Emily Joy Clark

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Decimonónica

Volume

13

Issue

1

Publisher

Decimonónica

Publication Date

2016

First Page

1

Last Page

17

Abstract

In a wave of literary and philosophical innovation and transition during the nineteenth century, some Latin American authors directed their energies towards social reform and, more specifically, towards an advocacy of women’s rights and education. In both their poetry and prose, Cuban women writers such as Luisa Pérez de Zambrana (1837-1922) were addressing these concerns for their communities, and an important and innovative promotion of women’s education can be found in Pérez de Zambrana’s poetry and fiction, particularly in the novel La hija del verdugo (1865). This narrative, a brief, historical, serial novel pertaining to late Romanticism and set in the mid-eighteenth century, utilizes popular Gothic themes to leverage women’s education as a way to bolster their contentment and lift them out of horrifying circumstances. Pérez de Zambrana argues that the most desirable characteristics in women are intelligence and fortitude for self- improvement brought on by overcoming obstacles, and this position was revolutionary for a time when the expected models for women’s comportment focused more on enhancement of beauty and docile domestic servitude. Using a Gothic backdrop to the story and to the protagonist’s origins, Pérez de Zambrana critiques the traditional construction of female characters and the limits set on women’s behavior by offering an alternative path for her heroine, Olivia, who uses education to fight a tragic destiny caused by her father’s work as an executioner, showing that goodness can be cultivated through instruction.

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