Born of Coatlicue: Literary Inscriptions of Women in Violence from the Mexican Revolution to the Drug War

This dissertation analyzes literary representations of women and violence from Mexican, Chicana, and Spanish authors. It focuses on two historical periods of extreme violence affecting the U.S.-Mexico border region: The Mexican Revolution and the turn-of-the-century crisis of the Nation-State that emerged subsequently. The comparative framework explores women’s strategies of survival and agency within the collapse of the security networks of this post-revolutionary State. I argue that although the literary corpus records some of the worst violence in the history of the region, the texts ultimately articulate messages of critical female participation and agency. Through diverse protagonists united by their coatlicuensidad, or dual creative and destructive identities, I show that regardless of their complex subject positions, their agency triumphs amid violent environments of societal—the disruption of structures and institutions—and social—the disturbance of humane interaction—upheaval. This oscillation between beauty and horror addresses the complexity of female subjectivities during explosions of violence at the U.S.-Mexico border. By prioritizing female voices, the novels become intellectual arms of resistance against systematic gender violence, silence, and impunity. The first chapter investigates women’s prominent roles and memories of the Revolution. My analysis of material culture and critical nostalgia demonstrates how these women juxtapose acts of violence with acts of humanity in order to effect a better future for their communities. Chapter two examines the violent effects of the demise of the post-revolutionary regime and its seven-decade old Nation-State model. It draws attention to the victims of femicide in northern Mexico, as the border becomes a battlefield between the forces that represent the erosion of the Nation-State and those of the State’s security apparatus. The victims of this form of gender violence represent the most salient casualties of such an erosion. This chapter also discusses matriarchal communities of knowledge amid this conjuncture, and how they foster social justice and encourage public grieving for murdered women. These novels return the voice to the women and expose the conditions that precipitate and sustain femicidal violence and abuse. The third chapter explores how women use their agency to enact the Drug War violence, or to report about it though the narconovela. Whether they seek to perpetuate drug crime and profit from it, or denounce it, their stories deserve to be told. These novels highlight female positions in the narcotics trade, in addition to demonstrating how they are affected by this recent wave of violence. All of the novels, Cartucho (1931) and Las manos de mama (1937) by Nellie Campobello, Las rebeldes (2011) by Monica Lavin, Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005) by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Ciudad final (2007) by Kama Gutier, If I Die in Juarez (2008) by Stella Pope Duarte, La reina del sur (2002) by Arturo Perez-Reverte, Perra brava (2010) by Orfa Alarcon, La reina del pacifico y otras mujeres del narco (2008) by Victor Ronquillo, and Tijuana: Crimen y olvido (2010) by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, represent the female experience during explosions of criminal violence, gender violence, and war at the border.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish and Portuguese

Grantor dc:publisher

The Ohio State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Matousek, Amanda Leah

Contributors dc:contributor

• Corona, Ignacio

• Foreign Language
• Gender Studies
• Hispanic American Studies
• Latin American History
• Latin American Literature
• Latin American Studies
• Womens Studies

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366249191

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:osu1366249191