The Shattered Mirror: Representations of Women in Mexican Literature

Abstract

is a significant contribution to Latin American literature, specifically Mexican letters. It provides excellent analyses of well-known texts, rich and useful data about Mexico's social conditions, and a solid knowledge of theories coming from diverse disciplines. --Gabriela Mora, Professor of Spanish, Rutgers University Popular images of women in Mexico--conveyed through literature and, more recently, film and television--were long restricted to either the stereotypically submissive wife and mother or the demonized fallen woman. But new representations of women and their roles in Mexican society have shattered the ideological mirrors that reflected these images. This book explores this major change in the literary representation of women in Mexico. Maria Elena de Valdes enters into a selective and hard-hitting examination of literary representation in its social context and a contestatory engagement of both the literary text and its place in the social reality of Mexico. Some of the topics she considers are Carlos Fuentes and the subversion of the social codes for women; the poetic ties between Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and Octavio Paz; questions of female identity in the writings of Rosario Castellanos, Luisa Josefina Hernandez, Maria Luisa Puga, and Elena Poniatowska; the Chicana writing of Sandra Cisneros; and the postmodern celebration--without reprobation--of being a woman in Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate.