CLOSING OF THE ROMANTIC UTOPIA AND EMANCIPATION PROCESS IN LA BRECHA BY MERCEDES VALDIVIESOCLAUSURA DE LA UTOPÍA ROMÁNTICA Y PROCESO DE EMANCIPACIÓN EN LA BRECHA DE MERCEDES VALDIVIESO

Abstract

© 2021 Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades, Departamento de Literatura. All rights reserved.Although Mercedes Valdivieso would belong to the literary generation of the 50’s, her name is rarely mentioned in the histories of literature. Her first publication, La brecha (1961), is a feminist novel, one of the first at a national level. This work will identify an aesthetic which I call localized or situated, where the model of construction of the feminine coming from the patriarchal hegemony and the protagonist’s desire for emancipation, is stressed. For this, the novel elaborates two fundamental proposals of disarticulation of the hegemonic feminine: the fall of the romantic utopia and the yearning for salaried work. The result is not an emancipated woman, but in the process of emancipation. That is to say, I will try to show how in La brecha detaching oneself from romanticism and having a salaried job become the axes of the identity formation of the protagonist.