Abstract

Among the most important literary phenomena that characterize Latin American writing in the second half of the twentieth century is the appearance of women writers whose extraordinary narrative talent has reclaimed a space of their own in a field traditionally occupied by men. One of these writers is Alicia Yanez Cossio, an Ecuadorian whose novels are analyzed in this dissertation. Special emphasis is placed on their distinctive feminist-socialist nature and the challenge they present to both the patriarchal and capitalist systems which structure Ecuadorian society. ;The analysis employed in this study focuses on the language and narrative strategies utilized by the author to create a discourse of resistance. Using the model provided by Jacques Derrida, the study demonstrates the major discursive patterns that constitute the novels of Yanez Cossio: the deconstruction of dominant discourse and the subsequent creation of a new discourse that reconstitutes the feminist struggle through a process of critiquing, deconstructing and reconstructing Ecuadorian reality. ;The hierarchical oppositions of sex and race are rigorously questioned in the first novel--Bruna, Soroche y los Tios-- and are finally reversed when Bruna changes her name and leaves the city to start a new life symbolizing the beginning of a new history--one constructed by women. The second novel--Yo Vendo Unos Ojos Negros-- deconstructs the patriarchal Ecuadorian society through the main character, Maria, who abandons her marriage in an act that symbolizes the search for freedom that leads to the discovery that the cooperation of men is most important in the project of social reconstruction. The deconstruction reaches its climax in La Cofradia del Mullo del Vestido de la Virgen Pipona , which underscores the typical phallogocentric notion of the subordination of writing by speech. Yanez Cossio deconstructs this opposition and recovers the transcendental importance of both discursive forms, writing and speech, in the process of resistance performed not only by women but also by other marginal groups. As a trio, the novels deconstruct the oppressive stereotypes of women, posing a challenge to the modes of thinking that are dominant in Ecuadorian society