¿Madres de la nación u obreras del pensamiento? La novela sentimental en América Latina

Abstract

During nineteen century, especially in his second half, Latin America lives different processes that affect the conditions of women’s life. First of, during the processes of independence, the woman, especially criolla, she’s invested with a symbolic meaning of powerful force: “mother of the nation”, guarantor of the education of the new citizen and support of the domestic happiness, that endorses the political progress. The sentimental novel would be in charge to reinforce this ideal. Secondly, parallel with the first feminists vindications in different places of the world, and with the progressive processes of professionalisation of the women, another figure emerges: the professional writer. This article asked how these two social models coexisted: mother of the nation/profesional writer. It’s analyzes a novel’s corpus of Juana Manuel Gorriti, Lola Larrosa and Soledad Acosta de Samper, that, as sentimental novel writers, they were, at the same time, objects and subjects of this literary genre.