The monsters of her mind: reading wise^ in Amanda Labarca Hubertson's "Defenseless." (Third World Women's Inscriptions)

The monsters of her mind: reading wise^ in Amanda Labarca Hubertson's "Defenseless." (Third World Women's Inscriptions) The monsters of our life, are they not reducible perhaps to beautifulprincesses, trapped underneath grimacing masks which call out to us forhelp? ("The Foundation of Virtue" [Serres 282-83]; mytranslation).To speak of postmodernity in relation to societies still striving tobecome modern is, as several critics have indicated (John Beverley andFredric Jameson among them) a risky endeavor. Not only are distortionspossible within attempts to define postmodernism, but the application ofFirst World postmodernist notions to Third World "modernist"contexts may be downright presumptuous pre��sump��tu��ous?adj.Going beyond what is right or proper; excessively forward.[Middle English, from Old French presumptueux, from Late Latin praes and misleading. As ElizabethMeese contends, however, when readers consider texts by women from othercultures, they not only resist the "geographical imperialism ofEnglish studies," they also engage in a subversive praxis (ix).Among the many lessons so-called Third World texts have to offer us isnot merely the question of "reading against the grain," as inthe already familiar and various academic practices of textualdeconstruction, but as Beverley suggests, of "beginning to readagainst literature" itself (142). Without forgetting the dangersinherent to this undertaking, therefore, this essay attempts to uncoversubversive political strategies in the writing of a relatively unknownearly twentieth-century Chilean feminist whose text exhibits a largercritique not only of power but of literature as technique of power.Politics as power (how it is exercised, where it is embedded) remainsthe central issue of literature and literary criticism as aninstitution. This is so not merely in the traditional sense of politicalcontent that is observable in some works (overtly more so in Third Worldtexts), but also as regards the politics of certain constructions ofself and of self-expression that may or may not inhere in��here?intr.v. in��hered, in��her��ing, in��heresTo be inherent or innate.[Latin inhaer within the formalparameters of canonized institutional genres of literature. In thisbroader sense, subjectivity, as Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres and ElizabethMittman suggest, becomes a political issue. One of the questions forfemale authors in a patriarchal society (not necessarily Third World),for example, is that of the authority of the speaking subject. How doesone to whom history has denied not just authority, but also fullemancipation, assume that authority and offer her own experience andjudgment as a guide to the reader? How, indeed, does she find herreaders?Debra A. Castillo in Talking Back: Toward a Latin American FeministLiterary Criticism Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more broadly. Its history has been broad and varied, from classic works of nineteenth-century women authors such as George Eliot and Margaret Fuller to cutting-edge questions the feasibility of arriving at anoverarching theory, not only to respond to some of the questionsoutlined above, but to account, more specifically, for the developmentof Latin American feminism(s). She proposes instead that critics"offer a continually self-questioning theorizing, anchored inspecific texts" (xxii). Thus, in the case of Amanda LabarcaHubertson (Chile 1886-1975), how does her particular political,cultural, and historical location write itself into her text, and whatdoes her textual practice tell us as an interpretation of thatpositionality?Characterized by Chilean historians and biographers as bothprogressive and visionary (Mussa 47), Labarca Hubertson is, after theNobel-prize-winning Gabriela Mistral with whom she shared both culturaland pedagogical ped��a��gog��ic? also ped��a��gog��i��caladj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of pedagogy.2. Characterized by pedantic formality: a haughty, pedagogic manner. concerns, Chile's most readily acknowledged"femme femme?adj.Slang Exhibiting stereotypical or exaggerated feminine traits. Used especially of lesbians and gay men.n.1. Slang One who is femme.2. Informal A woman or girl. savante," and one of the founders of socialist feminism(Pratt 98). Recognized as Chile's outstanding educational reformer,Labarca Hubertson's celebrated career spans an interdisciplinaryspectrum that includes education, creative fiction, literary criticism,intercultural communication, philosophy, psychology and psychoanalysis,linguistics, historiography, and sociology. This extensive professionaland cultural repertoire earned her the epithets, among others, of"integralist" and "scientific humanist" (Paul ch. 6,1-2).(1)The search for an "integral education" at a time when Chilewas coming of age as a nation was a daring adventure for the author, butperhaps no more so than her struggle to obtain legal and social equalityfor women. Postulating with education as well as with feminism theintegration of praxis and theory ("the right to express and toexercise the authentic self in tangible acts which reflect genuineconcerns") Q(?A donde va la mujer? [Where is Woman Going?] 189),(2)Labarca Hubertson has contributed a significant body of work to thefield of women's history and feminist thought.(3) She acknowledges,for example, that the oppression of women and men is both a materialreality, originating in material conditions, and a psychologicalphenomenon, a function of the way women and men perceive themselves andone another. She notes further that the sterile and unsatisfactory"commerce" (comercio) between women and men originates intheir different conditioning: the male imbued with the spirit ofinvestigation, analysis, and criticism, and the woman "barelysketched with a mixture of frilly frill?n.1. A ruffled, gathered, or pleated border or projection, such as a fabric edge used to trim clothing or a curled paper strip for decorating the end of the bone of a piece of meat.2. education and low quality decorativeinstruction" (Actividades femeninas 3). Thus for the Chileaneducator pedagogical and feminist concerns are interrelated in theirurgency to ameliorate the oppression of women in Chile during the earlycapitalist era.In 1928, the year the "essay/story" "Defenseless"("Indefensa") appeared in Atenea, journal of the University ofConcepcion, Chile was in the grip of the military dictatorship ofColonel Carlos Ibanez del Campo. The "Difficult Years"(1925-1931) had culminated not only in the exile of her"anarquist" husband, Guillermo Labarca Hubertson, but in herown dismissal from the University of Chile “Universidad de Chile” redirects here. For the football club, see Club de F��tbol Universidad de Chile.HistoryBackgroundHigher education in Chile in colonial times dates back to 1622, when on 19 August of that year, the first university in Chile, (Santiago), where in 1922 shereceived the title of Professor Extraordinaire ex��tra��or��di��naire?adj.Extraordinary: a jazz singer extraordinaire.[French, from Old French, from Latin extra of Psychology - the firstwoman to be so honored in the Americas. While in exile in Concepcion(Chile) with her husband, political repression and the controversialnature of several of her essays(4) necessitated the authoring of hermanuscripts under such pseudonyms as Juliana Hermil and Cenicienta(Cinderella). "Defenseless," oddly enough, is one of very few"meditations" authored in her own name.(5)At once short story and essay, literature and pedagogy, LabarcaHubertson's recently uncovered "defenselessmeditation"(6) - from its very opening lines - invites ironicspeculation and reflection, particularly when examined in the context ofits directed and/or intended audience - the phallogocentricestablishment of higher learning:I will tell you, sir, the tragic story of a girl with a vividimagination, of a girl whose interior life wandered about that craggy crag��gy?adj. crag��gi��er, crag��gi��est1. Having crags: craggy terrain.2. Rugged and uneven: a craggy face. region which separates adolescence from childhood. What is it you say?Ah, yes! Right. Adolescence is like a landscape seen by the light of themoon. At once placid and deceptive. Its chasms only appear to be strokesof shadow, and probably, we take those shadows for abysses. And have younot noticed, sir, the jungles full of fantastic creatures, frightful andmonstrous, that inhabit that lunar landscape? They are not the same asthose of fairy tales, nor of the legends that aged nannies would mutterin the void of restless nights. These resemble them in name and shapeonly, but they conceal much more complicated features; almost all ofthem are threatening and the soul shrinks with fear before them. (357)Rather than a deliberate subject who speaks from a position ofacademic authority (pedagogical science), Labarca Hubertson positionsherself as storyteller, a fictional narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. who in conversation with apresent but silent interlocutor in��ter��loc��u��tor?n.1. Someone who takes part in a conversation, often formally or officially.2. The performer in a minstrel show who is placed midway between the end men and engages in banter with them. will expose an "interiorlife.""Pues" [Well], the transition marker that follows upon thisbrief pseudo-fictional introductory address, frames an(Other) tale, the"pseudo" fairy tale. It is important to keep in mind, though,that "Defenseless" is delivered as an academic essay -apocryphal a��poc��ry��phal?adj.1. Of questionable authorship or authenticity.2. Erroneous; fictitious: "Wildly apocryphal rumors about starvation in Petrograd . . . to be sure - but of some 18 pages in length, with LabarcaHubertson's signature, the name of the journal (in large bold blacklettering), and the names of the journal's (all-male) editorialboard preceding its title.The "defenseless" female protagonist, identified by theframe narrator as Emilia (apocryphal re-creation of Juliana Hermil?), isa sensitive and shy girl whose early education is undertaken primarilyby the nanny/washerwoman Angela, who instructs her in storytelling.Growing up, Emilia hears so many fairy tales that she is soon unable todistinguish fact from fantasy. Like a juvenile Madame Bovary, Emilia istroubled by recurring fears and nightmares. She aspires to recover afairy-tale prince who will rescue her from the sordid, melancholy andtragic milieu that is her life: a mother she adored, now dead,uncomprehending chauvinistic older brothers, and a tyrannical father.The latter appears to Emilia more as animal than human: "She wouldflee from him at the slightest approach . . . even to smell herfather's breath would set her nerves on edge" (365). JuanAntonio has reconciled himself to his wife's death much tooquickly, and when he takes to soliciting the aid of Cordelia, the familycook, as secretary and business confidante con��fi��dante?n.1. A woman to whom secrets or private matters are disclosed.2. A woman character in a drama or fiction, such as a trusted friend or servant, who serves as a device for revealing the inner thoughts or intentions , Emilia turns hysterical.Advised by the family physician that she is "anemic," JuanAntonio orders Cordelia to accompany his daughter on a seaside vacation.The story concludes with Emilia swimming away from land. In a sweep ofliberating ecstasy, she surrenders to the waves. Her body, "tinyand pretty like that of a sea shell" (372) is discovered days laterby some fishermen in an inlet cove. Her death, ironically, reenacts thefairy tale of the fishermen who rescue the princess in a candlestick CandlestickA price chart that displays the high, low, open, and close for a security each day over a specified period of time. astold to her by her nanny (360).The "monsters" with which Emilia "cohabitsdefenselessly" (357) in Concepcion are the product of socialconditioning. As the narrator tells us, Emilia would have forgotten thefairy tales she learned as a child, "if only her experience of reallife had been more varied" (360). As it is, Emilia, under theprimary guardianship of a submissive mother and a storytellingnursemaid, falls prey to "lack of will" and "foolishfear" (362, 364). She envies Clorinda, the family cook and herfather's shopkeeper, her unwavering strength and practical outlook,"solidly entrenched on the firm ground of reality" (365).While fairy tales appear to do Emilia in, as the conclusion of the storyironically implies, they also carry an "alleviating power"(367), a refuge from the banal and vulgar reality in which Emilia isforced to live "against all will" (369).Emilia's birth in a "large dismantled house" (357)points not only to a project of house building - one of LabarcaHubertson's favorite hobbies - but of self-construction as well.All clear distinctions between fiction and nonfiction in"Defenseless" evaporate on the level of narrative voice. Thus,it is difficult precisely to locate the space between the voice ofLabarca and that of her narrator. This is due primarily to the spacearound the signature, perhaps the single-most important convention thatgoverns the essay, a genre usually lacking the guideposts Guideposts is a Christian-faith based non-profit organization founded in 1945 by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale. The Guideposts organization is headquartered in Carmel, New York, with additional offices in New York City, Chesterton, Indiana, and Pawling, of otherliterary conventions such as plot. As Elizabeth Mittman writes:"when we read an essay, the author's signature above the textis the ground of authority; the name gives us everything we need to knowin order to read the text as an essay" (96). Thus, LabarcaHubertson's signature that precedes the title of this essay is likea seam that both separates and connects the author, as the"real" person who exists outside of the text, and thedisembodied authorial voice within the text. Ambivalently, LabarcaHubertson uses both the signature of the essay, the mark of nonfiction,to mask the constructedness of her narrative voice, and the fictionalconvention of the frame story to mask her authorial voice. Such anhermetic seal marks much of her work.In such an atopic atopic/atop��ic/ (a-top��ik) (ah-top��ik)1. ectopic.2. pertaining to atopy; allergic.atopic1. displaced; ectopic.2. pertaining to atopy. genre - or more precisely, an eccentric one,insofar in��so��far?adv.To such an extent.Adv. 1. insofar - to the degree or extent that; "insofar as it can be ascertained, the horse lung is comparable to that of man"; "so far as it is reasonably practical he should practice as it flirts with fiction, autobiography, ewsay, andpsychological case study without ever letting itself be pinned down -the multiplicity of contradictory principles governing the organizationof Labarca Hubertson's "defenseless" academic textaddress themselves most readily to the "impermanent im��per��ma��nent?adj.Not lasting or durable; not permanent.im��perma��nence, im��per positionalities" and "complication of possibilities"referred to by Castillo in her analysis of Latin American feministwriting. At first glance, "Defenseless" is writing engenderedby chronic feelings of nostalgia, lost innocence, and crisis, writing inwhich life-problems are raised for both private and publicreexamination re��ex��am��inealso re-ex��am��ine ?tr.v. re��ex��am��ined, re��ex��am��in��ing, re��ex��am��ines1. To examine again or anew; review.2. Law To question (a witness) again after cross-examination. . Feminist historians have long questioned the traditionalseparation of society into the "private" and"public" spheres, drawing attention to the ideologicalfunction of this separation in mystifying mys��ti��fy?tr.v. mys��ti��fied, mys��ti��fy��ing, mys��ti��fies1. To confuse or puzzle mentally. See Synonyms at puzzle.2. To make obscure or mysterious. women's position andwork. Feminist analyses have also already demonstrated theinterdependence of these spheres, with experience in each realmaffecting that in the other.(7)In the case of Labarca Hubertson, too, seemingly private arrangementsshaped and affected her life in the public realm. Like the protagonistof her story, for example, Labarca Hubertson's mother, whom sherevered, died young and was the victim of abuse by her husband("Defenseless" 367). Her father and brothers, like thecharacters of the fairy tale, were tyrannical, and considered the femalemembers of the family subservient to male authority. The readings thatJuan Antonio requires of Emilia recall the daily readings of the Biblethat Labarca Hubertson's father kept in the home and used for dailyprayer and discussion (unusual for a Catholic family at that time).Other autobiographical references, including the implication of strongsibling rivalry sibling rivalryPsychology The intense, emotional competition among siblings–brothers and/or sisters that pits one against the other to obtain parental affection, approval, attention, and love. See Cain complex. Cf Oy child, Sibling relational problem. and the character's feeling of inferiority in theface of both parental authority and peer pressure, exemplify theincursion in��cur��sion?n.1. An aggressive entrance into foreign territory; a raid or invasion.2. The act of entering another's territory or domain.3. of personal life experience into the fictional recreation of"Defenseless." In light of these numerous incursions, it isrelatively easy to assign a cathartic cathartic(kəthär`tĭk): see laxative. and therapeutic function to the(pseudo)fiction. More importantly, the gendered structure of therelationship between self-fabrication and self-realization and betweenprivate and public life in this text recalls Julia Kristeva'sframework of the semiotic semiotic/se��mi��ot��ic/ (se?me-ot��ik)1. pertaining to signs or symptoms.2. pathognomonic. retreat. Like Kristeva's "symbolicorphan" desiring/needing to gather strength to counteract theoppressive nature of material, patriarchal reality (the symbolic publicsphere), "Defenseless" harks back to a lost or brokentradition of evolving womanhood (the semiotic private sphere) with whichLabarca desires connection. Aside from the oedipal oed��i��palor Oed��i��paladj.Of or characteristic of the Oedipus complex. entanglementssuggested by its "Cinderella" story structure,(8) LabarcaHubertson's fairy tale to end all fairy tales suggests impiousparody and a struggle between "dispersion and continuity" thatthe author sustained throughout her life: "It is my tragedy: astruggle without victory between my intimate self and what reason(intelligence) may incompletely obtain" (Desvelos en el alba 129).The creative dimension of this eruption of the "ideology of theprivate" into her public life notwithstanding, LabarcaHubertson's text must overtly be read as a story about reading, andabout women readers in particular. More significantly,"Defenseless" reflects the manner in which a personalself-concept is created in stories told to women and in stories womentell about themselves. The seductive, tangled plot of this"fictional essay" points also to the primary use value of thedouble-voiced text as a recontextualization of reading and writingpractices as political strategies. Thus, Labarca Hubertson in"Defenseless" goes beyond the critique of discourse to that ofcultural practice.Tacitly denounced in Labarca Hubertson's text are theconventional storylines delivered to "defenseless" women,surrounded, seduced, and betrayed by devious traces of male texts whose"ending is always the same. The prince discovers the princess, theyfall in love, they marry and live very happily" (360). The readingsaloud of "Every Man a King" that Juan Antonio requires ofEmilia every Sunday evening are accomplished with dread and terror. Thisinitial dramatized scene of reading, where an element of forbiddenpassion, even eroticism EroticismAphroditenovel of Alexandrian manners by Pierre Louys. [Fr. Lit.: Benét, 783]Ars AmatoriaOvid’s treatise on lovemaking. [Rom. Lit. is introduced, is associated with maleauthority, the wicked incestuous in��ces��tu��ousadj.1. Of, involving, or suggestive of incest.2. Having committed incest. father. The illicit aura that pervadesEmilia's reading into being - vital attraction for the forbiddencurbed by the fear of authoritarian repression - prompts the reader torank her love (of reading/literature) with other interdictions imposedby or attributed to parental, and by extension social, intolerance.Books in this primal scene primal scenen.In psychoanalysis, the actual or imagined observation by a child of sexual intercourse, particularly between the parents.primal sceneof reading take on gender-affiliated nuances:on the one hand, there are the serious cultural objects, such as theBible or account books (368) revered by male figures; on the other, thefrivolous fairy tales that fuel the erotic imagination of mothers,cooks, nannies and school girls. Reading (and/or schooling) beliessocially constructed gender conventions dictated by "paternalprinciples": "She would gaze at herself in the mirror anddiscovered she was ugly. And she would sigh because she lacked theloveliness displayed in the colored drawings they taught her to considerbeautiful at school" (360-61). Unlike the fairy tale world,however, the prince in Labarca Hubertson's story does not arrive torescue defenseless Emilia from the "wicked father.""Wasn't it at this very moment when the hero of all her novelswould appear? In hers, however, she could not make anyone out"(370). In opposition to the conventional storybook ending, LabarcaHubertson's frame story concludes with the death of theprotagonist, a death reinscribed in the reading of devious texts.If, as Jonathan Culler has noted, feminist criticism engages theproblem of women as the consumers of male-produced literature (48), thenLabarca Hubertson's account of Emilia's predicament as reader- seduced and betrayed by phallogocentric readings - is an attempt tochange reading, or, as Judith Fetterley implies, to change culturalperceptions instigated by and through male-staged acts of reading:"Feminist criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply tointerpret the world but to change it by changing the consciousness ofthose who read and their relation to what they read" (viii). Thestruggle between resistance and assent, however, is problematic withrespect to Labarca Hubertson, particularly in light of the personal,political, and historical context in which she was writing (andreading).As Lucia Guerra Cunningham has noted in her study of Chilean womenwriters who published in the early twentieth century: "in theirliterary creation [women] limit themselves to testifying to woman'spredicament without opposing categories of dominant liberal ideology.The literary work, far from constituting a positive instrument in theprocess of liberation, rather resembles the buried protest of she whoaccepts a subordinate and passive situation and nonetheless recognizesthat bourgeois order nullifies every vital and authentic impulse ofwoman's existence" (39, my translation). Thus, as a womanreader, Labarca Hubertson can only insert herself in a masculine lineageof texts and a masculine system of representation, the only oneavailable to her, all the while wishing for another. The gender-relatedcultural predicament in Labarca Hubertson's subversive fairy tale(liberation or submersion submersionthe act of placing, or the condition of being under, the surface of a liquid. ?) is reflected in the covert"immasculation" of the author's voice: her disguised(re)construction, for example, as male narrator, male"central" protagonist and/or male interlocutor in severalfictional writings, including "Defenseless." Male presencesinform Labarca Hubertson's system of self-defining voices. Thedependent nature of Labarca Hubertson's reading is evidenced in thefact that the reading to which she turned in search of self-expressionwas taken mainly from a male-authored canon. To this perceiveddependency as a woman, one could add, as well, her excessive dependency,as a Latin American, on European and North American North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. male models.(9)In speaking often, if not with a man's voice, through men'svoices, however, Labarca Hubertson creates a different self-likeness,consciously manipulating a style sanctioned by tradition, the path ofleast resistance Noun 1. path of least resistance - the easiest way; "In marrying him she simply took the path of least resistance"line of least resistancefashion - characteristic or habitual practice , while at the same time undermining its pathologicalassumptions. For example, as she assumes the role of psychoanalystputting together a case history of a hysterical patient, she alsore-tells the "untellable" tale of madwomen disappearing,ignored by polite society, foregrounding the very conditions of theirdisappearance in the text, and uncovering, as Castillo writes, "thenature of the instinctual in��stinc��tu��al?adj.Of, relating to, or derived from instinct. See Synonyms at instinctive.in��stinctu��al��ly adv. economy of bodies as an archetypal ar��che��type?n.1. An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype: "'Frankenstein' . . . 'Dracula' . . . 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' . . . loss in amasculinist society" (117). It is true that, in her efforts tocarve out to make or get by cutting, or as if by cutting; to cut out.- Shak.See also: Carve a valid space for her writing between the twin demands ofprofessional and emotional life, and to create a context in which her"feminine" text could and would be read by the phallogocentrichierarchy, Labarca Hubertson falls back into the association ofwomen's writing with a specific thematic content - love, madness,death - themes considered emblematic of women's writing by dominantdiscourse. Also suggested in Labarca Hubertson's"Defenseless" are mitigated anti-female feelings (theantagonistic relationship between Cordelia, the family cook and herfather's secretary, and Emilia, for example) that connect withDorothy Dinnerstein's analysis of the effects on women of humannurturing arrangements and Culler's account/interpretation of thewoman reader's predicament (53). If, in its double-bind ofsubversion and condescension con��de��scen��sion?n.1. The act of condescending or an instance of it.2. Patronizingly superior behavior or attitude.[Late Latin cond , "Defenseless" can also be readas a plot of "escape from women," then this veiled subversivetext must seek to establish foundations for the why and how of womenreaders reading, whether reading as a man or as a woman, and to uncovera woman's reading that might parallel a manner of readingother(W)ise. The result of all this subversion would ultimately be adifferent way of reading, and a different way of reading herself intobeing.The disquieting dis��qui��et?tr.v. dis��qui��et��ed, dis��qui��et��ing, dis��qui��etsTo deprive of peace or rest; trouble.n.Absence of peace or rest; anxiety.adj. ArchaicUneasy; restless. dialogic between resistance and collaboration in hertext is also a reflection of Labarca Hubertson's utopianambivalence as moving between co-optation by a given system (i. e.liberal, positive, Enlightenment ideologies) and explosion beyond it.Who speaks, then, in this story? What is his/her language? Where is theplace in this story that licenses speech? The easiest answer is thatthere is no one voice and no clearly localizable place, that"Defenseless" is multiply voiced and ambiguously located. Amore complicated answer would uncover another hidden layer of writing onthe scratched surface of the palimpsest palimpsest(păl`ĭmpsĕst'): see manuscript. , the unrecognized other half ofthe backdrop against which the transient Emilia shuffles, and suffers,and dies. As Labarca Hubertson writes in her journal: "I writebecause of subjective need. I know that what I am jabbering lackstranscendence: the noise of leaves blowing in the wind. But I need to doit. I also understand that it is one thing to write for oneself and avery different thing to keep up the vanity of writing for the sake ofliterary prestige and the honor of humanity" (Desvelos en el alba126). Her comments here suggest other uses of reading: one that capturesthe autobiographical gesture as it concentrates on a consciouslyconstructed self.What readers capture in "Indefensa" are circumstances ofalienated communication, because the text is indeed the locus of LabarcaHubertson's dialogue with a tradition she tacitly aims to subvert.The disguised hermeticism Hermeticismor Hermetism Italian ErmetismoModernist poetic movement originating in Italy in the early 20th century. Works produced within the movement are characterized by unorthodox structure, illogical sequences, and highly subjective language. between Labarca Hubertson and her implicitaudience uncovers the odd contradiction of a writer whose ideal readerscannot read her work, the writer who must instead cast her text into thehands of those inhabitants of the center who do indulge in the luxury ofbook reading. Where do they speak? This question and its possible answerare directly political, because they make an issue of the social - inother words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , primarily repressive - function of learned culture. The"enemy reader," addressed solicitously so��lic��i��tous?adj.1. a. Anxious or concerned: a solicitous parent.b. Expressing care or concern: made solicitous inquiries about our family. by Labarca Hubertson as"senor" [sir], is ultimately responsible for the shaping ofher narrative, the censor who reads all letters and manuscripts beforeallowing their release, and "separating out the voices, bringinglaw and order, soliciting confessions" (Castillo 82). LabarcaHubertson seeks through reading, therefore, a means of achievingintellectual independence from the usual cultural mediators: fathers,priests, and academics who remain faithful to old ideas and traditionalvalues. Free of such hindering intermediaries, the good (woman) reader,self-taught, would come into contact with cultural goods she could claimfor her own. Thus Labarca Hubertson sees herself as autodidact au��to��di��dact?n.A self-taught person.[From Greek autodidaktos, self-taught : auto-, auto- + didaktos, taught; see didactic. , ashaving to teach herself new ways of reading and relating to the canon,to which, because of her gender, she had limited access.While "Indefensa" underscores hidden complexities tooentangled to recover entirely, its production may be most valuable forits manner of representation, "its attempt to install strangeness(femininity) within reading itself" (Jacobus 75)."Defenseless" is not merely an anecdote being told to us, thereaders. It is a text within a text, an appendix "spoken" by afictional narrator within an essay written by Labarca Hubertson.Discourse within discourse. In essence, Labarca has her narrator recounta story. That is, the appendix is a story that is set in opposition tothe report, to academic (scientific) discourse. In this text, as well,it is the "senor" who listens and acknowledges thespeaker's presence. The double lines of the initial act ofstorytelling - two individuals, two cultures, two traditions, andimplicitly two languages - imply an ambiguous textual space, whereintruth is no longer something to be found under an illusory appearance,in the depths of profound (male) reasoning, but something that isconstructed in correspondence with others. The writers' andreaders' commitment, then, becomes linked to something likeconversation rather than domination, to the production of an evolvingseries of transformations rather than to the discovery of a hidden jewelof knowledge.A form of art or a form of knowledge? Torn between belletristic bel��let��rist?n.A writer of belles-lettres.bel��letrism n.bel ancestry (fairy tale myths) and scientific legitimacy (critique ofideologies), Labarca Hubertson's defenseless "essay," asalmost literature and almost science, reflects a feminist crisis ofcultural authority, a skewed path to knowledge of self and the world. Inits refusal to separate self from method, the living subject from theexperienced object, Labarca Hubertson's "Meditation"outlines an unmethodical method of inquiry, grounded in the somatic somatic/so��mat��ic/ (so-mat��ik)1. pertaining to or characteristic of the soma or body.2. pertaining to the body wall in contrast to the viscera.so��mat��icadj. selfand critical of instrumental reason. Consequently, LabarcaHubertson's "essay" observes what Theodor Adorno definesas a "pleasure principle" that mocks the stern "realityprinciple" of official thought (168-69). By combining thedisciplinary functions of literary criticism with the broader one ofideology-critique, Labarca Hubertson also engages in what some mightcall "creative criticism." The term connotes a tentative,groping method of inquiry, with all its attendant risks and pleasures,revealing in the quest for knowledge "the pleasure of the chase,not its goal" (Kauffman 224).(10) Labarca Hubertson works with oneeye on the subject of study (the material and psychological oppressionof women) while the other nervously reviews the methods by which she isauthorized to know or interpret. While recognizing the attendant risksin applying the term, Labarca Hubertson can be seen, thereby, as anearly "deconstructionist," which is to say, a theorist whochallenges the conventional distinction between literary and criticaldiscourse and cultural practice. Caught between "myths oftotality" and "ideologies of fracture," LabarcaHubertson's narrative circumscribes a postmodern condition asreflected in the critique of binarism, the collapse of the masternarratives of the West - the "breakdown of the paternalmetaphor" and the decentering of the subject (Creed 402).Labarca Hubertson's appeal to the experience of the reader in"Defenseless" through what Josefina Ludmer calls "tretasdel debil" [ruses of the weak] that allow her to assert knowledgewhile appearing to remain subordinate engages also with what SylviaMolloy, in speaking of Latin American autobiography, has called "arhetoric of self-figuration" (5), a project of autognosis orsell-knowledge located at the very center of the author's life andopus. "To be or not to be. To have a will or to reject it,"writes Labarca Hubertson in 1934. "That is the dilemma. The tragedyoccurs when law, custom, tradition, family and even the love ofone's own rise up against the indecisive in��de��ci��sive?adj.1. Prone to or characterized by indecision; irresolute: an indecisive manager.2. Inconclusive: an indecisive contest; an indecisive battle. , uneducated, defenseless,and weak feminine will" (?A donde va la mujer? 12). Again she notesin the same text: "We women need to delve into ourselves"(189). One year prior to "Indefensa," Labarca writes:"Interior education is what we need most. To be able to disciplineourselves voluntarily" ("Orientacion vital" 406). As shecalls for the exorcising of women's imaginary ghosts, she alsoproclaims the need for "one's own artistic expression," anew language "forgetting the models that men have created.Feelings, ideals, feminine aspirations, will be expressed in the words,in the colors, in the strains of a new technique and spirit . . ."(Actividades femeninas 19).As Alice Jardine has written, however, creating a new languagethrough spaces already predefined by patriarchal constructs is a projectfilled with both hope and trepidation: "for these spaces havehitherto remained unknown, terrifying, monstrous: they are mad,unconscious, improper, unclean, nonsensical, oriental, profane." Ifwomen are to question those spaces, they must "move away from allthat has defined them, held them in place: Man, the Subject, History,Meaning. [They] must offer [themselves] over to them, embrace them. Butthis is also a dangerous and frightening task" (73).In the guise of a self-destructing heroine, therefore, LabarcaHubertson works at generating a new language, "el poemapropio," her own poem ("Una mujer enjuicia al tiempo"17). Though a female subculture of princesses is circumscribed andinscribed by the "monstrous" patriarchal system it serves,that system is itself circumscribed and subverted in"Indefensa" by the narrative's storyteller and by thewider narrative framework of the tale itself, which resonates withunforeseen possibility. Providing a framework that exists in complex,subversive relation to the social system that it addresses, LabarcaHubertson's autobiographical fairy tale reminds us that historyitself is "tell tale" narrative and suggests that a feministperspective enables us to read both in a way that allows silences tospeak. Emilia, negated, has negated the negation and affirms herself asthat dangerous essence rejected, marginalized, denied, but neverthelessundeniably present to the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. . As resisting reader LabarcaHubertson teaches us to read other(W)ise, rejecting models of feministcaricature and male fantasies of wholeness, and instead blending ahealthy respect for the master's voice with an unwillingness to beseduced by the maestros and their masterworks.In this minor but richly complex text, the ideal of "subjectiveauthenticity" is most transparently that, an ideal; if we lookclosely enough, the fault lines in the envisioned co-mingling ofauthor/narrator/character become visible. In their interconnectedness weconfront the complexity of the female subject, not simply a texturewoven of various selves, but a fabric whose threads and life-lines comefrom and extend to others. Thus, in her attempt to create a "newlanguage" and her "own poem," Labarca Hubertson calls forinterconnectedness, not only among genres but among individuals as well.We are reminded here of Meese's theoretical refiguration concerningwomen's "testimonial" voice as defining a relationshipbetween the consolidation of individual or personal identity and"the politics of inclusion which threatens the notion of singularidentity but appears to be politically necessary for a sociallyeffective and responsible feminism" (ix).Finally, while not a testimonio in the normative sense, LabarcaHubertson's "minor" text may still witness to what JohnBeverley calls "the experience of an imperialist modernity in LatinAmerica" (10), an experience involving alienation betweentraditional elite intellectuals and a growing proletariat and urbanpopular class.(11) What Labarca deconstructs, therefore, is perhaps the"dissociation of sensibility" imposed on these traditionalelites by a sudden and chaotic experience of modernity, an ideologyinvolving the opposition of the aesthetic (literature and thehumanities) to scientific and pedagogic ped��a��gog��ic? also ped��a��gog��i��caladj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of pedagogy.2. Characterized by pedantic formality: a haughty, pedagogic manner. discourses (positivism positivism(pŏ`zĭtĭvĭzəm), philosophical doctrine that denies any validity to speculation or metaphysics. Sometimes associated with empiricism, positivism maintains that metaphysical questions are unanswerable and that the only ,naturalism, utilitarianism utilitarianism(y'tĭlĭtr`ēənĭzəm, y , behaviorism behaviorism,school of psychology which seeks to explain animal and human behavior entirely in terms of observable and measurable responses to environmental stimuli. Behaviorism was introduced (1913) by the American psychologist John B. , etc.). Labarca'spostmodernist stance is to produce an "essay" alreadyestablished as a literary genre to address a reading public constitutedin large part by university-educated people, without succumbing to anideology of the literary generated and maintained by the university, or,what amounts to the same thing, without abandoning her identity as amember of her marginalized community (feminist storyteller). We cannotdo justice to this sociopolitical so��ci��o��po��li��ti��cal?adj.Involving both social and political factors.sociopoliticalAdjectiveof or involving political and social factors reading here. Nevertheless, in herstruggle to develop a critical voice within this patriarchal, modernist,and elitist context, Labarca Hubertson's self-reflexive narrativepresents the reader with a profound cultural critique. Hopefully herwork will continue to receive the critical attention it deserves.NOTES1 Her educational trilogy, La evolucion de la segunda ensenanza [TheEvolution of Secondary Education (1938)], Historia de la ensenanza enChile [The History of Education in Chile This article or section is written like a personal reflection or and may require .Please [ improve this article] by rewriting this article or section in an . (1939)], and Bases para unapolitica Politica is the undergraduate journal of the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Politica solicits original student essays on topics broadly political. educacional [Foundations for Educational Policy (1943)], isimbued with the American pragmatism of William James and John Dewey,which she diligently absorbed at Columbia University (1911-1913) andlater introduced into Chile. As practitioner of an "integralpedagogy," Labarca Hubertson viewed education as continualreconstruction and adjustment to a changing process of societaldevelopment. Catherine Manny Manny may refer to:In nobility: Baron Manny, a title in the Peerage of England Walter de Manny, 1st Baron Manny (died 1372), soldier of fortune and founder of the Charterhouse People with the given name Manny: Manny (given name) Paul describes her educational writings asbearing witness to the author's "faith ininductive-logical-scientific methodology in contrast to the deductive de��duc��tive?adj.1. Of or based on deduction.2. Involving or using deduction in reasoning.de��duc methodology of abstract metaphysics" (ch. 6, 2). At the same time,Paul also notes that Labarca warns against "the exclusiveimportance assigned to the cultivation of reason" (ch. 4, 25).2 All translations of works by Labarca Hubertson, unless otherwiseindicated, are my own.3 Her more acclaimed feminist writings include such"public" texts as Actividades Femeninas en los Estados Unidos[Feminine Activities in the United States (1914)], ?A donde va la mujer?[Where is Woman Going? (1934)], La mujer en la vida economica [Woman inEconomic Life (1938)], Feminismo contemporaneo [Contemporary Feminism(1947)], and "Evolucion femenina" [Feminine Evolution] (inDesarrollo de Chile [1953]). In addition to her pedagogical and feministwritings, Labarca Hubertson was also a literary critic and the author ofseveral fictional and "private" writings that have receivedscant if any critical attention to date.4 Essays such as "Paisaje y educacion" [Landscape andeducation], "Ejemplos-Habitos" [Examples-Customs], and"Sud-Americanos en Paris" [South Americans in Paris] areveiled references to the political and social repression of the CarlosIbanez government. In "Paisaje y educacion" she notes that theChilean landscape incites heroic projects which have yet to be realized:"I sense that this [Chilean] landscape is made for giants and notfor the little dwarfs that inhabit it today" (63).5 At the writing of "Defenseless" in 1928, Labarca wasalready the author of two fictional texts, En tierras extranas [InForeign Lands (1915)], and La lampara maravillosa [The Marvelous Lantern(1921)], a novelette nov��el��ette?n.A short novel.noveletteNouna short novel, usually one regarded as trivial or sentimentalNoun 1. with incorporated fictional vignettes. The latterbears a frame-narrative structure similar to that of"Defenseless," with the narrator addressing his/her tale to aninternal interlocutor who does not speak, but who occasionallyacknowledges the speaker's presence."Indefensa" may indeed have formed part of the"Cuentos a mi senor" [Stories to my sire] stories, acollection incorporated in her book, The Marvelous Lantern. The factthat the story was never included in this collection leads to furtherspeculation. Other stories including "La historia que no haocurrido" [The story that didn't happen], and the short novelitself incorporate the "princess" motif."Defenseless" women populate several of Labarca'sfictional texts. Elena Aguila speculates as follows on these womencharacters: "To die, to disappear, in the face of the impossibleaccomplishment of a life coherent with aspirations. Useless, impossiblecontradictory dreams with respect to the very same reality that incitesthem (the reality of patriarchal culture). Dreams that destroy the lifeof the women of these stories, as they place all possibility ofself-realization and vitality outside of themselves" (25).6 A wide range of essays published in Atenea between 1925 and 1931were published as "Meditaciones" [Meditations] on literary,cultural, social, or occasionally sociopolitical issues. LabarcaHubertson was a frequent author of "meditations."7 Ofelia Schutte has noted recently that feminism constitutes itselftheoretically "as the ideology of the private in contradistinction con��tra��dis��tinc��tion?n.Distinction by contrasting or opposing qualities.contra��dis��tinc to masculinism, which represents the ideology governing public discourseand the public sphere" (232). Dale Bauer and Susan Jaret McKinstryacknowledge that both private and public discourses are means ofcultural resistance and intervention (3).8 While "Indefensa" is not resolved according to thetraditional "happy ending" of the well-known fairy tale,numerous (broken) linkages can be drawn to the classic tale. BrunoBettelheim has analyzed the Cinderella story and its variations indepth. He concludes that the story aims at the resolution of repressedoedipal involvements, including the overcoming of sibling rivalry andthe dealing with feelings of dejection dejection/de��jec��tion/ (de-jek��shun) a mental state marked by sadness; the lowered mood characteristic of depression. de��jec��tionn.1. Lowness of spirits; depression; melancholy. and worthlessness. Bettelheimalso finds resolution in the "Cinderella" tale for the"degraded mother goddess who at the end of the story is reborn outof the ashes like the mythical bird phoenix" (255).9 Aside from her acknowledged influence by the works and thought ofJohn Dewey and William James, Labarca Hubertson was fond of such Britishand American authors as H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, and John StuartMill.10 Indeed, the fictional essay/story ends as it began, abruptly andwithout closure.11 The narrator of "Defenseless" describes Emilia'sfamily as proletarian shopkeepers: "Mother and father worked frommorning 'til night" (349). They owned a warehouse where theysold "fruits of the country," wood, coal, and harvested goods.The initial description of her class origins and social positioning,including a detailed description of the "casona desmantelada"[large dismantled farm house], serve to situate sit��u��ate?tr.v. sit��u��at��ed, sit��u��at��ing, sit��u��ates1. To place in a certain spot or position; locate.2. To place under particular circumstances or in a given condition.adj. the essay within a"social anthropology" favored by Labarca Hubertson.WORKS CITEDAdorno, Theodor W. "The Essay as Form." New German Critique32 (Spring 1984):151-71.Aguila, Elena. "Amanda Pinto S./Amanda Labarca H.(1886-1975)." Historia literaria de las mujeres en Chile:narradoras chilenas (1900-1930). Chile: World University Service.Unpublished manuscript. 19-25.Bauer, Dale, and Susan Jaret McKinstry, eds. Feminism, Bakhtin, andthe Dialogic. Albany: SU of New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of P, 1991.Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning andImportance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage, 1977.Beverley, John. "'Through All Things Modern': SecondThoughts on Testimonio." Critical Theory, Cultural Politics, andLatin American Narrative. Ed. Steven M. Bell, Albert H. LeMay, andLeonard Orr. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1993. 125-51.Castillo, Debra A. Talking Back: Toward a Latin American FeministLiterary Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1992.Creed, Barbara. "From Here to Modernity: Feminism andPostmodernism." A Postmodern Reader. Ed. Joseph Natoli and LindaHutcheon. Albany: SU of New York P, 1993. 398-418.Culler, Jonathan. "Reading as a Woman." On Deconstruction:Theory and Criticism after Structuralism structuralism,theory that uses culturally interconnected signs to reconstruct systems of relationships rather than studying isolated, material things in themselves. This method found wide use from the early 20th cent. . Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982.43-64.Dinnerstein, Dorothy. The Mermaid and the Minotaur: SexualArrangements and Human Malaise, New York: Harper, 1976.Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach toAmerican Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1978.Guerra-Cunningham, Lucia. "Algunas reflexiones teoricas sobre lanovela femenina." Hispamerica 10.28 (1984): 29-30.Jacobus, Mary. Reading Woman: Essays in Feminist Criticism, New York:Columbia UP, 1986.Jardine, Alice. Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity.Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985.Kauffman, R. Lane. "The Skewed Path: Essaying as UnmethodicalMethod." Essays on the Essay: Redefining the Genre. Ed. AlexanderJ. Butrym. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989. 221-40.Kristeva, Julia. "Revolution in Poetic Language." 1974. Moi89-136.-----. "Women's Time." 1979. Moi 187-213.Labarca Hubertson, Amanda. ?A donde va la mujer? Santiago: Impresa im��pre��sa?n.An emblem or device with a motto.[Italian, undertaking, impresa; see impresario.] Letras, 1934.-----. Actividades femeninas en los Estados Unidos. Santiago:Imprenta Universitaria, 1914.-----. Desvelos en el alba. Santiago: Editorial Cruz del Sur, 1945.-----. "Indefensa." Atenea (Universidad de Concepcion) 5.5(July 1928): 357-72.-----. "Orientacion vital." Atenea (Universidad deConcepcion) 5.24 (Aug. 1933): 400-07.-----. Una mujer enjuicia al tiempo (Discurso de Incorporacion a laAcademia de Ciencias Sociales, Politicas y Morales). Santiago: EditorialAndres Bello, 1970. 5-17.Ludmer, Josefina. "Tretas del debil." La sarten por elmango. Ed. Patricia Elena Gonzalez and Eliana Ortega. Rio Piedras:Huracan, 1985.Meese, Elizabeth A. (Ex)Tensions: Refiguring Feminist Criticism.Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1990.Mittman, Elizabeth. "Christa Wolf's Signature in and on theEssay: Woman, Science, and Authority." The Politics of the Essay:Feminist Perspectives. Ed. Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres and ElizabethMittman. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1993, 95-112.Moi, Toril, ed. The Kristeva Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.Molloy, Sylvia. At Face Value: Autobiographical Writing in SpanishAmerica. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.Mussa, Moises. "Amanda Labarca H. (La Mujer, La Educadora, LaPedagoga)." Occidente (Mar.-May, 1956): 45-49.Paul, Catherine Manny. Amanda Labarca H.: Educator to the Women inChile (The Work and Writings of Amanda Labarca H. in the Field ofEducation in Chile). Cuernavaca, Mexico: Centro Intercultural deDocumentacion, 1968.Pratt, Mary Louise. "Criticism in the Contact Zone: DecenteringCommunity and Nation." Critical Theory, Cultural Politics, andLatin American Narrative. Ed. Steven M. Bell, Albert H. LeMay, andLeonard Orr. Notre Dame: Notre Dame UP, 1993. 83-102.Schutte, Ofelia. Cultural Identity and Social Liberation in LatinAmerican Thought. Albany: SU of New York P, 1993.Serres, Michel. Eclaircissements. Paris: Editions Francois Bourin,1990.Boschetto-Sandoval is associate professor of Spanish at MichiganTechnological University Michigan Technological University (abbr. Michigan Tech or MTU) is an American public university with a range of degree offerings. Michigan Tech's main campus is in Houghton, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. . She has published essays on Hispanicliterature in a number of anthologies and journals, includingInterpreting the Spanish American Essay: Studies of 19th and 20thCentury Women's Essays (Texas 1995). She is co-editor (with MarciaP. McGowan) of Claribel Alegria and Central American Literature (Ohio1994), and is now at work on a book-length study of Amanda LabarcaHubertson.