Lo gótico femenino rioplatense como vehículo de preocupaciones posthumanistas en las novelas La mujer desnuda de Armonía Somers y Bosque sin dueño de Paulina Medeiros

Abstract

The paper takes a posthumanist look at the gothic of two writers from Río de la Plata, Paulina Medeiros and Armonía Somers. When these early practitioners of the gothic infuse the power to threaten or a capacity to commiserate in animals, trees, stones and even in the blades of grass they call attention to the non-human elements in the narrative. The gothic register enables a line of inquiry about what constitutes a posthuman consciousness in three ways: firstly, it negates the passivity of the posthuman, revitalizing it; secondl, it generates shock by exaggerating its dimensions, and thirdly, it foregrounds the human-non-human relationship as a repository of hegemonic violence.