A Man is Crying: The Progression of Heterosexual Trouble in Gómez de Avellaneda’s Dos Mugeres

Abstract

This analysis of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s second novel, Dos Mugeres, articulates two contributions in the fields of gender studies and Spanish Romanticism. Avellaneda’s feminist critique of masculine domination in Dos Mugeres focuses on the concept of heterosexual trouble, through which the norm of the heterosexual couple proves to be dysfunctional and problematic as far as gender and sexual standards are concerned. The concept of heterosexual trouble enables us to consider the ambivalent situation of the male heterosexual lover caught between the social privilege of masculinity and the mandate to reinvent love requested by his female lover. The originality of Dos Mugeres within Spanish Romanticism relies in part on the reception of four texts from French Romanticism: Paul et Virginie, Delphine, Corinne ou l’Italie, and Lélia. It is this unique reworking of four canonical texts in relation to a critique of heterosexual love that gives Dos Mugeres a special signature within Spanish Romanticism.