Defense Date

2-26-2004

Graduation Date

2004

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

English

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Linda A. Kinnahan

Committee Member

Bernard F. Beranek

Committee Member

Mark Frisch

Keywords

Chicana, Guadalupe, Malinche

Abstract

Chicana writers currently assume the role of border culturalists in order to present alternative views of female figures perpetuated by histories, chronicles, myths, and other narrations motivated by imperial ideology and patriarchy. Two such female figures in Mexican-American culture are La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Malinche, archetypes that emerged in Mexico during the Spanish conquest period and that traditionally became dichotomous constructions of virgin and whore, Virgin Mary and Eve, and protector and traitor, respectively. However, contemporary Chicana feminist writers, such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros and Pat Mora, not only revise traditional images of Malinche and Guadalupe, but also offer alternative constructions based, in part, on oral tradition and matriarchal authorities. Their writings question patriarchally-inscribed images of Malinche and Guadalupe that are steeped in colonial ideology and religion and present alternative constructions that depict these figures as ones that resist and struggle rather than ones that are static and oppressed by creating them as powerful emblems of Mother--Malinche as Historical Mother and Guadalupe as Spiritual Mother. For Chicana writers, textuality is connected to materiality and contributes to identity formation for them and other Chicana women. With their reinventions of the archetypes of Malinche and Guadalupe, the Chicana writers presented in this dissertation uncover a cultural matrilineal legacy that may contribute to identity formation for them and other women who live in a contemporary world.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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