Legitimation of Knowledge and Desire in María Luisa Bombal’s Texts

Abstract

This essay focuses on the re articulations of the patriarchal equation Woman-Nature in María Luisa Bombal’s work to demonstrate that this equation is both a device that legitimizes feminine sexuality and a platform to dismantle the notion of Absolute Truth by inserting the gender category. In La última niebla (1935), the poetic bond of the protagonist with nature and the fact that the lover is devoid of cultural traits (he is a masculine body that lacks signs of identity and even language), echoes the cultural consensus that women are linked to nature, thus evading censorship. This re articulation becomes more evident in La amortajada (1938) where the patriarchal archetype Woman-Nature allows the author to present a notion of death that transgresses the Catholic dogma. This dissenting view becomes stronger in María Luisa Bombal’s last texts where she extends the equation to the tryad Woman-Nature-Knowledge to state that knowledge is not absolute but has been split by Gender. Thus, the author offers a feminine alternative to knowledge from a subaltern perspective that oscillates between dissidence and claudication.