Gender and Memory in Cristina García's The Agüero Sisters

Abstract

This paper discusses Cristina García’s 1997 novel The Agüero Sisters. Its aim is to outline some of the topics present in the novel through the lens of gender, and to contribute to an awareness of Hispanic American literature. Following a brief introduction, the paper discusses masculinity and femininity as present in the novel. Here the paper focuses on two motifs – the position of the human body in the novel, and memory; a link between these two motifs is suggested. Memory is central to the novel, and it appears in different variations throughout the text – nostalgia, intergenerational memory, or memory as an inherently unreliable process. While this paper does not exhaust the topic of memory, it attempts to point out a possible direction for further discussion.