TOWARDS A POSTMODERN METONYMY OF FORMAL LIBERATION/EMPOWERMENT: ANA CASTILLO’S THE MIXQUIAHUALA LETTERS

Abstract

By addressing the peculiarities and formal inventiveness of Ana Castillo’s novel The Mixquiahuala Letters, the paper identifies and categorizes the elements of identity that generate the metaphysical construction of a bicephalous feminine/feminist experience—a permanent fluidity of the ethos, a profound alterity of the receptive act, and a radical, disruptive participatory courage. While examining how identity (re)construction can resonate, metonymically, in the actual scriptural arrangement of the novel’s text, the paper focuses on the study of the relationship between the formal, textual, and semiotic-receptive representation of the idea of emancipation, through Ana Castillo’s explicit auctorial intentionality.