The Iguana Response

Kendall Weinert

FYS: Iguana Blog Post

12/1/13

Finding Love In a Hopeless Place

The novel, The Iguana, by Anna Maria Ortese is set to make the reader believe they are in a fantasy world. The novel takes place on an island in which the main character, The Count, finds and helps an Iguana. Ortese demonstrates the intense feelings that have grown between the Count and this Iguana. Once the Count finds the Iguana on the Island, he cares for her and thinks that he can provide her with what she cannot, freedom. The Iguana becomes almost a basket case for the Count. The Count comes from a rather wealthy family, giving him the perspective that he can do anything in life. With the Count having this outlook on his life, he believes that he can offer the Iguana a new and better life with him. This eventually turns into more than just the Count helping the Iguana through life; it turns into a relationship that is irreplaceable. The Count would not know what to do without the Iguana in his life anymore. When the Iguana passes at the end of the novel, it leaves the Count depressed and not knowing what to do. He has nobody to help through life anymore. The Count believes as if the Iguana only relied on him to live, which is only partially true. The Count states, “all creatures everywhere were eternally dependent upon [my] strengths.” (Ortese, 117). The Count does not realize that he too was relying on the Iguana to stay sane and alive. Without the Iguana in his life, the Count no longer has a point to living; he does not know what to do. The Iguana was everything to the Count. She was a friend and a love of his. At the end of the novel, the Count too ends up passing away. He had no point left to live without the Iguana. She was more than just a charity case for the Count; she was his love.