Abstract
This chapter analyzes Gean Carlo Villegas’s 2013 novel, Osario de vivos, as a retelling of Manuel Zeno Gandía’s La charca, (1894). A panoramic view of the topic of violence—social and/or gendered—illustrates the trajectory of the colonialist experience in Puerto Rico. Therefore, the role of women in Osario de vivos is approached within the possibility of them being modern-day Silvinas (La charca). This retelling of La charca is in dialogue with other expressions of violence in Puerto Rican literature, for example, the one depicted in René Marqués’s La carreta (gendered-sexual-familial), and the one portrayed in Mayra Santos Febres’s “Hebra rota” (social-racial). Thus, Osario de vivos emerges as a novela-instalación, examining the colonial “mundo enfermo” that Zeno Gandía had denounced in the late-nineteenth century.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Juan Gelpí refers to the hierarchy implicit in the patriarchal Puerto Rican literary canon : “la literature digna de pasar al canon es literatura de hombres, de políticos, de constructores de naciones” (12).
- 2.
From the report found here: http://www2.pr.gov/agencias/mujer/Estadisticas/Pages/default.aspx.
- 3.
For a detailed discussion on this subject matter, see Lorrin Thomas’s Puerto Rican Citizen (2010).
- 4.
My translation of the commentary in “Los federales y el narcotráfico en Puerto Rico” is found here. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
- 5.
Found in the critical edition by Bird-Soto.
- 6.
All references to Sara la obrera are from the 1895 edition. References to Bird-Soto’s introduction to her 2008 critical edition are noted as such.
- 7.
According to Yolanda Ricardo , especially within the Caribbean context, “las formas de violencia del hegemonismo patriarcal y los procesos de resisitencia y de concientización tienen mucho en común, explicados desde los contextos sociohistóricos y de las especificidades de clase, etnia, raza y cultura” (18).
- 8.
In the US Latino/Boricua context, Jesús Colón’s denouncement of racism is key to the social justice he personally fought for through writing and education. “Angels in my Hometown Church” (from The Way It Was and Other Writings) is a fine example of the racist attitudes in Puerto Rican society as expressed in micro-aggressions.
- 9.
“Su fama es legendaria en Trastalleres aunque como todas las otras mujeres del barrio tiene la nariz rota a puñetazos” (Santos Febres 66).
- 10.
See Bird-Soto’s article: “Subversivo y sin verbos.”
- 11.
In Falsas crónicas del sur, Ana Lydia Vega tackles the repression of the independentistas in the 1930s and the state violence toward them in the story “Un domingo de Lilliane,” which focuses on the Ponce Massacre .
- 12.
La charca was first published in three parts in Asomante, between 1951 and 1952.
- 13.
“Las nuevas generaciones de puertorriqueños que nacieron y se criaron en Nueva York … no podían compartir su mensaje final—nacionalista y romántico—de vuelta a la tierra mítica y salvadora” (Costa 34).
- 14.
In Dinorah Cortés-Vélez’s 2011 novel, El arca de la memoria, the familial preference for a son (instead of a daughter) is presented in the context of an evolving mother–daughter relationship. Moreover, the protagonist confronts micro-aggressions related to body image that are rooted in socio-cultural values that are detrimental to a healthy view of the female and/or feminine. In defiance to the patriarchal ethos, the story reframes the maternal womb as a vantage narrative point to counteract the devaluation of the female and/or feminine.
- 15.
“Mientras, al niño le han asignado en una clase leer La charca y la madre decide, para asegurarse de que su hijo haga la asignación, que la leerá en voz alta. De este modo los paralelos con el clásico se estrechan” (Pérez Ortiz).
- 16.
This approach has been employed by Nelson López Rojas in Semos Malos, where the protagonist enunciates his narrative as if he were dead.
- 17.
This topic, in connection to that of Chinese immigration to the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, and the Otherness forces upon these immigrants is soberly depicted in Manolo Núñez Negrón’s short novel, Barra china.
- 18.
The teacher explains that health and education in Puerto Rico should not be tied to party politics. Christopher asks if students would still have to turn in the homework related to La charca.
- 19.
In his threat, he tells María that “in black, and white, bitch, don’t say anything to your mother or I’ll kill you.” (Translation mine)
- 20.
- 21.
Metaphorically, and as Esteban Vera Santiago remarks, the son: “se enfrenta al resquebrajamiento del sistema educativo de la Isla y a pesar de mostrar ansias por los estudios se ve imposibilitado ante el poder de la burocracia.[faces the crumbling down of the education system on the Island, and even if he is enthusiastic about his studies he finds himself stifled by the power of bureaucracy].”
References
Acosta-Belén, Edna, and Virginia Sánchez Korrol. 1993. The Way It Was and Other Writings (Jesús Colón). Houston: Arte Público Press.
Arce de Vázquez, Margot. 1998. Literatura puertorriqueña. Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Bird-Soto, Nancy. 2009. Sara la obrera y otros cuentos. El repertorio femenino de Ana Roqué. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.
———. 2010. Subversivo y sin verbos: ‘Acto de fe’ de Mayra Santos Febres. In Entre las “ruinas” y la descolonización. Reflexiones desde la literatura del Gran Caribe, ed. Silvia Valero, 123–130. Tinkuy: Boletín de Investigación y Debate, 13.
Borges, José. Reseña: Osario de vivos. http://www.elblogdeborges.com/?p=2043.
Cortés-Vélez, Dinorah. 2011. El arca de la memoria. San Juan and Santo Domingo: Editorial Isla Negra.
Costa, Marithelma. 2013. Introducción a La charca. Madrid: Editorial Plaza Mayor.
Cubano Iguina, Astrid. 2006. Rituals of Violence in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico. Ed. Félix Matos Rodríguez. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Flores, Juan. 1993. Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity. Houston: Arte Público Press.
Gelpí, Juan. 1993. Literatura y paternalismo en Puerto Rico. Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.
López Rojas, Nelson. 2013. Semos malos. San Salvador: Editorial Universidad Don Bosco.
“Los federales y el narcotráfico en Puerto Rico”. 2014. Accessed 23 Oct. http://www.redbetances.com/columnas/hector-l-pesquera-sevillano/166-los-federales-y-el-narcotrafico-en-puerto-rico.html.
Marqués, René. 1983. La carreta (1953). San Juan: Editorial Cultural.
Martí, José. 2016. Nuestra América (1891). Accessed 3 Nov. http://ciudadseva.com/texto/nuestra-america/.
“Mujer/Estadísticas”. 2014. Accessed 2 July. http://www2.pr.gov/agencias/mujer/Estadisticas/Pages/default.aspx.
———. 2016. Accessed 27 Oct. http://www2.pr.gov/agencias/mujer/Estadisticas/Documents/2015/Tabla%20Estad%C3%ADsticas%20de%20Violencia%20Dom%C3%A9stica%20%201990-2016.pdf.
Núñez Negrón, Manolo. 2012. Barra China. San Juan: Agentes Catalíticos.
“Oxford Dictionaries Online”. 2014. Accessed 15 Sep. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/aggression.
Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth. 2014. Patterns of Dominance in Puerto Rican Literature: A Historical Overview. In Inside Ethnic America: An Ethnic Studies Reader. Accessed 24 July. https://lizabethparavisinigebert.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/patterns.pdf.
Pérez Ortiz, Melanie. 2013. Tres textos escritos en puertorriqueño. http://www.80grados.net/tres-textos-escritos-en-puertorriqueno/.
Quijano, Aníbal. 2000. Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from the South 1 (3): 533–580.
Ricardo, Yolanda. 2004. La resistencia en las antillas tiene rostro de mujer. Santo Domingo: Academia de Ciencias de la República Dominicana.
Roqué, Ana. 1895. Sara la obrera y otros cuentos. Ponce: Imprenta de Manuel López.
Santos-Febres, Mayra. 1996. Pez de vidrio. San Juan: Ediciones Huracán.
Sue, Derald Wing. 2010. Microagressions in Everyday Life. In Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Thomas, Lorrin. 2010. Puerto Rican Citizen. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Vega, Ana Lydia. 1991. Falsas crónicas del sur. Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Vera Santiago, Esteban. 2014. Balas, coca y sufrimiento. Cruce, February 24. http://revistacruce.com/letras/item/1155-balas-coca-y-sufrimiento.
Villegas, Gean Carlo. 2013. Osario de vivos. San Juan: Terranova Editores.
Zeno Gandía, Manuel. 1996. La charca (1894). San Juan: Publicaciones puertorriqueñas.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bird-Soto, N. (2018). Retelling La charca: Osario de Vivos, Women, and Con/Textual Aggressions in Puerto Rican Literature. In: Botero, B. (eds) Women in Contemporary Latin American Novels. Literatures of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68158-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68158-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68157-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68158-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)