Reformulando Espacios, Estereotipos Y Discursos: Las Narrativas Femeninas De La Violencia En La Literatura Hispanoamericana Contemporánea
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2012 Reformulando espacios, estereotipos y discursos: las narrativas femeninas de la violencia en la literatura hispanoamericana contemporánea. Mara Pereira Borges [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Latin American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Borges, Mara Pereira, "Reformulando espacios, estereotipos y discursos: las narrativas femeninas de la violencia en la literatura hispanoamericana contemporánea.. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2012. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1387 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Mara Pereira Borges entitled "Reformulando espacios, estereotipos y discursos: las narrativas femeninas de la violencia en la literatura hispanoamericana contemporánea.." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Modern Foreign Languages. Luis Cano, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Dawn Duke, Michael Handelsman, Nuria Cruz-Cámara, Jana Morgan Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Reformulando espacios, estereotipos y discursos: las narrativas femeninas de la violencia en la literatura hispanoamericana contemporánea A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Mara Pereira Borges August 2012 ii Copyright © 2012 by Mara Borges. All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION To my husband Luis Gregório, who taught me to never give up. To my father Benedito Borges, in memory. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Luis Cano for guiding me through this process, for carefully reading every single sentence of this work, and for always encouraging me. His support and patience were crucial during this tough, sometimes painful, writing process. In the last couple of years, Dr. Cano has been an example of the work ethic to which I shall always aspire. I also want to thank my thesis committee members: Dr. Michael Handelsman, Dr. Dawn Duke, Dr. Nuria Cruz-Cámara and Dr. Jana Morgan, for their valuable feedback ever since the moment this dissertation was only a proposal. I also thank them for the enlightening lectures during the classes I attended. I thank Dr. Euridice Silva for giving me the opportunity to teach Portuguese during two years and also for guiding me in a process of rediscovering Brazilian culture and history through the eyes of Brazilian cinema. I also thank my dear friends in the Portuguese staff, for the moments spent at work as well as the Brazilian Cultural Nights and our Bate-Papo every Friday afternoon. I have to thank Dr. Miriam Gárate (Unicamp-SP). Although her work as a professor is not directly involved in this Dissertation, it was she who introduced me to Hispanic Literature in 1998, my first semester as an undergraduate student, and has been a truly inspiration to me throughout these years. v My sincere gratitude also goes to my family: my mom, Maria Helena, for being a model of resilience to me, and my brother Marcelo, who started the reading habit in the family and showed me the path to a higher education. And also, to my dad, Benedito Borges, who passed away in the final stage of this work. I am certain that right now he would be saying one of his favorite sentences: “Essa minha filha é Borges.” I also thank my in-laws, Eliane Godoy de Vasconcellos and Joana Emília for the constant love and support. I must acknowledge as well my friends in Knoxville: Luciana Prestes, Francisco Moraes, Daniela Oliveira, Justin West, Janelle Coleman, Carmen Sparrow, Krista Hendrinkson, Cecília Merchán, Mauricio González-Forero, Marco Martinez, Laura Rubio and Juan Pablo Gómez (“¡tan lejos, tan cerca!”). Given the circumstances in the last couple of years, you all became my family. I also thank all my colleagues from the PhD and Masters programs at UT, and all the people I have met at Cool Beans, Golden Roast Café and First Friday. A special and profound gratitude I reserve to my husband, Luis Gregório. His constant encouragement, patience, and unbending belief in my capacity to finish this work, and most importantly, his unconditional love were crucial during this journey. I thank him for convincing me to go on when I was ready to give up. vi ABSTRACT The dissertation “ Reformulando espacios, estereotipos y discursos: Las narrativas femeninas de la violencia en la literatura hispanoamericana contemporánea ” analyzes four novels from contemporary Spanish-American literature: Laura Restrepo’s El leopardo al sol (1993), Julia Álvarez’s En el tiempo de las mariposas (1995), Nora Strejilevich’s Una sola muerte numerosa (1997) and Ana Valentina Benjamin ’s 7x1: Siete crímenes per cápita (2006). All four novels focus on historical backgrounds marked by violence such as the emergence of the drug cartels in Colombia, the military dictatorship in Dominican Republic during Trujillo’s rule, the Dirty War in Argentina, and a very particular manifestation of urban violence represented in the action of two female serial killers. Based on John Abbink’s idea that, in some historical instances, violence has the effect of a constituent force in social relations, our literary analysis focuses on the way this phenomenon is conveyed as a creative force in the process of deconstructing and reshaping female identity. This dissertation examines how the female characters rework conventional stereotypes (as mothers and wives), spaces (the home), practices (such as the use of silence), and even the role of writing, without breaking radically with social constructs. However, this tradition is destabilized in the novel 7x1: Siete crímenes per cápita, in which, by presenting the aggressive behavior of two characters who respond with physical violence to the suffered aggression, breaks with paradigms and vii expresses a kind of aesthetic violence that forces the receptor to notice a still brutal presence of this phenomenon in society. Ultimately, this dissertation will demonstrate how this novel invites the feminine narratives of violence in Spanish-America to re-evaluate themselves. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introducción ..........................................................................................................1 Capítulo 1 La violencia y la literatura escrita por mujeres en Hispanoamérica: diálogos constructores de una tradición..............................................................13 Capítulo 2 El impacto de la violencia del narcotráfico en la reestructuración de la individualidad femenina en El leopardo al sol , de Laura Restrepo .....................43 Capítulo 3 La reconstrucción de estereotipos y espacios femeninos tradicionales en la novela En el tiempo de las mariposas, de Julia Álvarez ............................90 Capítulo 4 Cuerpo, identidad y discurso: la fragmentación y la resistencia femenina en Una sola muerte numerosa. .........................................................135 Capítulo 5 Desmitificaciones e incongruencias de la representación de la figura femenina en 7x1: Siete crímenes per cápita , de Ana Valentina Benjamin........177 Conclusiones finales.........................................................................................216 Bibliografía........................................................................................................224 Vita....................................................................................................................233 1 Introducción EL CUCHILLO Campo, campo de sangre el mundo entero. Todos agonizamos en este filo sangrante. Somos víctimas del verdugo, verdugos de la víctima que somos en este circo sin piedad. Aquí vemos matar al que nos mata, al que matamos. El mundo toma la forma del cuchillo. Morimos con el siglo que se desangra . José Emilio Pacheco, Ciudad de la memoria (1989) Al reflexionar sobre el siglo XX en su poemario Ciudad de la memoria (1989), José Emilio Pacheco se refiere continuamente a la violencia que ha experimentado Latinoamérica y a sus innúmeras consecuencias en la vida cotidiana de toda la población. El poema “El cuchillo” es un ejemplo del desarrollo de esta temática y subraya la cadena interminable de muertes, que incluso, según la voz poética, transforma víctimas y victimarios en dos caras de la misma moneda. En la segunda mitad del siglo XX se ve su incremento en el ambiente político, social y, consecuentemente, en las relaciones interpersonales más íntimas y subjetivas. Acontecimientos históricos viabilizan ese fenómeno como por ejemplo las dictaduras militares surgidas en los 60 y su persistencia hasta los 80, la ampliación y el fortalecimiento de las organizaciones del 2 narcotráfico, los movimientos de guerrilla –y su contraparte, los grupos paramilitares–, el aumento de la criminalidad urbana, los constantes prejuicios de