Over Her Dead Body: The Construction of Male Subjectivity in Onetti

Juan Carlos Onetti is a Uruguayan novelist whose central importance to the development of the contemporary Latin American novel has been widely recognized. Unlike previous analyses, this ground-breaking study constitutes the first book-length feminist reading of Onetti's novels. It utilizes relevant scholarly work on gender, subjectivity, narrative, and certain elements of psychoanalysis. Dr. Maloof argues that in Onetti's fiction, the construction of the male narrative subject is usually founded on the absence or death of a woman. This study also examines the complex relationship between Onetti's male protagonists, their crises, and the Uruguayan socio-historical context between the 1930s and 1960s.