The mode of existence forced on the title figure, Erendira, reveals basic historical experiences fundamental to the past of Latin America; slavery, rape, expolitation and the vision of Utopia based on a leap into the future which is to destroy the misery. The heroine is incapable of escaping from her grandmother's despotism with her own strength. Abused as a serving-girl, sold to men and forced into prostitution, she remains a helpless, unwilling victim of the power of the past, as symbolized by the grandmother. Until one day she is liberated by Ulysse, a youth whose figure expresses the changing times, who disposes of the remnants of the past by force.

But the heroine rejects the courtship of her liberator on favour of the urge for freedom common to individuals and nations that refuse any rulers at all - indeed an incredible story!