To what extent does Mastrettas novel Arrncame la vida reconfigure conventional gender paradigms?

by georginaeaton (student)

University Degree European Languages, Literature and related subjects

Qu. 2. To what extent does Mastretta’s novel Arráncame la vida reconfigure conventional gender paradigms?

Word Count : 2908

To what extent does Mastretta’s novel Arráncame la vida reconfigure conventional gender paradigms?

In order to be able to analyse the extent to which Arráncame la vida deconstructs gender stereotypes, it is necessary to define what traditional notions of gender were in Mexican society at the time. Monsiváis notes that ‘women mean very little in political and social terms and practically nothing when set before the deity of those times’[1], and fixed divisions of gender are apparent within the novel itself, ‘preferiría oír la plática de los hombres, pero no era correcto. Siempre las cenas se dividían así’[2]. This would suggest that women were seen as generally inferior to and weaker than men, and that there was a great divergence in the expected standards of behaviour between the sexes. I would agree with the numerous critics who see the novel as a feminisation of the Mexican Revolution, and would add to this by saying that Mastretta subverts the idea of history as written by males by contributing as a female author as well as by offering a first person feminine perspective of the events of the time. It is arguably not just the notion of history that Mastretta is challenging, but also the paradigms on which the patriarchal binarism of the period was founded. In this essay I will discuss the ways in which the author reconfigures traditional gender codes, and then analyse how the novel may not contest conventional masculine orthodoxy as much as it may first appear to.

An important way in which Arráncame...[3] reconfigures gender paradigms is in Mastretta’s portrayal of the women characters in the novel. Contrary to traditional views in the Mexico of the 1940s, the women of Puebla are often seen as more powerful than their husbands, ‘‘-…no crees, Julián? – Claro que lo cree, dijo Marilú como despedida’[4]. In this case, the wife is answering for her husband, which completely subverts social norms of the time, as by doing this, Mastretta gives the woman’s voice more importance and emasculates the character of Julián. The involvement of women in the Revolution is also seemingly more masculine, ‘‘Mientras su mujer gritaba con los demás, Andrés mentaba madres’[5], as Eulalia and others are the ones taking a stand and being thrust into a violent situation, whilst the men remain in the background. In her portrayal of the women as a group, the author also makes it clear that they are capable of accomplishments outside of the traditional female roles of wife and mother. For me, Cati’s sister Bárbara exemplifies this, ‘nada más porque Bárbara cumplía con su papel de secretaria fuimos a entregarles las camisetas a los niños’ [6], as she is employed by Cati and Andrés which goes against the paradigm of women’s responsibilities being primarily and exclusively in the domestic environment.

Many critics including Gauss agree that Mexican nationalism defines women’s interests as based around their responsibilities as wives and mothers.[7] Arráncame... clearly contests this concept as Cati resists and rejects motherhood, ‘‘lo había cargado nueve meses como una pesadilla’[8], eventually choosing to abdicate herself from any motherly duties when she shuts the door on her children, leaving this role to the maid, Lucina. I would take this further than those who suggest that Cati’s contempt for motherhood is simply down to her feeling unattractive when pregnant, as her lack of motherly instinct continues even as her children grow up. What is poignant for me is that at the end of the novel, in a complete reversal from the beginning when Andrés refers to the children as Catalina’s, she refers to them as solely his ‘sus hijos se los rieron todos’.[9] In detatching the character from the children she bore, Mastretta completely rejects traditional views of women and in associating them as a product of their father rather than as shared between both parents, she challenges gender paradigms of the time which dictated that children were exclusively the responsibility of the woman.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Mastretta also uses imagery to emphasise that some of the women in the novel are assuming masculine roles, or acting in a way that was expected exclusively of men at the time. Often men are physically, as well as metaphorically, not wearing the trousers in their relationships. In the novel Andrés is poignantly described as ‘sin pantalones’[10], whilst Cati is wearing the trousers literally, ‘tenía yo puestos unos pantalones de pana y lo dejé acariciarlos’[11] as well as figuratively as she is in control by letting him caress her. By using this imagery, Mastretta consolidates the fact that Cati is in a traditionally male position of power by emphasising that she is also dressed like a man in these moments in the novel. This is extended to other characters, such as Bibi, who is described by Catalina as appearing ‘casi de hombre’[12] in the episode where she announces that she has been sleeping with another man behind her husband’s back. Mastretta links these key moments of women acting in a conventionally masculine way by the characters physically looking like males to highlight to the reader that she is subverting traditional gender paradigms.

Mastretta portrays the character of Catalina as having many other masculine traits as well as the clothing she wears, such as the type of language she uses. Moi points out that an effective way to ‘disrupt patriarchal logic is through mimeticism, or mimicry of male discourse’,[13] which is seen in Arráncame... in Cati’s use of anti-romantic, direct and often vulgar language which dominant cultural ideals of the time would reserve for male usage. This is often conveyed in the direct way in which she talks about sex, and the vulgar nature of her thoughts, ‘las feligreses de Chofi le aplaudían como si se las hubiera cogido’[14]. Lavery notes than in an interview, Mastretta admits that Cati’s voice was based on that of one of her male friends, Renato Leduc, [15] therefore this leads me to believe that it was the author’s intention to challenge gender codes in this way.

One of the main aspects constituting Catalina’s masculinity in terms of her behaviour is the affairs she engages in. The author is openly flouting the convention of marital fidelity for women, as Cati is seen to continually have affairs throughout her marriage to Andrés, ‘yo me encargué de quitarle la virginidad que todavía no dejaba en ningún burdel’[16]. With Pablo there is a gender role reversal as she is more knowledgeable about sex and strips him of his innocence and virginity, as well as challenging conventions by being a woman engaged in an affair in the first place. Oropesa takes this further as he sees Catalina’s adultery as masculine rather than feminine in nature, as ‘the political statement of a liberated woman’ rather than as an attempt to relieve the tedium of being an upper-class wife.[17] I would disagree with this as I do not think this is the case with all her affairs, such as those with Quijano and Pablo, as the purpose of these sexual encounters I deem to be to relieve boredom, whereas it is merely with Carlos Vives that her affair is of a deeper, masculine nature. Despite this, all of Cati’s affairs are an indication that the author is breaking away from traditional gender paradigms where the woman is expected to be the victim of affairs rather than engaging in them. It is also true that Catalina’s relationship with Vives is a display of her control and power over Andrés , ‘las acomodé en una olla de barro en medio de la mesa’[18], embodied by the moment where she arranges some flowers from a field where she had sex with Carlos, in the middle of a table in the home she shares with her husband. This brazen reminder of her lover in her house is a mark of disrespect for Andrés which serves to reinforce the way in which the author of Arráncame... challenges fixed hierarchies of gender by showing Catalina as powerful, strong and in control of her husband.

Lavery points out that in most patriarchies, authority is linked to masculinity and is synonymous with virility and strength,[19] therefore Catalina’s ability to subtly control her husband and undermine his virility is another key aspect in the argument that Mastretta’s novel reconfigures gender paradigms. It seems to be widely recognised by people of the town that Cati can not only handle Andrés, but manipulate him, ‘-la gente dice que usted lo puede manejar’[20], and the idea of her having control over husband does indeed challenge existing notions of gender in Mexican society at that time. Andrés is a man who inspires fear in other men, let alone women, and so Cati standing up to him and having authority over him, ‘-Quién te autorizó a irte de cuzca? ...-Yo me autoricé.’[21] is particularly unexpected and makes a definite statement about the strength of women. To associate Catalina with authority is therefore to associate her with masculinity, according to Lavery, and I would agree that this is another way in which Mastretta subverts gender paradigms by depicting Cati as having certain masculine values. Even Andrés himself admits that Catalina often behaves in a manner that one would expect of a man, ‘pareces hombre...eres mi mejor vieja, mi mejor viejo, cabrona’[22] and admits on his deathbed that he was not able to control her. It is arguably a final display of her control that kills Andrés, and I would argue that in this twist of the novel, Mastretta dismantles gendered positionalities through irony. Moi points out that there is a patriarchal equation between women and liquids, or the symbol of women as ‘the life-giving sea’[23], and I would argue that the author ironises this patriarchal symbol by having Cati take her husband’s life away with the liquid she administers him before his death. I believe that Mastretta is undermining the patriarchy and conventional views on gender by treating some of these traditions with irony.

As well as portraying Cati and some of the women of Puebla in a somewhat masculine way, Mastretta subverts gender paradigms further by including feminine aspects in her portrayal of many of the male characters in Arráncame. Catalina’s father is portrayed invariably within the domestic sphere, which breaks with traditional views on gender, and Lavery points out that she has a closer relationship with him than with her mother[24], evidenced by the fact she affectionately calls him ‘papá’ instead of the more formal ‘mi madre’, with which she refers to her mother. This reiterates a switching of gender roles, as it was the women who usually took on the task of looking after and fostering relationships with the children within the family. In Mexican society at the time, women were also seen by men as the inferior, weaker and more emotional sex. Mastretta seems to dispute this in her novel, especially in the relationship between Rodolfo and Chofi, ‘Rodolfo se le echó a los pies llorando y preguntándole qué daño le había hecho para merecer su abandono.’[25], where she assumes the male dominant role in the relation and inspires fear in her husband. In the quotation, Rodolfo physically takes a position of inferiority by dropping to his knees, and by crying and begging in public, he is emotional as a woman would be expected to be, as well as emasculated by showing his weakness in the face of his wife. Abandonment is also usually associated with the male, so here Mastretta fully switches the expected roles of male and female in this relationship and hence reconfigures conventional views on gender.

However, there are also aspects of the novel which seem to reinforce gender paradigms rather than challenge them. Lavery suggests that autonomy is also a key masculine characteristic[26], which I do not believe Cati to possess. This does not mean to say that the novel therefore does not subvert traditional notions of gender, as it is not that the protagonist needs to possess all of the so-called ‘male’ characteristics, but that, for me, it is difficult to suggest that she has power over her husband, without also being independent. Her dependence on Andrés is predominantly financial, and Knights argues that any power that she has is derived from his money[27], for example, if she were poor she would not be able to abandon her responsibilities as a mother so easily. Mastretta makes it clear that Catalina is unable to leave her husband and the life he provides her, ‘no me gustó mi nueva vida’ [28], and it is humorous that her desire to be independent from him so short-lived, and her attempt at emancipation so pathetic. She chooses instead to fall back into her marriage with Andrés and dismisses the feminist idea of going out to earn money for herself, which I believe reinforces gender stereotypes of the time. Kaplan’s writing on traditional gender roles in Mexico during the Revolution consolidates this argument, as she points out that under the patriarchy, women were described as ‘dependents, with men making all of the decisions which affect them’[29] , which can be seen in Arráncame... in the family’s move from Puebla to Mexico City. This constitutes a significant change in Cati’s life, yet she has no say in the decision, and admits that it leads to her complete emotional dependence on Andrés in their first few months there, ‘esperando que él llegara de repente y le diera a todo su razón de ser’[30]. This lack of autonomy is, for me, a key indication that Mastretta’s novel does not challenge conventional gender codes as much as it may seem to.

It is also argued that Arráncame... does not subvert gender paradigms as Cati could be seen as conforming to the patriarchy and its ideals. Monsiváis sees patriarchy as an ‘endless strategy of concealment’[31], and I would say that Cati contributes to this by writing some of Andrés’ speeches. She has assumed control of his public voice, collaborating with the system she privately critiques. Moreover, she chooses to ignore the knowledge that Andrés has killed innocent people ‘yo prefería no saber qué hacía Andrés’[32], even though she suspects that this is the case. Catalina also conforms with masculine orthodoxy in another respect, since she has a machista attitude towards other women, ‘suspiraba como si quisiera que alguien, por favor, se la cogiera’ [33] and her thoughts surrounding other women are often similar to that of her husband. These aspects of the novel restrict the extent to which it challenges conventional views on gender since they seem to consolidate traditional gender codes of Mexican society at the time.

Overall I would say that the novel definitely reconfigures traditional gender paradigms more than it reinforces them, and provides a different perspective on this period in Mexican history. Lavery sees the expression of ‘no lo dicho’ as part of Mastretta’s specific style of feminism[34], and I would agree that her feminism is ambiguous, la legislatura poblana les dio el voto a las mujeres, cosa que sólo celebraron Carmen Serdán y otras cuatro maestras’[35], as there seems to be no sense of female solidarity in the novel. Despite this, Arráncame... does serve to critique machismo and challenge existing notions of gender. The adoption of a female first person perspective by Mastretta, for me, inverts conventional gender codes from the outset, as it defies the concept of women as existing on the margins or being a silenced voice. Moreover, I agree with Gold who deems the novel ‘a restructuring of the classic male Bildungsroman’[36] for a female protagonist, which serves to consolidate its status as a work which breaks away from fixed notions of gender identity.

Bibliography

Mastretta, A. 2000. Arráncame la vida (Cal y arena: Mexico)

Anderson, D. 1988. ‘Displacement: Strategies of Transformation in Arráncame la vida by Angeles Mastretta’, Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, 21:1, pp. 15-27

Bartra, E. , Anna M. Fernández Poncela, and Ana Lau eds. 2000. Feminismo en México, ayer y hoy, No.130 Colleccion Molinos de Viento (Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana)

Brooksbank Jones, A. and Catherine Davies. eds.1996. Latin American Women’s Writing: Feminist Readings in Theory and Crisis (Oxford: Clarendon Press) pp.227-237

Carey, E. 2005. Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power and Terror in 1968 Mexico, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press)

Hind, E. 2003. ‘Entrevista con Angeles Mastretta’, Entrevistas con quince autoras mexicanas, (Madrid:Iberoamericana) pp.89-102

Hurley, T. 2003. Serie A: Monografías, 197, Mothers and Daughters in Post-Revolutionary Mexican Literature (Suffolk: Tamesis) pp.7-32 , pp.73-113

Gold, J. Nov 1988. "Arráncame la vida" Textual Complicity and the Boundaries of Rebellion, Chasqui, Vol. 17, No. 2 pp. 35-40

Jehenson, M. 1995. Latin-American Women Writers: Class, Race and Gender (Albany: SUNY)

Knights, V. 2001. ‘(De) Constructing Gender: The Bolero in Angeles Mastretta’s Arráncame la vida’, Journal of Romance Studies,1:1, pp. 69-84

Lavery, J. 2005. Angeles Mastretta: Textual Multiplicity (Monografías A) ( Woodbridge, UK: Tamesis)

Moi, T. 1985. Sexual/Texual Politics (London: Routledge)

Olcott, J, Mary Vaughan, Gabriella Cano eds. 2006 Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics and Power in Modern Mexico, (Durham: Duke University Press)

Oropesa, S. 1996. ‘Popular culture and gender/genre construction in Mexican Bolero by Angeles Mastretta’, in Bodies and Biases: Sexualities in Hispanic Cultures and Literatures, ed. by David William Foster et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp.137-64

Reisz de Rivarola, S. 1995. ‘Cuando las mujeres cantan tango …’, in Literatura mexicana hoy, ed. by Karl Kohut (Madrid/Frankfurt: Vervuert/Iberoamericana), pp. 141-56

Thornton, N. 2006. Women and the War Story: La novela de la revolución (Lewsiton: Edwin Mellen)

SPAN 2110

Women's Writing in Latin America

[1] Carlos Monsiváis’ foreward in Olcott, J, Mary Vaughan, Gabriella Cano eds. 2006 Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics and Power in Modern Mexico, (Durham: Duke University Press) pp.4

[2] Mastretta, A. 2000. Arráncame la vida, (Cal y arena: Mexico) pp.61

[3] I will abbreviate the novel to Arráncame... from here onwards

[4] Mastretta op cit pp.62

[5] Mastretta op cit pp.38

[6] Mastretta op cit pp.50

[7] Gauss, S. in Olcott, J, Mary Vaughan, Gabriella Cano eds. 2006 Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics and Power in Modern Mexico, (Durham: Duke University Press) pp.190

[8] Mastretta op cit pp.31

[9] Mastretta op cit pp.209

[10] Mastretta op cit p.166

[11] Mastretta op cit pp.164

[12] Mastretta op cit pp.193

[13] Moi, T. 1985. Sexual/Texual Politics (London: Routledge) pp.136

[14] Mastretta op cit pp.132

[15] Lavery, J. 2005. Angeles Mastretta: Textual Multiplicity (Monografías A) ( Woodbridge, UK: Tamesis) pp.77

[16] Mastretta op cit pp.32

[17] Oropesa, S. 1996. ‘Popular culture and gender/genre construction in Mexican Bolero by Angeles Mastretta’, in Bodies and Biases: Sexualities in Hispanic Cultures and Literatures, ed. by David William Foster et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp.153

[18] Mastretta op cit pp.160

[19] Lavery op cit pp.51

[20] Mastretta op cit pp.72

[21] Mastretta op cit pp.84

[22] Mastretta op cit pp.211

[23] Moi op cit pp.142

[24] Lavery op cit pp.52

[25] Mastretta op cit pp.81

[26] Lavery op cit pp.51

[27] Knights, V. 2001. ‘(De) Constructing Gender: The Bolero in Angeles Mastretta’s Arráncame la vida’, Journal of Romance Studies,1:1, pp.70

[28] Mastretta op cit pp.55

[29] Kaplan, T. In Olcott, J, Mary Vaughan, Gabriella Cano eds. 2006 Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics and Power in Modern Mexico, (Durham: Duke University Press) pp.268

[30] Mastretta op cit pp.105

[31] Monsiváis op cit pp.4

[32] Mastretta op cit pp.55

[33] Mastretta op cit pp.97

[34] Lavery op cit pp.164

[35] Mastretta op cit pp.45

[36] Gold, J. Nov 1988. "Arráncame la vida" Textual Complicity and the Boundaries of Rebellion, Chasqui, Vol. 17, No. 2 pp.40