Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Esquilín, Mary Ann Gosser

Abstract

This comparative research identifies and analyzes recurring tropes in the novels Cobra (1972) by Cuban writer Severo Sarduy and La mucama de Omicunlé (2015) by Dominican writer Rita Indiana. Despite the years between the publication of these important Spanish-Caribbean works, they both reveal transformative processes through transgressive writing styles. Seemingly diverse, these novels present a similar plot: a series of violent events that surround the protagonists’ androgyny. Their stories bare a deeper significance as changes to the bodies provoke ruptures that unearth rhizomatic connections with the rest of the surrounding nature, which, of course, has its own histories, different from the ones recorded by humans. Moreover, the novels explore multiplicities and (re)occurrences through times and spaces imperceptibly interconnected. The androgynous rhizomatic trope in contemporary Spanish-Caribbean novels proves to be a significant contribution that leads readers to question biased historical records, conceived to perpetuate coloniality, and dispute heteropatriarchal visions of nature to bring about transcendental changes to the status quo.

Extent

183 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Dissertation (PhD)--Florida Atlantic University, 2024.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00014517

Format

pdf

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