Title
Rhetorical Monstrosity and Female Agency in Adelaida García Morales’s El Sur
Abstract
This article examines the role of Gothic monstrosity in the establishment of female agency in Adelaida García Morales's 1985 novella El Sur, drawing connections between the post-Civil War setting of the text and García Morales's perspective as a Transition-era author. Throughout the novella, the mother character uses rhetoric as a powerful tool to create and manipulate the monster image that she projects onto her husband, Rafael. El Sur ultimately speaks to feminist concerns of a loss of power in Franco's patriarchal dictatorship: by allowing her protagonist and the other female characters to regain control through the use of the monstrous (and, in the protagonist's case, through the acceptance of her own inner monster), García Morales represents the surge in feminism in Spain during the post-Franco period, at the same time expressing a certain amount of anxiety over the possibility of losing this newly found political voice.
Department(s)
Modern and Classical Languages
Document Type
Article
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2019.44
Publication Date
2019
Recommended Citation
Backes, Heidi. "Rhetorical Monstrosity and Female Agency in Adelaida García Morales’s El Sur." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 96, no. 7 (2019): 731-745.
Journal Title
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
