Breaking the Bonds of Domination: Embodied Heroines, Rape Culture, and Possibilities of Resistance in Short Stories by Isabel Allende and Rosario Castellanos

Abstract

This article explores representations of rape culture in short stories by two iconic Latin American women writers: Fleeting Friendships and Cooking Lesson by Rosario Castellanos (1925–74); and Revenge and The Judge’s Wife by Isabel Allende (born 1942). Though Castellanos and Allende have different theoretical and stylistic approaches, both writers initially present uncomfortable pictures of women’s disempowerment and sexuality. This, however, unease with women’s sexual agency interrogates, challenges, and ultimately subverts the rape script. To address the question of whether the heroines of the stories comply or resist sexual domination and violence, two related feminist theories of intersubjectivity and embodiment frame the analysis: Jessica Benjamin’s intersubjective space and Ann Cahill’s theory of intersubjectivity and embodiment. These models are placed firmly in the context of Latin American gender archetypes, such as La Malinche and La Virgen de Guadalupe, with cultural observations by Latin American writers like Octavio Paz and Gabriela Mistral.