Literary Criticism (1400-1800)

Zayas y Sotomayor, María de | Yolanda Gamboa (essay date 2000)

Yolanda Gamboa (essay date 2000)

SOURCE: Gamboa, Yolanda. “Gender Coding in the Narratives of Maria de Zayas.” In Women, Society and Constraints: A Collection of Contemporary South African Gender Studies, edited by Jeanette Malherbe, Marc Kleijwegt, and Elize Koen, pp. 197-209. Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Gender Studies, Unisa Press, 2000.

[In the following essay, Gamboa focuses on Zayas's works, recounting the strains and restrictions placed on women in the patriarchal system of early modern Spain.]

BACKGROUND

In this paper, I look at the constraints on women in the patriarchy of early modern Spain, as reflected in the novels of the popular woman writer of the time, Maria de Zayas. I propose that these constraints take effect thanks to the operation of certain social codes (which I call ‘discursive practices’), namely the discourse of Honour, the discourse of the Normative Woman, and the discourse of Enclosure...

[The entire page is 4827 words long]

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