anachronic Order: Chapter 4 takes place before chapter 2, possibly even before chapter 1. It retells the story of how Raquel first met the Safety Pin.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Par for the course for a Magic Realism novel, Raquel is able to communicate to varying degrees with several inanimate objects, including the Safety Pin, the Umbrella, and the bag's zipper.
- Beach Episode: Chapter 10 takes place at a beach, where Raquel gets rid of her wishes of being an adult and being a boy, and Alfonso and the Umbrella fly away in order to travel the world.
- Beastly Bloodsports: Terrível is a rooster obsessed with fighting and winning cockfights, with the other characters trying to talk him down. He later escapes and the fight goes through, leading to his presumed death.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: According to Alfonso, the reason why Terrível is so obsessed with fighting is because his owners sewed his thoughts with string so that he can only think about fighting. Raquel decides to treat this fact as real when writing the story of Terrível's life in chapter 8.
- The City vs. the Country: Raquel's family used to live in a farm, but moved away for unexplained reasons. She outright states that her life used to be perfect there and sometimes wishes that she could return, even keeping a picture of the yard in one of the bag's pockets.
- Does Not Like Spam: Raquel mentions that the only food she doesn't like to eat is cod. Of course, when she visits her aunt Brunilda, she decides to serve cod for lunch.
- Foreshadowing: When first noticing the "thin-but-long pocket" of the bag, Raquel wonders what she could put there, considering an umbrella as one of her options. Sure enough, she later meets the Umbrella, who goes into that very pocket.
- Hiccup Hijinks: Terrível gets hiccups in chapter 6 from having his beak clamped down so much. This makes Raquel's situation of having to hide his presence even more stressful.
- I Am What I Am: At the end of the story, Raquel learns to love herself for who she is, getting rid of her wishes of being an adult and being a boy.
- Imaginary Friend: During the first chapter, Raquel writes letters to "André" in order to express her frustrations while practicing writing at the same time, but stops after her brother reads it and gets mad at her for thinking she's hiding something from him. She tries it again with another imaginary friend, Lorelai, but her family once again gets mad at her, as the letters mention her wishes of running away.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: According to Alfonso, only a rooster can understand the Umbrella's language.
- Internalized Categorism: Raquel's wishes of being an adult and being a boy stem from the fact that she feels like her family (and society as a whole) would treat her much better if things were different.
- Madness Mantra: When Alberto becomes fixated on opening Raquel's bag during "Lunch", he constantly repeats the phrase "I'm going to peek inside that bag, to see what's in there".
- Manchild: Alberto, aunt Brunilda's son, is only 14 years old but acts rather immature for his age, having fun tormenting Raquel while she's over.
- Meaningful Rename: Rei ("King") changes his name to Alfonso shortly after meeting Raquel, as he never liked his old name.
- Mr. Fixit: The House of Repairs features an entire family of people who can fix anything, from furniture and electronics to a real, live dog. They are the ones who fix the Umbrella after she breaks a few ribs.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Terrível ("Terrible"), fitting for his status as a cockfighting rooster.
- Never Given a Name: In "At the beach", Alfonso encounters a school of fish and comments to Raquel that none of them have any names, instead calling each other through interjections such as "hey!" and "listen!". This makes Raquel realize that, for once in her life, she actually likes her own name, and since she doesn't need another, she decides to hand the cards with boyish names to Alfonso—who gives them to the fishes—and to get rid of her wish of being a boy.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Raquel's parents don't pay much attention to her when it matters.
- Refugee from TV Land: Rei, a character from one of Raquel's stories, shows up inside the bag one day.
- Rule of Symbolism:
- The bag, where Raquel stores her wishes, is described as being very heavy thanks to all the things she has to carry in it. It's literally causing a weight on her life.
- The story ends with Raquel turning her wish of being a boy (along with the wish of being an adult) into kites, referencing the fact that flying kites is seen as a boys' activity in Brazil.
- Speaking Simlish: The Umbrella can only talk in an extremely long-winded and grammatically impossible language. Alfonso can somehow understand her.
The Umbrella: Bzzzztctctctdrrrrtdtd)967854326666?? ??!!!iuiuiuiuiuugdtgdtgbzzzzxzxzyxztaaa,,,,... ta?bzzzz.
Raquel: What did she say?
Alfonso: "Ow."
- Spell My Name with a "The": The Umbrella. Notably, the story uses the article "a" instead of the grammatically correct "o" to denote that she is female.
- Spoiler Title: Chapter 7 is called "Terrível goes away", making it fairly obvious what happens next.
- Story Within a Story: Chapter 8, sans the opening paragraph, is a transcription of Raquel's newest story "Story of a fighting rooster and a spool of string".
- Talking Animal: Alfonso is a talking rooster. This isn't just Raquel's imagination, either, as he briefly speaks to her family in chapter 6.
