A New England Nun

I found the premise of "A New England Nun" to be extremely strange. What really struck me was the fact that Luisa and Joe became engaged and then he went half-way around the world for 14 YEARS! With the model of the typical women we have been talking about I don't see it being normal that she is left behind for that long after the promise of marriage. I see this as being an atypical relationship from the start. With their limited correspondence I feel like their engagement gave Luisa the status as a typical woman while truthfully being independent. I saw he as a new woman hiding behind the societal norms by being engaged without having the burden of marraige and children. You can see her fight with reality when she speaks about the wedding still seeming like a far off event. Over time she grew to like being alone and did not want to leave her space to be controlled by another which would inevitably come with marriage. However, while she was strong on the inside she did not express this until the end. She finally expresses the she wants to continue to be alone because, after all that's what she's already been doing. She doesn't need a man in her life to feel happy.