Frida Kahlo Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1

Wilhelm Kahlo (Guillermo) grew up in Germany and experienced cerebral trauma which has caused him to have epileptic attacks. He doesn't get along well with his step mother. He walks in on his stepmother telling his father that she wants him out of the house. They decide to buy him a ticket to go to Mexico. In Mexico he enters a jewelry store looking for work where he meets Matilde. Matilde loves his German accent. He sees sadness in her eyes becuase her German boyfriend committed suicide. She sees Wilfred, her old boyfriend, Guillermo.

Chapter 2

Guillermo already has a girlfriend named Maria. They had 2 daughters together but the second one died. Matilde and Guillermo work together and enjoy each others company in the jewelry store. Maria and Guillermo have another girl but Maria dies during childbirth. That night he asks Matilde to marry him. She isnt in love but does like him and wants to have children. Matilde doesn't want to take care of Guillermo's kids so they put them in a convent. Guillermo learns photography from Matilde's father and becomes a professional photographer. He works with the Mexican government and takes photos of architecture. Guillermo builds a blue house in Coyoacan which is in Mexico City. Together they have 4 children and 1 child that died during childbirth. Matilde is very sad and sick and she doesn't want to care for the children causing her and Frida to not have a good relationship. Frida is bestfriends with her sister Cristina.

Chapter 3

Fridas mom was smart but did not have an education. She was very serious. Her father was a talented photographer, but in 1910 when the revolution started, he did not have as much time to work and was mostly working on the revolution with the government. They started to have financial problems and Fridas mom looked for other ways to get money. She had to sell a lot of the family's possessions, and for a time she rented out a room for extra money. Matilde was a religious woman, she was catholic. Frida, her sister, and her mother went to mass every day. Frida and her sister Cristina did not take mass seriously. They took a class called class of catechism together and they did not like them so they would go and then they would escape. They would eat fruit and play while the other girls studied religion. In kindergarten Frida peed her pants and had to borrow clothes from a classmate. The girl did not want her to wear her clothes and she made fun of Frida and called her a baby. Frida did not like this so she wanted revenge and she attacked the girl. When Frida was six she felt a bad pain in her leg and she had polio. She had to recover in bed for 9 months. She was quarantined and she started to play with an imaginary friend. Her father took care of her during this time, he was a good father.

Chapter 4

After 9 months in bed she was good enough and her doctor told her to go out and play and ride her bike even though her leg was deformed. She was riding her bike in the park when other kids saw her and called a pirate with a peg leg. She felt sad and furious because of what they called her. She yells vulgar words back at them. She doesn't want anyone to see her leg so she hides it with pants and skirts. She feels very alone and introverted. When she is 7 years old her sister Maty has a boyfriend named Paco and she leaves to live with him because their mother, Matilde, doesn't like her boyfriend. Frida helps her sister escape from the balcony and after this her relationship with her parents got worse.

Chapter 5

Frida is her father's favorite child. He thinks she is the most intelligent of his children. They both suffered from diseases too and were artists. She went with him when he would read and paint, while she would collect plants and insects to inspect under a microscope. She learned how to take photos from him. She also helped him when he had panic attacks as she knew how to give him ether which would help him. They went on a trip together to the city to take photos and her father has an attack and passes out. Frida helps her father by giving him either but a hungry boy appears and tries to steal the camera. Frida is furious and she runs after the boy and attacks him yelling don't touch my camera or I will kill you. The boy sees the fury in her eyes and runs away then her father wakes up.

Chapter

Frida doesn't have many friends and doesn't want to play with other kids because she thinks her leg is an atrocity and she doesn't want to hear people making fun of her. Her mother doesn't understand her sadness and that she feels and wants friends. Frida is in the house alone and she hears the sound of a girl crying coming from a box of clothes. In the box she finds a mother rat and 8 babies. She takes care of the rats and feed them tortillas. One afternoon she is playing with her sister Cristina when she hears her mother yell because her mother found the rats. Frida feels a rock in her stomach. Her mom takes the rats and put them somewhere. This was just one example of the distance present between Frida and her mother. Frida feels an important need to take care of animals. Even as an adult she is alone but her animals are her friends, she has dogs, birds, monkeys and more.

Chapter 7

In 1992 when Frida is 14 she begins school at the National Preparatory school. It is in the capital and she goes there by train everyday. There were only 35 girls in a school with 2,000 students. Her father hoped that she would become a doctor. She wore very different clothing to school and she liked to talk to the boys about politics and philosophy because it was an important moment in Mexican history, right after the Revolution. She had a special group of friends called the Cachuchas. They liked to cause problems and for example one of them rode a donkey in the school. There was a professor that they did not like so they blew up the vent in his classroom but they didn't get expelled because they had good excuses. Frida would draw offensive caricatures of the professors at her school and pass them to other students. When artists would come in to paint the school the Cachuchas would mess with them. One of these artists was Diego Rivera. He was big and fat with a good sense of humor, and he talked a lot about work. Frida would take his food and insult him or leave soap on the stairs. But Diego didn't fall it was a professor.

Chapter 8

In her second year at the Preparatory school she starts to date Alejandro Gomez Arias. Her mother doesnt let her go out with him but they send each other letters under fake names. There is a rebellion in Mexico city so she cant see him but they plan to meet at a posada (xmas festival). She wants to write a letter but her sister has taken her cards, she attacks her then her mother comes out and doesn't let her go to the posada.

Chapter 9

Frida is deeply in love with Alejandro, the day after Mexican Independence day they go to the market in the city. The new buses give them much more freedom than trains. On the bus Frida realizes she left her umbrella so they return to the market looking for it. She can't find it but she goes home on the bus with him very happy.

Chapter 10

A train hits the bus and pushes it slowly destroying it. A handrail pierces her pelvis and she bleeds a lot. She calls out for Alejandro and a man pulls the handrail from her pelvis. She had over 30 broken bones and her spine was damaged. In the hospital her parents can't visit her but her sister Maty and the Cachuchas visit often. She feels terrible and lonely because Alejandro won't visit. Her dad gives her paints, pencils, and canvas. Alejandro comes 2 months later but Frida's mother sends him away because she doesnt know him even though frida calls for him from upstairs.

Chapter 11

She is lying in bed and thinks he will return but she gets a letter saying he is going to Europe, in reality his parents don't want him wasting time with Frida. Frida is stuck in bed, while she recovers she paints portraits and her pain and she loses her love for Alejandro. Alejandro returns from Europe and falls in love with Frida's friend but she doesn't care. Frida wants to become a painter and goes to get Diego Rivera's opinion on her work. She shows him her work and he says she has talent so she invites him to her house. He wants to marry her and goes to her father for his blessing. Frida's father believes Diego can care for her. Her mother is outraged but they get married, her father is her only family member who attends. At the wedding party Diego gets drunk and terrorizes the guests, Frida didn't see him for a few days.

Chapter 12

Frida uses clothing to express herself and cover up her disability. She wears traditional Mexican clothing. Diego tells Frida she is his "china poblana". In the story there is a girl from China and she is taken by pirates on the coast of India. They are going to rob her when they get to the Philippines. In the philippines a captain bought the princess and the days were named Santa Catalina. He brought her to Acapulco on a boat, a businessman who bought her to be him and his wife's kid. The parents and the people of the pueblo loved her because she helped the poor and the sick. Catalina loved pretty clothes and when she died the women of the town honored her by wearing clothes like her. Frida loved the story and wanted to be exotic too.

Chapter 13

Frida and Diego go to Cuernavaca because he has a commission. She painted a lot in the city, she paints diego's ex wife, Lupe Marin. Frida become pregnant but Diego had other partners. Frida was furious but she acted like it didn't matter. She still loved Diego because he wrote her cards and bought her flowers. In 1930 they went to San Francisco and Diego explored the city, he was interested by the nation but Frida was bored by American culture. Frida became friends with Dr. Leo Eloesser, and he diagnosed her with scoliosis and the problems with having a child. Then they went to New York. She thinks about how people in Mexico can't eat while people in New York waste food. She wants to return to Mexico. Diego began to paint the industry of detroit and he made a lot of money. Her traditional mexican clothing was very different. In the house of the sister of Henry Ford she made fun of Catholicism and discussed communism. She writes a card to Eloesser about worrying since she lost a child in the past. She goes to the hospital for 3 days and loses her baby. In the hospital she wanted to die but after she painted some of her best works.

Epilogue

She had five miscarriages and over 35 surgeries. She had a passionate relationship with Diego but it also was very painful. Diego had a relationship with Frida's sister Cristina in 1935. In 1939 she got divorced from Diego. The next year they remarried but they lived in different houses. Frida died in 1954 from Pulmonary embolism and people believe she died from an overdose. She had suffered many illnesses and had her leg amputated. In the 1970s and 1980s her art has become very popular. Her work is all over the world now, the blue house (La Casa Azul) in mexico city where she lived has become a museum about her life. Diego wrote that the day Frida died was the most tragic day of his life. She says she had two main accidents in her life, the one on the bus and Diego.