Brujería and the Boundaries of Power: Transgression and Punishment in Fernanda Melchor's <em>Hurricane Season</em>

<p>Brujería is frequently invoked as a symbol of resistance for those marginalized by colonial, patriarchal, and gendered violence. However, in Fernanda Melchor’s <em>Hurricane Season</em>, acts of brujería do not offer a clear path to empowerment or freedom. Instead, the novel reveals how brujería is entangled with the very hierarchies it seeks to subvert, rendering it an ambivalent form of resistance. Through the figure of the Young Witch, whose power marks her as both threatening and disposable, the novel illustrates how attempts at subversion remain constrained by systemic violence. Her practice positions her outside normative structures but does not protect her from the brutal consequences of being hyper visible and nonconforming. Drawing on the specter of feminicide and the cultural construction of monstrous femininity, the novel underscores how spiritual and bodily agency can be co-opted, distorted, and weaponized. Rather than idealize brujería as inherently liberatory, this project argues that its power is always negotiated, haunted by colonial legacies, and shaped by the limits of survival. In doing so, <em>Hurricane Season</em> forces a reckoning with the costs of resistance in contexts where power is not only external, but internalized and reproduced through everyday life, and demonstrates how marginalized bodies, even when engaged in acts of resistance, remain vulnerable to the very structures they seek to subvert.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2025

Author dc:creator

• Garate, Cassandra V

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Renee Hudson
• Dr. Nora Rivera
• Dr. Ian Barnard

• Brujería
• Witchcraft
• Mexico
• Horror
• Decolonial

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/english_theses/81

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.chapman.edu:english_theses-1086