DESOBEDIENTES: A NEW APPROACH TO FAIRY TALE WOMEN WRITERS OF LATIN AMERICA

This dissertation addresses the use of fairy tale elements as tools used in contemporary literature to dislodge and disobey expectations of normalcy and desirability. It explores the construction of the fairy tale as a literary genre, and the notions it upheld as it was edited for different goals throughout Europe between the 18th and 19th centuries. By using a social and geopolitical structuralist perspective, this dissertation explores and expands on the literary genre of the fairy tale as one of obedience in its traditional form. By proposing that the construction of the literary genre of the fairy tale comes from the ideal expectation and mediation of rules and desires, and by using the traditional fairy tale genre history as a background, the final goal of the dissertation is to explore other possibilities of the fairy tale as a literary genre, particularly in contemporary settings. Focusing on how Latin American women authors appropriate recognizable elements to ideologically counterbalance the recognized use of this literary genre, the work expands on the creative practice of two Latin American women authors: Norah Lange and Mariana Enríquez. For Enríquez, the dissertation argues that on her book of short stories Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego, she is creating her own volkspoesie, by taking from the oral histories and violences of her natal Argentina. And, in the case of Lange and her novel Personas en la casa, that she presents a subversive restoration tale. In both cases, it will be argued that these are disobedient forms of the fairy tale. Finally, this dissertation includes Ratones, a disobedient novel that seeks to disrupt the expectations of futurity and femininity.