Speaker: Sonia Perez-Villanueva, Liberal Arts & Business Programs, Lesley University - Academia.edu, ORCID, ResearchGate

Abstract: »“La fuerza de la sangre” uncovers one of the most shocking and violent narratives of rape of early modern times. The novella reflects a dialectic of male violence that narrates sexual abuse as a titillating and justifiable act, with its “happy” ending in reparation. The text itself, only at the end, introduces a vague discomfort with this. This paper shows that Leocadia is trapped in a closed dyadic space, in the psychoanalyitic sense, where her agency becomes “mired in a trapped perverse state of two-ness” where “fusion-based dynamics, power relations, and brute force” (Jill Gentile) become the basis of the way the characters relate. The all-consuming appetite of Rodolfo for Leocadia, as well as the relationship she is forced to have with her own child and her pregnancy, are examples of a fusion-based dynamic. All this puts Leocadia in the position of someone with a perversion of agency: she is not narrated as a subject but portrayed as a body used for the readers’ pleasure. Leocadia, the rape victim in the text, is not allowed to develop in the third space as a survivor; rather, she remains trapped in the immorality of the sexual act, an endlessly consumed body.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of Spain / Habsburg Spain | Fiction: Fictional victims of sexual assault | Literature: Spanish literature / Miguel de Cervantes, Novelas Ejemplares | Sex and the law: Rape / History of rape