Abject Bodies: Chicana Embodiment and Resistance in Ana Castillo’s Peel My Love Like an Onion and Denise Chávez’s Loving Pedro Infante

Abstract

This article examines Ana Castillo’s Peel My Love Like an Onion and Denise Chávez’s Loving Pedro Infante to argue that Chicana literature locates resistance to patriarchal control primarily in the body itself. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection and Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderland, this article examines how Castillo and Chávez portray disabled, desiring, and putatively impure female bodies as abject figures who nonetheless reclaim their own bodies, on which patriarchal definitions of womanhood are inscribed. In this regard, the article employs theoretically informed close readings of passages that narrate the crossing of a bodily boundary. Both novels’ protagonists, Carmen and Tere, cross physical, cultural, and sexual borders that are ultimately corporeal. They enter public spaces traditionally reserved for men, expose bodily fluids and disabilities considered taboo, and claim pleasure denied to them. Rather than treating abjection as stigma, this article shows that Castillo and Chávez reframe it as a source of knowledge and power. The judged and impure bodies become sites of self-possession and defiance. By reading these novels together, this article suggests that the reclamation of the female body is not an isolated case, but exemplifies a strategy within Chicana writing.

Keywords

• Chicana literature
• abjection
• embodiment
• borderlands
• disability
• transgression

Supporting Institution

This research was conducted without any financial support from funding agencies, institutions, or organizations.

Thanks

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İğrençleştirilmiş Bedenler: Ana Castillo’nun Peel My Love Like an Onion ve Denise Chávez’in Loving Pedro Infante Adlı Eserlerinde Chicana Bedeni ve Direniş

Abstract

Bu makale, Ana Castillo’nun Peel My Love Like an Onion ve Denise Chávez’in Loving Pedro Infante adlı eserlerini inceleyerek, Chicana edebiyatının ataerkil denetime karşı direnişi öncelikle bedenin kendisinde konumlandırdığını savunmaktadır. Julia Kristeva’nın iğrençlik (abjection) kuramından ve Gloria Anzaldúa’nın sınır bölgeleri (borderlands) kavramından yola çıkan bu makale, Castillo ve Chávez’in engelli, arzulayan ve sözde saf olmayan kadın bedenlerini iğrençleştirilmiş (abject) figürler olarak nasıl betimlediğini, buna rağmen bu kadınların, kadınlığa dair patriarkal tanımların yazıldığı kendi bedenlerini nasıl yeniden sahiplendiğini incelemektedir. Bu bağlamda, bu makalede bedensel sınır aşımlarının anlatıldığı bölümler kuramsal temelli yakın okuma yapılarak değerlendirilir. Her iki romanın kadın kahramanları, Carmen ve Tere, nihayetinde bedensel nitelikte olan fiziksel, kültürel ve cinsel sınırları aşarlar. Geleneksel olarak erkeklere ayrılmış kamusal alanlara girer, tabu sayılan bedensel sıvılarını ve engellerini açığa çıkarır ve kendilerinden esirgenmiş olan hazzı talep ederler. Bu makale, iğrençleşmeyi (abjection) bir damgalama biçimi olarak ele almak yerine, Castillo ve Chávez’in bunu bir bilgi ve güç kaynağı olarak yeniden çerçevelediğini göstermektedir. Yargılanan ve saf olmayan bedenler, kendine sahip çıkma ve meydan okuma alanlarına dönüşür. Bu makale, bu iki romanı bir arada okuyarak, kadın bedeninin yeniden sahiplenilmesinin Chicana yazınında istisnai bir durum değil, Chicana edebiyatında kullanılan bir edebi strateji örneği olduğunu ileri sürmektedir.

Keywords

• Chicana edebiyatı
• iğrençlik
• bedensellik
• sınır bölgeleri
• engellilik
• sınır aşımı

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