Three picaresque-celestinesque antiheroines: the radically subjugated female bodies in La hija de Celestina

Abstract

This article critically analyses the discourse of subjectivity and the critical theory of intersectionality through a detailed analysis of the three picaresque-celestinesque anti-heroines: Elena, Zara/María, and Méndez, portrayed in the mediavalizing novel La hija de Celestina (1612) by Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo. It primarily analyses the protagonist Elena, who emerges as a violated and subjugated self as well as a critically racialized, gendered, and classed product of intersectionality, and thus she personifies subjectivity, radically. Elena is also seen as the devilishly beautiful product of the exploitative capitalism that emerges as a monstrous, frankensteinian «Self» when she intends to invert the stereotypical societal pyramid of masculine power and control. There is a third angle to the subjugation of women in the novel, where, due to immense misogyny and fear predominant during the Golden Age epoch, the patriarchal and authoritarian State watches the female bodies constantly in a Foucauldian panoptical style, discipline and punish them grossly, especially Elena: the femme fatal, and subsequently converts them to docile bodies.