Gothic Maternity in Pilar Quintana’s Los abismos (2021)

Abstract

In this article, I explore and expand upon the concept of gothic maternity in the Colombian context through a close reading of Pilar Quintana’s Los abismos. I argue for a gothic maternity that is produced both by gothic imagery and by a narrative populated by bad mothers and dead mothers who produce fear, instability, and anxiety in the narrative. Quintana’s novel is narrated by Claudia, an eight-year-old whose depressed mother tells her stories of dead women, many of whom were mothers. These ghost stories make mothers into haunting and monstrous figures that provoke a deep fear of abandonment in Claudia.