The Journey in Search of Female Identity in Historia de Java by Elisabeth Mulder and “Si esto es la vida, yo soy Caperucita Roja” by Luisa Valenzuela
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/vestnik.13.333-348Keywords:
journey, female identity, Elisabeth Mulder, Luisa Valenzuela, chronotope of the roadAbstract
A journey responds to the human need to go out in search of a new experience that changes the perception of the world: it is an invitation to immerse oneself in interwoven paths that help to understand the past and transgress it. But nevertheless, in the canon of travel literature an unequal relationship has been consolidated in which the male hero (Ulysses) assumes the role of the traveling explorer, while the female heroine (Penelope) is confined to private space and condemned to wait. As a result, the journey that the heroine must undertake is a journey and path that originally belonged to a male world. The starting point of this work is the chronotope of the road (Bajtin 1989), together with the ideas of rebellion and curiosity as the backbone of the search for identity as a female subject on the heroine’s journey. Using Elisabeth Mulder’s Historia de Java (1935) and Luisa Valenzuela’s short story “Si esto es la vida, yo soy Caperucita Roja” (1993), the journey and path are analysed as a symbolic place of learning and finding female identity to re-appropriate a space that traditionally belonged to men. During their inner and outer journeys, the heroines of both stories set out to encounter and discover otherness and their emancipation. They explore the forest of life, with the final journey leading them to the self-discovery of a new female identity, decrypted from the precepts of patriarchy. To this end, we will draw on both the reflections of the authors themselves (Mulder 1979 and Valenzuela 2002) and the research of Bacucz (2015), Cassole (2013), Mañas Martínez (1988, 2006), Díaz (1996), Marković (2013), Martínez (2001), Medeiros- Lichem (2007), Muñoz (1996), Noguerol (2001), Prada (2018), Regazzoni (2012), Zapico (2015) and Zipes (2006).
Downloads
References
BAJTIN, Mijáil (1989) El problema de los géneros discursivos. México: Siglo XXI.
BAKUCZ, Dóra (2015) «Y la boca traga y por fin somos una». Dos Caperucitas en la literatura argentina contemporánea. M. Polić-Bobić/G. Matić/A. Huertas Morales (eds.), La literatura argentina del siglo XX: un recuento. Relecturas de la Argentina del siglo XX ficcionalizada. Zagreb: Sveučilište u Zagrebu, 173–184.
CASASOLE, María Elena (2013) Ojos de mujer observan el mundo: la escritura de viaje femenina. Investigaciones Feministas 4, 241–254.
DÍAZ, Gwendolyn (1996) Entrevista con Luisa Valenzuela. G. Díaz/M. I. Lagos (eds.), La palabra en vilo: narrativa de Luisa Valenzuela. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 35–52.
MAÑAS MARTÍNEZ, María del Mar (1988) La obra narrativa de Elisabeth Mulder. Tesis doctoral. Madrid: Universidad Complutense. 4 de agosto de 2021. https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/3943/
MAÑAS MARTÍNEZ, María del Mar (2006) Elisabeth Mulder: Una escritora en la encrucijada entre el modernismo y la modernidad. Arbor: Ciencia, Pensamiento y Cultura 719, 385–397.
MARCILLAS PIQUER, Isabel (2012) Literatura de viajes en clave femenina: los pre-textos de Aurora Bertrana y otras viajeras europeas. Revista de Filología Románica 29(2), 215–231.
MARKOVIĆ, Ana (2013) La identidad femenina y las relaciones de poder en los relatos de Luisa Valenzuela. Tesis Doctoral. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona. 4 de agosto de 2021. https://www.tesisenred.net/bitstream/handle/10803/116768/MARKOVIC_TES S.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
MARTÍNEZ, Z. Nelly (2001) Luisa Valenzuela: lectura descolonizadora del cuento de hadas tradicional. Letras femeninas 27(1), 177–200.
MEDEIROS-LICHEM, María Teresa (2007) Prisma poligonal de la escritura: «Cuentos de Hades» de Luisa Valenzuela. International Conference on Women, Gender and Discourse in Latin America. Livepool: University of Liverpool. 12 de junio de 2021. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/bmc0931797
MULDER, Elisabeth (1979) A fondo. 4 de agosto de 2021. https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/a-fondo/fondo-elisabeth-mulder/5487768/
MULDER, Elisabeth (2018) Sinfonía en rojo. Prosa y poesía selecta. Madrid: Colección Obra Fundamental.
MUÑOZ, Willy (1996) Luisa Valenzuela y la subversión normativa en los cuentos de hadas: «Si esto es la vida, yo soy Caperucita Roja». G. Díaz/M. I. Lagos (eds.), La palabra en vilo: narrativa de Luisa Valenzuela. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 221–246.
NOGUEROL JIMÉNEZ, Francisca (2001) La metamorfosis de Caperucita. S. Mattalía (ed.), Aún y más allá: mujeres y discursos. Caracas: Escultura, 113–122.
POSADA, Adolfo R. (2019) Nomadismo y vidas erráticas en la literatura española postcontemporánea. Pasavento: Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 7(2), 425–444.
PRADA, Juan Manuel de (2018) Introducción en Elisabeth Mulder, Sinfonía en rojo. Prosa y poesía selecta. Madrid: Fundación Banco Santander, XI–L.
REGAZZONI, Susanna (2012) «Lo exótico es el otro, o soy yo». Espacio y tiempo en el relato de viaje: Condesa de Merlín y Luisa Valenzuela. Verba hispánica 20(2), 273–283.
VALENZUELA, Luisa (1997) Simetrías. Barcelona: Plaza Janés.
VALENZUELA, Luisa (2002) Peligrosas palabras. Reflexiones de una escritora. México: Océano.
ZAPICO, Elena (2015) «¿Colorín, colorado?»: Las reescrituras contemporáneas de los cuentos de hadas en la literatura hispánica. Tesis doctoral. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca. 4 de agosto de 2021. https://gredos.usal.es/handle/10366/128826
ZIPES, Jack (2006) Fairy tales and the art of subversion. London: Rouledge.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Gemma Santiago Alonso

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in journal Journal for Foreign Languages by Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia). Author’s name will be evident in the article in journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the publisher right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.