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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on the short story “Desiderata” found in Lucía Etxebarria's 1999 work Nosotras que no somos como las demás. The article analyzes Etxebarria's use of the quest-romance in “Desiderata” and concludes that the quest fails. I explain the concept of the original quest-romance and its feminized version and then relate those concepts to “Desiderata” through a textual analysis of the story. I suggest that Etxebarria writes a failed quest-romance story to illustrate the limits of the quest as a feminist tool of self-discovery. Whereas the experiences of the quest suggest change and freedom, a closer reading shows how the narrative structure reinforces confinements that women face by consistently allowing the female protagonist a taste of change and then using the mirror as a tool to undermine her experiences.
Notes
1. In a review of Nosotras in El Correo español, María Bengoa states that this work is a hybrid between novel and short story that benefits from the advantages of both genres.
2. For more information on the Ley de igualdad, see: http://noticias.juridicas.com/base_datos/Admin/lo3-2007.html
3. Etxebarria explains that “no es una fantasía exclusivamente mía” but that it comes from Máquinas de Amar by Pilar Pedraza (12).
4. Laura Mulvey's 1975 work “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” serves as the seminal point of addressing how men objectify women in film through the male gaze.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Catherine B. Ross
Catherine B. Ross is the author of The Changing Face of Motherhood in Spain: The Social Construction of Maternity in the Works of Lucía Etxebarria (Bucknell UP, 2016), as well as several articles about contemporary Spanish literature and film. She is Associate Professor of Spanish at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.