Creative Encounters with Menstruation in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Women’S Writing

Creative Encounters with Menstruation in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Women’s Writing Ángela Lavilla Cañedo A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Hispanic Studies School of Languages and Cultures University of Sheffield —July 2016— Abstract This thesis explores representations of menstruation in contemporary literature produced by Latin American and Spanish women writers. The study is motivated by the need to open up the subject of menstruation, in both literary studies and wider terms, and analyses works in which authors decouple menstruation from traditional, patriarchal conceptualisations in which periods are limited to the ambit of reproduction and defined negatively, as shameful, an embarrassment or a burden. This study identifies contemporary works from across Spanish-speaking countries that engage with menstruation as well as detecting and analysing trends and approaches to menstruation and recurrent images associated with periods. This shows that menstruation, despite its taboo status, is a subject widely explored in women’s literature in Spanish. The four main content chapters explore the alternative imaginaries that question traditional representations, whether by displaying overtly subversive representations or through a more muted approach. These chapters are structured thematically around the axes of eroticism, trauma, transitions and rape, and demonstrate that menstruation can be conceptualised from a plurality of perspectives which avoid the traditional association with fertility. Moreover, the study demonstrates that menstruation plays a significant role within these texts. Therefore, this study also creates a corpus of ‘menstrual texts’, a term coined to refer to works which not only make menstruation visible but also make use of it aesthetically and assign to menstruation an important role within the narrative, including as a main theme, image or motif, plot trigger, and/or as a narrative device. The comparative chapters analyse a number of selected texts, namely: Diamela Eltit’s Vaca sagrada (1991), Andrea Jeftanovic’s Escenario de guerra (2000), Solitario de amor (1988) and other works by Cristina Peri Rossi, Marta Sanz’s Daniela Astor y la caja negra (2013), Esther Tusquets’ El mismo mar de todos los veranos (1978) and Ana Clavel’s Las Violetas son flores del deseo (2007). 3 Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 7 Abbreviations and References...................................................................................... 9 Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 11 Part 1: Menstruation in Theory and Practice .......................................................... 11 Part 2: Menstruation in the Hispanic Context ........................................................ 37 Chapter 2 The Eroticism of Menstrual Blood in Diamela Eltit and Cristina Peri Rossi ........................................................................................................................... 75 Chapter 3 Traumatic Periods in Diamela Eltit and Andrea Jeftanovic .................. 115 Chapter 4 Life Cycles, Transitions and Liminality in Marta Sanz and Esther Tusquets ................................................................................................................... 151 Chapter 5 Ambiguous Blood: Menarche and Rape in Ana Clavel’s Las Violetas son flores del deseo ......................................................................................................... 191 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 225 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 233 5 Acknowledgements I have been waiting for this moment because I feel so grateful to so many organisations and lovely people I have met along the way. This thesis would not have been possible without the help of my supervisors Dr Louise Johnson and Professor Philip Swanson. A special thank you goes to them for their insightful feedback, attention to detail and patience after many —and long— drafts and my repeated misuse of prepositions. Likewise, thank you to the Department of Hispanic Studies for having faith in me and giving me physical and academic shelter since the very first day. I would like to thank the staff at all levels, administrative, technical, and academic, at the School of Languages and Cultures for their support. I am also grateful for other opportunities offered to PhD students by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, such as The Image Speaks. I am very grateful to the AHRC and Harry Worthington Scholarship for providing me the funds to develop this thesis, as well as to different funding bodies (Learned Societies Fund, PGR Travel and Development Fund, Petri Watson Exhibitions, Fran Trust) which enabled me to share my research at conferences and meet scholars with similar interests. I would also like to express my gratitude to the staff at different libraries: University of Sheffield, British Library, Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid), and various public municipal libraries in Asturias (Oviedo, Gijón, Grado, Avilés, and Candás) who enabled me to locate evasive primary sources. My gratitude also goes to Diamela Eltit not only for accepting the invitation to speak at the Department of Hispanic Studies but also for her generosity and kind words. Thank you to many musicians for being my soundtrack, motivating me and enabling me to release stress via chair-dancing in the office. 7 A huge thank you goes to my fellow colleagues from the SLC and the Department of History who have been my friends and family, and Javi, who arrived late but arrived in the end. I love you guys. Thank you for existing, for sharing the pains and joys of this process, for our lunch and tea breaks, and fun activities. A special thanks goes to Valentina, Israel and Ehsan for keeping my sanity through our constant conversations about food, languages and scatology, and for making this time so extraordinary: ¡os quiero mil! To my parents Eugenia and Matías, my siblings Pablo and Lidia, Abi —my inspirational grandma— and extended family, who tried to keep track of my research, supported me and who love me despite my eccentricities, or angeladas. Finally, to Matt, for all his priceless help, strong faith in me, and unconditional support throughout the process of writing this bloody thesis. 8 Abbreviations and References The full title of the texts —novels, short stories and poems— is provided in the first reference in each chapter. Later references appear abbreviated as indicated below (with the exception of Escenario de guerra and Solitario de amor, which are only abbreviated after quotations). Page numbers for quotations are preceded, when required, by the abbreviated form of the titles. Clavel, Ana, Las Violetas son flores del deseo = Las Violetas Jeftanovic, Andrea, Escenario de guerra = Escenario Peri Rossi, Cristina, Solitario de amor = Solitario —, ‘La destrucción o el amor’ = ‘La destrucción’ Sanz, Marta, Daniela Astor y la caja negra = Daniela Astor Tusquets, Esther, El mismo mar de todos los veranos = El mismo mar For secondary sources, the author’s surname is followed by the year and page number. Bibliographical notes The bibliography is divided into three sections. The first and second sections include the primary and secondary sources, and the third is a list of online materials cited in the thesis. The contemporary nature of the study means that the thesis includes numerous references to websites. To avoid long footnotes with URLs, these online materials are not cited via the whole web address and date accessed, but identifiable by the word ‘[online]’. The full URL is provided in the bibliography. 9 Chapter 1 Introduction Menstruation is a crucial aspect of women’s lives and a salient feature of a number of texts from Hispanic contemporary literature. Nevertheless, these representations of menstruation have received little critical attention and one of the objectives of this thesis is to highlight this vacuum by exploring selected works by women writers, which also provide alternative imaginaries that question canonical conceptualisations of periods. To introduce the subject of menstruation in literature, this introductory chapter is formed by two parts. Part 1 frames the theme of menstruation in the context of current attitudes and changes in society, gives an overview of the scholarly attention to menstruation since the last quarter of the twentieth century, and sets the theoretical framework for the close analysis carried out in later chapters. Part 2 specifically deals with menstruation in the Hispanic context. This section not only introduces the texts selected for analysis and their contexts but also surveys Latin American and Spanish works which engage with menstruation, thus creating a corpus. Part 1: Menstruation in Theory and Practice As will be demonstrated throughtout this section, menstruation is still a taboo which shapes not only women’s identities and experiences, but also affects society as a whole, influencing ideas such as shame, health, sexuality and reproduction. Although, generally speaking, in Western societies beliefs that consider menstruating women as dangerous for crop production and the wellbeing of the community are no longer present,

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