The female protagonists in Cambio de armas present images of resistance rather than submission when confronted with the oppression in both the political and personal spheres of their lives’ (J. Saltz). Discuss.
Valenzuela’s writing carries a great preoccupation with the use of
power and the structures of domination as reflected by the focus on the
relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor, those who govern and
those who are governed and the male and the female. Cambio de Armas is a
collection of short stories from which the essay will focus on two: ‘De noche
soy tu Caballo’ and ‘Cambio de Armas’ respectively. In each short story the
female protagonists experience is of central importance and it is always shaped
and determined by either one man or a group of men who represent the applied
power of the established system. The politics in the personal sphere thereby
becomes allegorical for that in the public spheres. Within the context of the
short stories and the politically oppressive regime of the Argentine military
dictatorship in the 80’s and 70’s, men and women are binary opposites on an
unbalanced scale. Women are initially presented as subservient to their male
counterpart but there are instances in which they resist against their
oppression. These short stories mirror
the struggles of domination that surface in the politics of sexuality, politics
of the body, politics of the language and politics of the state.[1]
Politics in this instance means the competition between the different groups of
people or gender groups for power or leadership over one another[Et1] .
Both female protagonists, Laura and Chiquita, are tortured for
information, highlighting the ‘double oppression’ suffered by women in both the
contexts of the story and in society. The harsh violence of the political
regime is amplified when applied to women because they are placed in personal
relationships with the men who are cast as executors of the power invested in
them by the political system whereby ‘females’ come from a marginalised
background in society. Laura is raped by the colonel known as Roque as part of
her experience of torture in ‘Cambio de Armas’. It is a short story about the
symbolic sexual and political oppression of a female urban guerrilla by an army
officer. Rape is used as part of torture because it not only aims to break
Laura but also to humiliate her, further converting her into image of female
submission. Chiquita is imprisoned at the end of her story in ‘De noche soy tu
Caballo’ but yet again the experiences suffered by men and women in the death
camps of Argentina were very much different. The writer of the Psigua diaries
describes men being bent over backwards until they broke but the experience
suffered by women was of a much more sexual nature. The penis was converted
into "un arma privilegiada del poder patriarchal”[1]
whereby women were “invaded, penetrated by the enemy”.[2] Rape
and torture is not just a manifestation of pure physical force, it shows that
men have an advantage over women in the institutional framework of society that
works solely for their own benefit. It perpetuates the continued suppression of
women in both a sexual and political manner because personal relationships were
shaped by what happens in the political sphere.
The sexual relationship between the female protagonists and their
male lovers therefore reflects the relationship between a slave and its master
whereby women continue to assume the submissive role. Roque forces Laura to
watch herself in the mirror when they are having sex, “Abri los ojos, Puta”.[3] He
wants her to acknowledge that he is the one dominating her and she is the one
being dominated. According to the History of Sexuality[4],
sexual relations assumed polarity between those who played an active or passive
role and this type of relationship reflects the social organization of society
in both the private and the public sphere. The active role, in this instance
the role of the male and the state, was valorised over the passive role of the
female and the guerilla because of its capacity to dominate, penetrate and
assert itself. Chiquita is mounted like a “caballo”[5] by
her lover Beto who assumes the position of master in his sexual position above
her. It is a position she accepts, becoming his “slave lover”[6]
and an animal to be used just as Roque wants Laura to see herself as a ‘puta’.
Roque touches her body as if he is drawing her piece by piece, “la propria
obra”[7], first a leg and then the knee. It is not an
erotic action but rather implies his perception of Laura as his ‘sexual object’
as much as his ‘sexual slave’. She has become a series of body parts that are
defined and owned by him because men define women in terms of their own sexual desire[Et1] . At times Chiquita is treated like a flower or as a beautiful
object but she is never treated as a human being. Both the female protagonists
are never seen as worthy of respect because they have been reduced to an
‘object’ and a ‘slave’ to the sexual desires of men.
Men tried to control women in both the private and the public
sphere of the patriarchal society by controlling their language although they
are not entirely capable of eradicating their voice.
More specific to talking about short stories.
Laura has no memory of her
past, Roque is the one that names her ‘Laura’ and by extension he has assumed
control over her. According to the critic Wlad, the act of naming her means
that he has named every single one of her body parts as belonging to himself.[8] In
feminist criticism there exists the thinking that the person who has the power
to name someone or something has ‘absolute power’. He has thereby defined her
and her position as submissive in relation to his own superior position through
the use of language.[9] He is
the one that controls her understanding of language because he is the one that
has taught her its meaning. He not only names her but names and defines the
objects in the apartment that surround her which once more refers to a woman’s
position in a male dominated society. The four walls of the apartment becomes
the four walls of the patriarchal society that are entrapping her. Chiquita is
also excluded from language because she is censored in both her relationship
and in the public sphere. Her lover does not understand her desires for
communication and compassion, he wants to limit their interactions to a sexual
nature. When she tries to talk to him he responds with, “callate, chiquita”[10], demanding her to be obedient to his
commands and she must resign herself to the act of love. Laura is essentially
dominated by the colonel and the public sphere because she is without her own
life, her own memory and her own language. She is left with nothing but the
erotic relationship and the exploitation she experiences with the colonel.
Chiquita also presents a submissive image because she is silenced in her own
home just as her opinions are silenced in the public sphere.
In the politics of the public sphere in most fictional narratives,
social and individual components are generally viewed from the masculine
perspective but within the private sphere of these two short stories, the
perspective of the gender has changed. Those components are treated from a
marginalized, feminine position because the first person narrators are women,
giving a voice to those who do not have a voice. As such the female characters
can be seen as images of resistance rather than being entirely submissive
because they have control over their own female language (if it can be called
as such). They are both able to tell their own story and confront the
structures of domination that oppose them and it is perhaps the most aggressive
form of resistance. The experiences of both Laura and Chiquita have become rare
testimonies from first- person female narrators in regards to the traumatic
experiences they suffered at the hands of men and during the political regime.
Just as women suffered, so too did the Argentine people under the dictatorship
because it had been one of the most brutal periods of violence within the
nation’s history. Thereby their suffering is reflective of the suffering of
those both in the public and the private sphere. Their testimonies detail the
experience of rape, imprisonment and torture, painting a visceral and gory
image of the experiences they have suffered. It is necessary to write about
these experiences so that they can be incorporated into part of the countries
collective memory so that the memory isn’t lost and so that history is not able
to repeat itself again. The female protagonists have used the politics of
language to denounce the oppression they face in both the public and the
private sphere and as such they can be seen as images of resistance much more
than images of submission because they have not been entirely silenced.
In ‘De noche soy tu caballo’ Chiquita uses language[Et2] as a means
to challenge the domination of the state over her position as a woman, further
suggesting that she presents an image of resistance rather than submission. She
becomes in charge of her own story at the end when she makes the decision to
‘re-write’ it to suit her own interests and purposes. She attempts to convince
herself that Betos’ visit had merely been a dream. She has banished the objects
that he left behind from her own mind, “decrete que no existen”.[11] For
her the record of Gal Costa and the bottle does not exist anymore because she
has the power to ‘write’ them away[Et3] . Chiquita
has reconstructed herself through this statement although her authority extends
only to her mind and memory alone. This statement shows that she fabricated new
lies for the police by telling them she does not know his whereabout and she
tells her own new tale instead: “Solo me encuentro con
el en sueños y son muy malos sueños que suelen transformarse en
pesadillas”.[12]
The reader must believe this to be an accurate statement of her mental process
because it is told through her own narrative voice. At the end of the story,
Chiquita can be seen ‘writing with the body’[13], a
term first used by Valenzuela herself. It involves connecting the politics of
the body with the politics of language to create a space in which the struggle
for domination ceased and was used instead to express one’s desires which can
be applicable to both the private and the personal sphere. Valenzuela described ‘writing with the body’: “es un intento de desatar
hasta el más imposible de los nudos con los cuales se estba tejiento a nuestor
alrededor una red de dominación”[14]. By banishing
the bottle and the record from her own mind she is trying to create her own
space that is resistant against the total imposition of the repressive state
and patriarchy.
Saltz argues that the female protagonists in Cambio de Armas
present images of resistance rather than submission because they use a series
of strategies to subvert their marginalized and politically oppressed position
as women. One such strategy was using silence as a passive form of resistance
although it was one doomed to failure from the very beginning. They were able
to use it to their own advantage by not giving the required information to the
state despite the painful torture they faced for not doing so. In ‘De noche soy
tu Caballo’ the narrative gaps between Chiquita’s memory and silence require
the reader to participate in the construction of the repressive political
circumstances. Chiquita’s choice to remain silent comes from the conscious
determination to protect the whereabouts of Beto just as much as due to
uncertainty in regards to his true locations. Laura does not tell Roque the
name of the leader that sent her to assassinate him. Silence here is an example
of how it constitutes a protest or how it can be used as a subversive weapon
against the repressive political system. The female protagonists are refusing
to obey the command to ‘cantar’. The narrative implication in both short
stories suggests silence has been imposed upon the female protagonists but they
are rebelling against it.
The female protagonists rebel against the total domination of the
male figure because they are still capable of making their own decisions and
show some form of free will, albeit in a passive manner. When Beto speaks negatively to Chiquita, “opte por dejarme en la
felicidad”.[15]
She demonstrates
her displeasure at being spoken to in such a manner although she only expresses
it to the readers and not to her lover. She makes the decision to swallow the
words that she wanted to say to him. In contrast to him demanding obedience
from her as previously mentioned, she wants him to need verbal assurance from
her. She is the one that makes the decision to obey his command, he is not the
one that forces his will upon her. Chiquita is not simply Beto’s object or his
slave as previously mentioned but rather she is capable of recognizing his
flaws and she is ultimately the one to make the choice to receive him into her
home and her body.[16] As
Marting says, “though dominated by Beto, she is rebellious against his
domination”[17]
and shows that she still contains a vestige of being an independent woman and
is not a totally submissive figure. Laura’s first real act of resistance
happens when she does not call the colonel by the correct name but rather by a
series of different masculine names, “Juan, Martin, Ricardo, Hugo”.[18] Wlad
claims this is “un ejercicio de la memoria”[19]
because it shows that the colonel has not been able to totally dominate her by
taking away her memory and her free will. It is a sign that she still retains
some memory of her old language which turns her into a symbol of resistance. By
calling the colonel the wrong name it also undermines his place as the state
and the authority figure and in this sense it can also be interpreted as a
criticism of the political regime. It did not matter if Argentina underwent a
change of government under a different name because they always ended up in
violence once more and they could not actually impose social change in the
system, “El de los infinitos nombres”.[20] Both
men have failed in their original goal to completely subdue their female
counterparts because they are still able to resists passively against their
impositions.
Overall, this essay has found Saltz’s initial statement to be
true. The female protagonists in both short stories in Cambio de Armas
present images of resistance rather than images of submission in both the
public and the private sphere. While their marginalized position and political
repression within society means that much of their resistance is passive, they
have been able to resist from their position as women. It is through language
that one can see their challenge to authority most clearly because they have
maintained some form of control over their own voice. Indeed, in Chiquita’s
case she has even been able to ‘re-write’ the ending of her own story albeit in
her own mind and both protagonists have used silence as a method of subversion
rather than allowing it to repress them. It is most significant that they have
been able to write their own story and in this sense their voice has been heard
because they do not want the private or the public sphere to forget about their
experiences. This is not to say that they have managed to successfully overcome
these structures of domination. They continue to be subjected to the use of torture
and in Laura’s case rape. Throughout the short stories their marginalised
position does not change. Much of their language is either censored or
controlled by the patriarchal and politically repressive state as well just as
they are controlled in their own personal relationships by their male lovers.
Bibliography:
Books:
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality: 2:
The Use of Pleasure: The Use of Pleasure v. 2 (London: Penguin,1998).
Franco, Jean, ‘Gender, Death and Resistance; Facing
the Ethical Vacuum.’ Chicago Review, 35.4 (1987) 59-79.
Valenzuela,
Luisa, Cambio de Armas/ Luisa Valenzuela ( Buenos Aires: Grupo
Editorial Norma, 2004).
Thesis:
Wlad M. Kerrie, El sujeto femenino y el lenguaje
en Cambio de Armas de Luisa Valenzuela (Master thesis: The University of
Calgary, 1997).
Journals:
Diaz, Gwendolyn, ‘Politics of the Body in Luisa
Valenzuela's "Cambio de armas" and "Simetrias"’, World
Literature Today, 69.4 (1995), 751-756.
Martinez, Nelly, El
silencio que habla: Aproximación a la obra de Luisa Valenzuela (Buenos
Aires: Corregidor, 1994).
Ostrom, Katherine,
"Eu de noite sou seu cavalo": Luisa Valenzuela's Story of
Interpretation and Inhabitation, Hispania, 99.1 (2016), 148-159.
Web pages:
Diaz, Gwendolyn , ‘Luisa
Valenzuel on writing, power and gender’, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de
Cervantes, http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/luisa-valenzuela-on-power-gender-and-writing-931397/html/17716d2a-7a81-4def-8e23-37009795965b_2.html
[accessed: 6/01/2020]
Valenzuela, Luisa, ‘Escribir con el cuerpo’, Biblioteca Virtual
Miguel de Cervantes
[accessed: 6/01/2010]
[1]
Nelly Martinez, El silencio que habla: Aproximación a la obra de
Luisa Valenzuela (Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 1994), p.170.
[2]
Jean Franco, ‘Gender, Death and Resistance; Facing the Ethical Vacuum.’ Chicago
Review, 35.4 (1987) 59-79 (p.71).
[3]
Luis Valenzuela, ‘Cambio de Armas’ in Cambio de Armas/ Luisa Valenzuela
by Luisa Valenzuela (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2004), p.78.
[4] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality:
2: The Use of Pleasure: The Use of Pleasure v. 2 (London: Penguin,1998),p. 215.
[5] Luisa Valenzuela, ‘De noche soy tu
Caballo’ in Cambio de Armas/ Luisa Valenzuela by Luisa Valenzuela ( Buenos
Aires: Grupo Editorial Norma, 2004), p. 133.
[6]
Marting, ‘Gender and Metaphoricity’, p.702.
[7] Valenzuela, ‘Cambio de Armas’, p. 83.
[8] Kerrie M. Wlad, El sujeto
femenino y el lenguaje en Cambio de Armas de Luisa Valenzuela (Master
thesis: The University of Calgary, 1997) p. 45.
[9] Ibid, p. 45.
[10] Valenzuela, ‘De noche soy tu caballo’, p.
133.
[11] Ibid, p. 135.
[12] Ibid, p. 135.
[13] Gwendolyn Diaz, ‘Luisa Valenzuel on
writing, power and gender’, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes,
[14] Luisa Valenzuela, ‘Escribir con el
cuerpo’, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
[15] Valenzuela, ‘De noche soy tu
caballo’, p. 133.
[17]
Marting, ‘Gender and Metaphoricity’, p.703.
[18] Valenzuela, ‘Cambio de Armas’, p.72.
[19] Wlad, El sujeto femenino, p.58.
[20] Valenzuela, ‘Cambio de Armas’, p. 73.
[1]
Gwendolyn Diaz, ‘Politics of the Body in Luisa Valenzuela's "Cambio de
armas" and "Simetrias"’, World Literature Today, 69.4 (1995),
751-756 (p. 751).
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