University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2014 Martin Cenquizqui Christina Guillen University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Guillen, Christina, "Martin Cenquizqui" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4840. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4840 MARTIN CENQUIZQUI by CHRISTINA GUILLEN B.A. University of California at Riverside, 2006 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2014 Major Professor: Obi Nwakanma © 2014 Christina Guillen ii ABSTRACT The historical novel, Cortés Cenquizqui, set in sixteenth century Mexico and Spain, follows the conflicted lives and minds of several characters through an age of freshly crossing culture, language, and power. The narrator, Maria de Quesada of high ranking Spanish and Mexica parents, resents the white world for condemning her work as a female healer or curandera. Yet she acknowledges that she is ill-equipped to leave Mexico City to live in the outlying Indigenous villages. Maria recalls the tale of her three brothers who were caught in a web of pride and prejudices. Her interjections throughout shed light on questions of feminism, nationalism, identity, diversity, love, and queerness. Her tragic story leaves the reader with an understanding of the outsider and of hopeful possibilities for the future. This novel calls on a biblical passage and historical documentation. Page 39 and 191 are examples of the biblical passage and documented speech from historical persons used within the literary context of this work. iii Dedicated to Carmen Cecilia Perez iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLOGUE ................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER TWO .......................................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER THREE ...................................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER FOUR ......................................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER FIVE .......................................................................................................................... 38 CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................................................. 44 CHAPTER SEVEN ...................................................................................................................... 55 CHAPTER EIGHT ....................................................................................................................... 59 CHAPTER NINE .......................................................................................................................... 66 CHAPTER TEN............................................................................................................................ 79 CHAPTER ELEVEN .................................................................................................................... 84 CHAPTER TWELVE ................................................................................................................... 89 CHAPTER THIRTEEN ................................................................................................................ 99 CHAPTER FOURTEEN ............................................................................................................ 102 CHAPTER FIFTEEN ................................................................................................................. 106 CHAPTER SIXTEEN ................................................................................................................. 110 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN .......................................................................................................... 116 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.............................................................................................................. 131 CHAPTER NINETEEN.............................................................................................................. 134 CHAPTER TWENTY ................................................................................................................ 136 v CHAPTER TWENTY ONE ....................................................................................................... 142 CHAPTER TWENTY TWO ...................................................................................................... 146 CHAPTER TWENTY THREE................................................................................................... 154 CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR ..................................................................................................... 157 CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE....................................................................................................... 161 CHAPTER TWENTY SIX ......................................................................................................... 163 CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN................................................................................................... 167 CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT ................................................................................................... 168 CHAPTER TWENTY NINE ...................................................................................................... 175 CHAPTER THIRTY ................................................................................................................... 179 CHAPTER THIRTY ONE ......................................................................................................... 187 CHAPTER THIRTY TWO......................................................................................................... 191 CHAPTER THIRTY THREE ..................................................................................................... 195 CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR ....................................................................................................... 199 CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE ......................................................................................................... 201 CHAPTER THIRTY SIX ........................................................................................................... 206 CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN ..................................................................................................... 210 CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT ...................................................................................................... 215 CHAPTER THIRTY NINE ........................................................................................................ 220 CHAPTER FOURTY ................................................................................................................. 227 CHAPTER FOURTY ONE ........................................................................................................ 235 CHAPTER FOURTY TWO ....................................................................................................... 237 CHAPTER FOURTY THREE ................................................................................................... 244 vi EPILOGUE ................................................................................................................................. 254 vii PROLOGUE I’m surrounded. I hear the chiming of mass bells, the Spanish language rising from the street. I smell the coriander stewing in the chicken potaje. The white world calls--eat, your soup is getting cold, be white--it says, but I’m not white, and yet... I remember my first weeks in the convent. A quiet doctor came into my room. His ‘buenos dias’ carried the fresh Castilian accent of one who has just anchored in from his mother land. I touched my throat and coughed a dry cough. I took down a clay jar from one of my herb shelves to show him with what I was readying to treat myself. “I have this concoction of avocado leaf and poppy...” He took the jar from my hands and placed it back on its shelf. He told me to sit, so I did. “I remember my mother used to apply that remedy on me with great success,” I told him as he felt the lumps in my throat with hardly the tips of his fingers. Finally he spoke more than two words, “Your mother without doubts, but your father, no. And we are not contemporaries in medicine doña Marina--” “Maria,” I corrected. “Maria--so I will not discuss the subject further.” He left me looking out the window at the tree tops. I felt the weight in my hands of the small labeled bottle of dark, thick liquid he’d given me. He’d ignored me when I’d asked him what ingredients it contained. He’d rolled up his instruments in a long cloth and packed them into a bag without warming me with so much as a single