Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 12-7-2016 12:00 AM Representing Modern Female Villain: On Feminine Evil, Perverse Nationhood, and Opposition in Rómulo Gallegos’ Doña Bárbara and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children Barbara Guerrero The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Rafael Montano The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Comparative Literature A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Barbara Guerrero 2016 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Latin American Literature Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons Recommended Citation Guerrero, Barbara, "Representing Modern Female Villain: On Feminine Evil, Perverse Nationhood, and Opposition in Rómulo Gallegos’ Doña Bárbara and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 4266. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4266 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This thesis aims to contribute to the scholarship on modern female villainy by further exploring the ways in which 20th century female villains are represented as well as the functions they carry out in the text. In this study, I look at Rómulo Gallegos’ doña Bárbara from Doña Bárbara (1929) and Salman Rushdie’s Indira Gandhi from Midnight’s Children (1981). I argue that both villains are a combination of already-existing forms of evil in more recognizable contexts as well as a rejection of and opposition to modern values. Firstly, I examine how the villains both conform and resist the formula of the femme fatale. Secondly, I look at the way they represent national evils. Lastly, I study their relation of opposition to the hero(s) and the ways they mark the boundaries that separate binary oppositions. I conclude that modern representations of female villainy continue to reactivate degrading conceptualizations about womanhood. Keywords Female evil, femme fatale, nationhood, opposition, villains and villainy, Doña Bárbara, Indira Gandhi Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to extend my utmost gratitude to my Supervisor Professor Rafael Montano for his guidance, patience, and invaluable advice and feedback throughout these two years. I would also like to thank the staff, particularly Sylvia Kontra, for her incredible administrative assistance, encouragement, and kindness as well as Ana García for her patience and support. Last but not least, I would also like to give a heartful thanks to Parastoo Alaeddini for her excellent feedback, and to all of my professors, to my boyfriend, Stam, to my friends, Sheena, Paola, and Matt, and to my parents and siblings, Frida and Sergio, for their unending words of encouragement. I would also like to dedicate this thesis to my loving parents, Sergio and Carmina, who never gave up on me, and who despite difficulties, gave me the strength to finish my studies. This thesis is also dedicated to my grandparents, who inspired me to pursue a career in literature. ii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1 1 On Female Evil .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Seductresses: The Menace of Subjection ................................................................ 5 1.2 Of Witches and Supernatural Powers ................................................................... 14 1.3 Rejecting Motherhood and Domesticity ............................................................... 21 1.4 The Threatening but Unkowable Woman ............................................................. 27 1.5 Castration .............................................................................................................. 32 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 36 2 Perverse Images of Nationhood ................................................................................... 36 2.1 Pre-readings: Naming the Villain ......................................................................... 36 2.2 Characterizing the Villain: Molding the Symbol .................................................. 41 2.3 Symbols of Failed Nations .................................................................................... 45 2.3.1 Superstition and Ignorance ....................................................................... 47 2.3.2 Corruption, Illegality, and Economic Mismanagement ............................ 48 2.3.3 Tyranny ..................................................................................................... 53 2.3.4 Violence and Immorality .......................................................................... 59 2.3.5 The Artificial Nation ................................................................................. 64 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 69 3 Opposition and Difference ........................................................................................... 69 3.1 The Juxtaposition of Opposing Ideals................................................................... 70 iii 3.2 The Clash .............................................................................................................. 82 3.3 The Defeat ............................................................................................................. 91 Implications and Further Considerations .......................................................................... 94 Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 98 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................ 111 iv Introduction Traditionally, villains and heroes have been “our first contact with moral judgement” (Cuenca 39), whereby the hero represents desirable values and behaviors while the villain represents negative values and counterexamples to socially accepted behaviors (Kokoroski 26). The villain-hero categorization, typical of fairy tales and children and youth literature, has, historically, established a “stereotypical white and black pattern” (Kokoroski 25), whereby the “villains symbolize evil in its purest form … There are no shades of grey, there are no moments of doubt, they show no ambiguous behavior; they are evil for evil’s sake” (Kokoroski 25-6). In fact, many of these villains are completely dehumanized and often made to evoke utter repulsion. This rigid classification of good and evil was created to teach its audience about morality in simple terms. In addition to its primordial role in children’s literature, villains have also played a key role in religious narratives, particularly in Judeo- Christian narratives, in which the evil figure is depicted as the embodiment of sins while the hero represents virtue. While this conceptualization of good and evil has lost its relevance due to the decline of religious belief in modern societies, the good versus evil narrative is still a fundamental basis of religion. Moreover, villains have also been produced by colonial discourses to legitimize imperialism. In fact, Corina Lenhardt notes that villains are often described as “dark-skinned, dark-haired … all-black savage creature[s] of the colonies” (113), characterized by a lack of “humane virtues and human rationality; [and they are] unpredictable and uncontrollable” (114). In other words, the villains of colonial texts were for the most part a reflection of the pervasive racist colonial discourse of the time, which in turn produced and perpetuated racial stereotypes. While most texts have conventionally been centered around the protagonist-hero, the character that readers are supposed to imitate, the rise of Gothic fiction re-structured the narrative so that the villain occupied “the centre of all narrative attention, plot and character development; it is the lurking villain of whom we cannot rid ourselves” (Lenhardt 112). In Gothic fiction, “the villains function… as a negative foil for the construction of our humanity and for the guidelines against which we define normality and healthiness” (Lenhardt 113). Although the Gothic villain was still defined as a repulsive “Other,” it now evoked feelings of fascination as well. The romantic