The female body in the novel “Fe en disfraz” by de Mayra Santos Febres. A review (Original)

Abstract

The novel “Fe en disfraz” (2009, Puerto Rico), was written by Mayra Santos Febres, born in USA, in 1966. In this review, it’s shown how the autor writer throughout her novel transversalizes what she considers "Sam Hain", and how this festival represents a historical, social and cultural manifestation, which endorses a special meaning to the body and the use of costumes. The academic literature suggests that the novel has three specific interconnected components: the narrative experienced by the main characters (Martín Tirado y Fe Verdejo) in diferent contexts, as professionals as personals; The autobiographical notes of Martín and Fe, in which they shed light on how, since their childhood and youth, they constructed the costumes they would use to conveniently introduce themselves to society, among which Fe's costume as a manumit slave stands out; and a series of recounts that describe declarations and denouncements made by slaves in Latin American colonial territories about violence against their bodies. The analyzes of the novel have reference to a historical loop that synthesize and expose the power relationship between a dominated body (black women) and the dominant one (white men), and the way which the female body among sex rituals and costume can invest that relationship, in both intimate and public context. This paper proposes reflections based on the above, focusing on the symbolic, narrative and epistemic role of the female body as a resource to retell history, as a language of the unpronounceable, as a silence and as a redemptive action, highlighting its fundamental participation in sexuality and the use of costumes.