How Not to Become a Female Corpse During the Precarious Mexican Revolution: Assassination, Smokescreens and Seduction in Hasta no verte Jesús mío, Arráncame la vida, and La Tisnada

• In Event: Rewriting the Precarious Mexican Revolution: Emergent Practices in the Contemporary Literary Imagination

Abstract

Many of the novels that deal with the Mexican Revolution post 1969 in many ways retell the original insurgency stories but with a certain level of irony. There is undoubtedly a subversion and play with the early tradition of writing having to do with these war-torn years. For example, while the initial works of the Mexican Revolution were male centered narratives of war and death authored by mostly men, the later novels include more female authors that write about this monumental history in which women are now protagonists as seen in Hasta no verte Jesús mío (1969). Similarly, in Arráncame la vida (1986) the Revolutionary theme is present, but a woman now executes justice through murder. At the same time, La Tisnada (2008) portrays the Revolution through a female character that camouflages her gender and class. In this paper, I explore how female characters in these novels developed creative strategies to survive in one of Mexico’s most turbulent times. Exclusions having to do with class, gender, race, and sexual identity materialized in cruel ways during the Mexican Revolution; therefore, these female characters many times disguised their bodies, performed like men, or even attempted murder to gain freedom and to remain among the living. Arguable, they behave and perform in ways that gives them the most protection, the most privilege, and the most pleasure. These women not only seek the same status that men have, but they also have to survive.

Author

• Carmen A Serrano, University at Albany - SUNY