The captivity chronotope in Miguel de Carrion’s Las honradas and Las impuras

Abstract

This article explores the space-time narrative element in two emblematic novels of the republican period of the early twentieth century in Cuba and its literary naturalism: Las honradas (1917) and Las impuras (1919) by Miguel de Carrión (1875-1929). The captivity chronotope category is proposed for the analysis of the representation of the forms of oppression experienced by female protagonists in relation to the spatiotemporal ordering in each novel. The confinement and statism constitute experiences shared by the protagonists and articulate the critique of reformist liberalism to the adverse consequences of capitalist development and the recognition of the crisis of patriarchy.