Resumen de Grafting text and imagery: becoming “Undutiful daughters” in Carmen Boullosa’s Mejor desaparece
In this study, I will examine how the daughters do not passively remain as victims of their father’s domination, but rather, they usurp the patriarchal authority and make the home into their own place without the father. In this way, we will approach the concept of “home” from a different perspective: Here, “home” is not just a private and feminine place that incarcerates women by enforcing them with traditional values. By breaking down binary splits such as public/private, masculine/feminine, and reason/feeling, “home” is redefined as an alternative place, where women are self-empowered and thrive without patriarchal power. It should be noted that Boullosa’s narrative suggests a new strategy of feminist resistance against the patriarchal authority: collectively taking over the house (the symbol of a father’s property or place) with filthiness, odor and noises, instead of waiting passively for the collapse of patriarchal power or escaping from home.
My analysis encompasses two overlooked aspects of Mejor desaparece: i) the novel’s unique combination of visual art (Magali Lara’s illustrations) and text (Boullosa’s writing) focusing on the representation of the abandoned house and the unprotected children, and ii) the transformation of Ciarrosa’s daughters, especially from “good daughters” to “undutiful daughters.” I borrow this term of “undutiful daughters” from Rosi Braidotti’s notion that women need to refuse paternal law and develop “conceptual disobedience”—I will elaborate on her theory later. Even though the novel was published in the 1980s, its literary symbols and metaphors can be understood better through the notion of “becoming,” which is elaborated on by Braidotti in her 2012 book titled Undutiful Daughters: New Directions in Feminist Thought and Practice. Braidotti, whose work intersects with social and political theory, cultural politics, and gender studies, shows how feminist theory has been developed lately. Taking Braidotti’s concept as a theoretical framework, I seek to explore a non-humanistic feminism that marks non-equivalence between the two sexes and better understands the transformative subjects presented as the young female narrators
