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Alterity, introspection, self-knowledge in the

works Bruna Soroche y los Tíos and La pasión

según G.H.

Alteridad, introspección, autorreconocimiento en las

obras Bruna soroche y los tíos y la pasión según G.H.

Glenda Viñamagua-Quezada

Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador

Facultad de Filosofía Letras y Ciencias de la Educación, Carrera de Educación Inicial del

Programa de Educación Semipresencial

gmvinamagua@uce.edu.ec

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9514-1855

Paúl Puma-Torres

Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador

Facultad de Filosofía Letras y Ciencias de la Educación, Carrera de Pedagogía de la Lengua

y la Literatura

pfpuma@uce.edu.ec

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3932-7196

(Received on: 27/07/2023; Acepted on: 18/10/2023; Final version received on: 15/12/2023)

Suggested citation: Viñamagua-Quezada, G. y Puma-Torres, P. (2024). Alterity,

introspection, self-knowledge in the works Bruna Soroche y los Tíos and La pasión según

G.H. Revista Cátedra, 7(1), 17-36.

Abstract

In this research work, a critical and interpretative analysis of the works Bruna, soroche y

los tíos by Alicia Yánez Cossío and La pasión según GH by Clarice Lispector was carried out,

taking as a point of convergence the theme of the image as a space where the gaze of the

other is determinant in the construction of identity. For the development of this research,

the methodology proposed by the theatology and the imagotypes was used. Concerning the

theoretical support, the postulates of Córdova 2016, Boadas 2016 and Sánchez 2005, who

is based on Moura's theoretical proposal on the three aspects of the image, were used as a

starting point. In this way, the religious conception in the imposition of identity and

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ethnicity as a social construct product of the gaze of center and periphery were determined

as thematic axes. This analysis, which is based on the hermeneutic tradition, aims to analyze

the construction of identity from the gaze of the other and how this idea is perpetuated and

conceived as true from the transcendence of the image and religious symbology, as occurs

in the novel Bruna Soroche and the uncles. While in the work La pasión según GH, the image

is assumed as a trigger for self-recognition through the introspection provoked by the

subaltern gaze. The contribution of this research lies in determining how fiction creates

narrative spaces where there is a relationship between the gaze and the image in the

construction of identity.

Keywords

Alterity, social construct, imagootype, image, thematics.

Resumen

En este trabajo de investigación se realizó un análisis crítico e interpretativo de las obras

Bruna, soroche y los tíos de Alicia Yánez Cossío y La pasión según GH de Clarice Lispector, se

tomó como punto de convergencia el tema de la imagen como un espacio donde la mirada

del otro es determinante en la construcción de la identidad. Para el desarrollo de esta

investigación se tomó la metodología propuesta por la tematología y los imagotipos. En el

concerniente al sustento teórico se partió de los postulados de Córdova 2016, Boadas 2016

y Sánchez 2005, quien se basa en la propuesta teórica de Moura sobre los tres aspectos de

la imagen. De esta manera se determinó como ejes temáticos la concepción religiosa en la

impostación de la identidad y la etnia como un constructo social producto de la mirada de

centro y periferia. Este análisis, que se sustenta en la tradición hermenéutica, tiene por

objetivo analizar la construcción de la identidad a partir de la mirada del otro y como esta

idea se perpetúa y se concibe como verdadera a partir de la trascendencia de la imagen y de

la simbología religiosa, como ocurre en la novela Bruna Soroche y los tíos. Mientras que en

la obra La pasión según GH, la imagen se asume como un detonante del autorreconocimiento

a través de la introspección que provoca la mirada subalterna. El aporte de esta

investigación radica en determinar cómo desde la ficción se crean espacios narrativos

donde existe una relación entre la mirada y la imagen en la construcción de la identidad.

Palabras clave

Alteridad, constructo social, imagotipo, imagen, tematología.

1. Introduction

In this research work, an analysis of the literary works Bruna, soroche y los tíos by the

Ecuadorian writer Alicia Yánez Cossío and La pasión según G.H. by the Ukrainian-Brazilian

writer Clarice Lispector is carried out. In order to deepen the study of these novels, two

elements that are considered key to this approach will be taken. The first will address the

theatology to deal with the theme of otherness as a common factor in both works.

Meanwhile, the second aspect of this study will focus on three aspects of the image,

according to the postulates of Moura, who according to Sánchez (2005):

First, he proposes to approach the term image as an image of the (or of

the) foreign or foreigner. Second, he suggests investigating the image as

a product of a nation, culture or society (the social imaginary). Finally, he

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suggests delving into an image as a product created by a particular author

(p. 13).

The question to be answered in this analysis is how is otherness constructed from fiction

based on introspection and social revelation, actions that characterize the characters GH in

the work The Passion according to GH by Clarice Lispector and María Illacatu in the work

Bruna Soroche and the uncles by Alicia Yánez Cossío? For this purpose, the theory of the

theatology and imagology developed in Moura's proposal will be taken as a basis, according

to Manuel Sánchez 2015.

Regarding otherness, it will be based on the postulates and the vision of Córdova, who

conducts his studies on otherness from the perspective of transmodernity. In this sense, the

definition proposed by Eduardo Sousa (as cited in Córdova, 2016) will be used as a starting

point.

The "other", being defined by Eduardo Sousa as the philosophical

principle of alternating or exchanging one's own perspective for that of

the other, considering and taking into account the point of view, the

conception of the world, the interests, the ideology of the other, and not

assuming that "one's" is the only possible one (p. 1003).

In the literary works analyzed in this study, otherness is portrayed in the female characters

mentioned above, who from their internal dialogues reflect on the dimension of life from

introspection and from the questions that arise from their relationship with society. In this

sense, the stereotypes that model behaviors, assign roles and annul human beings in their

deepest feelings gain strength. In some cases, this leads to the revelation of the female

characters, who undertake the search for their own selves through the motif of the journey.

Either from the space of introspection as in the case of the character GH or from focusing

the gaze outward as in the case of Bruna.

The importance of this study lies in reflecting on otherness as the space that allows us to

explore the internal and external world of the characters in order to know the different ways

of seeing, understanding, feeling or living them. And literature shows this possibility that

remains hidden in the course of everyday experiences. In this sense, literature is revealed

as a space of sensitivity, analysis and reflection that shows a different reality characterized

by questioning the status quo of a homogenized society, imposed from the West, which

mutilates the being to assign value from its objectification and thus make it functional.

It is considered that this study is pertinent and addresses a topical issue, since from art and

specifically from literature, aspects are opened through fiction where it is possible to reflect

on facts that concern humanity in general and that are manifested through individual

experiences.

When the character is the narrator himself and tells us the story from his

point of view, he does not usually give us descriptions of himself, physical

descriptions, but he does communicate his vision of the world, his moral

and aesthetic categories, in a very powerful way, we end up having an

image of him, knowing him (Puértolas, 1993, p. 148).

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In the novels under study, the conflicts of the female characters are the product of the

struggle between social impositions and the construction of their own destiny that opposes

the norm. The narrative voice in both works shows beings who, upon recognizing

themselves, question the roles that society has assigned to them, thus producing a struggle

where memory, religion, and social conventions trigger internal conflicts in the characters.

In a passage of Bruna, Soroche and the uncles, Bruna gives her friends bathing suits that fall

apart when the young women dive into the water. This moment of relaxation culminates in

a tragedy, due to a society that appropriates the female body; where sexuality becomes a

value to which life itself is sacrificed:

They preferred to resist the cold of the water rather than go out and

expose their nakedness: The girls were compared to Maria Goretti and

declared from the pulpits of the churches: martyrs of purity -These heroic

girls preferred death rather than commit a sin of impurity (Yánez, 2010,

p. 306).

The female body has been relegated to the space of taboo and social property promoted by

religious power. It is a world where women do not decide, but rather they accept what

society determines and even more, they feel guilt for not complying with what society

demands of them. When the woman submits herself to the norm that leads her to assimilate

her body under the concepts of taboo, shame or shamefulness, she is forced to sacrifice her

thoughts and identity in favor of a religious reward that makes her a saint, then, religion

endorses the social subject as the owner of the female body.

The conflict in The Passion according to GH also has a religious background, society takes

over the decisions about women's bodies. At this point, in addition to moral motives, as in

the case of Bruna, there are also aspects such as the preservation of status, economic, social

or intellectual notoriety, which are superimposed on the value of life.

Mother: I killed a life, and there are no arms to embrace me and in the

hour of our desert, amen. Mother, everything now became solid gold. I

interrupted an organized thing, mother, and that is worse than killing,

that makes me enter through a breach that showed me, worse than death,

that showed me rude and neutral life yellowing. The cockroach is alive,

and the eye of it is fertilizer, I'm afraid of getting loutish, mother

(Lispector, 1964, p. 55).

When these conflicts that concern a patriarchal vision of society are manifested through

literature, these stories become unique and revealing. The exercise of recreating these

themes in depth through the actions of the characters allows us to internalize diverse

feelings, thoughts or sensations. Then, those who get involved in the plot through reading

have the ability to question the system that takes over individuals, their affections and

desires.

This characteristic of fiction creates in the reader a catharsis by recognizing in the reality of

these characters personal or social sequences. From this emotional and intellectual shake-

up, reflection and critical thinking are enhanced and, at the same time, it contributes to the

construction of a symbolic reparation.

Regarding the structure of the article, section 2 contextualizes the works that constitute the

corpus of this analysis. Section 3 presents the methodology applied for the development of

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this research. Section 4 presents the results of the research, applying the selected analysis

criteria. Section 5 deals with the discussion. Section 6 records the conclusions according to

the results obtained.

2. Contextualization of both novels

In order to continue with this study, it is necessary to approach both novels through the

most outstanding features that lead them to converge in the same subject of analysis.

2.1 Bruna soroche and uncles

Bruna, the protagonist of this novel, is the youngest member of a Quito family whose

prejudices lead them to hide their indigenous ancestors, masking them with a change of

surname, religious fanaticism, naivety or madness. These characteristics become symbols

in the behavior of Bruna's uncles, who also come to represent a society in decline that is

ending along with them and that gives way to new generations with new conflicts. These

new generations seek a space and an identity by emulating the behaviors and customs of

foreigners. The death of each of Bruna's uncles is understood as a metaphor for the death of

thoughts marked by the shame of miscegenation, characteristic of a society in decline that

gives way to a new generation in a constant search to find a place and an identity.

2.2 Passion according to GH

G. H. are the initials of the protagonist of Lispector's novel. She belongs to an influential

economic and social sector of Rio de Janeiro, where she is well known for her closeness to

the arts, an activity that has allowed her to achieve status within her social circle. In her

inner life, however, the protagonist experiences an emotional uprooting caused by an

abortion and her failure in love.

These conflicts that GH experiences generate emptiness and anguish, emotions that she

tries to purge when she eats a cockroach in the room of her ex-employee, whom she has just

fired. In addition to these feelings that the protagonist experiences, as a result of the

introspection generated by being alone in her apartment, there is also the questioning that

she feels when she can't remember the name of her employee, Janair. The indifference she

has shown to Janair leads the protagonist to question her lack of empathy towards others.

Janair, through her gaze, invites GH to self-knowledge. The trigger in this process of

introspection is an image: a mural that Janair is presumed to have drawn in the room she

occupied before being fired.

3. Methodology

The methodology followed in this research is based on the methodology of theatology and

imagotypes. As a branch of comparative literature, tematology studies the abstract

dimension of literature and its relationship with multiculturalism. It allows an approach to

works coming from different cultures, where similar themes are addressed. This discipline

is fundamental to understand the connections between literary works from different

cultures and their communicative force, as is the case in this study. The application of this

method, approached from the analytical documentary approach, allows focusing the

analysis on the elements that determine the themes, motifs and characters such as

stereotypes in the context of literary representation.

Regarding imagology, Moura's theoretical proposal is followed, as a branch of literature that

focuses on the study of images and their relationship with identity and culture. In the case

of this study, religion was determined as a guide for analysis in the imposition of identity

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and ethnicity as a social construct product of the look of center and periphery. In this aspect

there will be an approach regarding the individual or collective self over the other individual

and collective self, within the concept of otherness. The thematic inquiry followed in this

research is linked to hermeneutics, since this interpretation explores the historical, social

and cultural motives that configure the characters as the triggers of the works object of this

study.

4. Results

4.1 The theme of otherness in the construction of the characters María Illacatu

and G.H.

Otherness is presented as a concept where there is what is valid and what departs from this

conception or differs from it. From this concept, the other emerges as a space of conflict that

questions the fact of being classified as different. With respect to this concept that has its

place of enunciation from a place of power. Ruiz (n.d) indicates that:

in this approach, the other (the foreigner, the madman, the marginal, the

homosexual, the woman, etc.) is the one who distinguishes himself from

the limit of the world and questions it. It appears fortuitously in the

horizon of understanding that sustains us and shakes the system that

sustains this horizon (p. 99)).

The other, then, within a system built from imposition, becomes the marginalized, a being

that must be hidden or is forced to hide, to deny himself. Within this context, otherness

emerges as a way of establishing difference and acceptance, recognition without making

comparisons with a center conceived from a vision of center and periphery. Córdova (2015)

is supported by Enrique Dussel's studies to affirm that:

otherness is knowing how to think the world from the alterative

exteriority of the other, which has as a consequence the recognition of

the other as different from the self, through the face-to-face encounter

with the other, the oppressed, the poor; that is, someone who escapes the

power of the subject and who responds rather to an experience and a

temporality that do not belong to the self (p. 1003).

According to Aguirre, the Spanish invasion of America brought with it various types of

violence that led to the annulment of a civilization that had been built based on logics

different from those of Western thought. This other way of thinking the world had as one of

its axes an integral and harmonious thinking, since both the environment and the human

being were conjugated in spaces that contributed to the conservation of what could be

understood as human dignity in consonance with the environment: "within the indigenous

cosmovision [...] the earth is conceived as a mother, it is the mother that gives, compact with

men, who are considered important within the community" (Aguirre, 1986, p. 18).

This principle of integrality that follows a form of horizontal relationship clashes with the

vision and lacerating action that the Spaniards brought with them. This culture that was

imposed with the use of violence marked the behavior of the original inhabitants, leading

them to hide their way of relating to the world. This concealment of identity becomes a form

of symbolic violence whose traces are manifested in the character María Illacatu, an

indigenous woman from whom Bruna descends. María Illacatu was robbed of her culture,

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her identity, and they tried to implant a new way of life that tried to legitimize itself through

the permanence of the image:

Maria Illacatu had succumbed long before her portrait was made. She did

not resist the tragic process of her transplantation and her adaptation to

the white world. Her customs, inherited from centuries and anchored to

the land with a lordship of race, had to be erased overnight as if they were

stigmata.

-The Indian has to be put in a corset to pose.

-And are you going to spend so much money to paint her...?

-So that my grandchildren won't say that...

-Oh, yes, I understand! (Yáñez, 2010, p. 83)

María Illacatu was disguised to erase her indigenous identity when she was portrayed. Thus,

the portrait assumes an impostured identity. The indigenous past is hidden behind an image

that denies the other, who is marginalized from a society that is built on shame. The meaning

of the image is located as the truth that endures, survives and is accepted, because it is the

only one that testifies in a tangible way an artificial and imposed truth. That truth that

appeals to appearance and that complies with the stereotype of beauty that is demanded of

women from the imposition of the West:

as individual images, photographs of natives and "traders" posing in

awkward forms and exotically attired were judged by the same canons of

beauty, convention and physiognomy used to evaluate bourgeois

portraits (Poole, 2000, p. 164).

The character G.H., on the other hand, recognizes that the life she has (until the moment she

sees the cockroach, an animal she describes as ancestral) and which is reflected in a

photograph in which she smiles, is a reflection of what others have constructed about her,

the image of the Western woman who triumphs in the modern social scene.

Sometimes, looking at a photo taken on the beach or at a party, I would

distinguish with slight ironic apprehension what that smiling, darkened

face revealed to me: a silence. A silence and a destiny that escaped me:

me, a hieroglyphic fragment of a dead or living empire. When I looked at

the portrait, I saw the mystery (Lispector, 1964, p.14).

The photograph in the novel La pasión según G.h., or the portrait in the novel Bruna, soroche

y los tíos, are associated with the idea of the stranger or foreigner where the gaze of the

other is used to impose an identity, in addition to what Sánchez (2005) indicates as a second

aspect of the study of the image "as a product of a nation, culture or society leads us to the

theme of otherness" (p. 59). This affirmation that Sanchez takes from the studies carried out

by Moura with respect to the imagotypes directs towards the image of the other with

respect to the society in which he lives. These constructs turn the being into a stranger in

front of his own reality and his image or what the individual assimilates as his image is not

his true "I", but an artifice that society makes of the subject, with the purpose of achieving

that he fulfills roles and that he adjusts and perpetuates an imposed system.

With respect to image and representation, Pool (2006) mentions "seeing and representing

as material acts insofar as they constitute means of intervening in the world" (p. 15). The

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image becomes tangible through the act of the gaze, and this in turn becomes an act of

domination and control, a situation experienced by María Illacatu and G.H., women with

polarized social conditions one from the other, a particularity that makes even more

tangible the symbolic violence that subjects two women who do not follow the route that

society has historically marked for them.

However, in both characters there is a trigger that allows them to look inward. Either

through contact with nature, which becomes an accomplice in moments of uneasiness, as in

the case of María Illacatu, in the context of her near maternity:

Maria Illacatu told the secret of her motherhood to the road and the road

took pity on her by suddenly cutting off and stopping in the ejidos of a

town that opened its windows to see an arriving caravan. No one noticed

how the land ran into the ravines and the mountains retreated. The road

contracted: ten trees went inside one. The birds fell down dead of old age

and the eggs just laid became wings (Yánez, 2010, p. 86).

A similar situation occurs in the case of G.H., when two key situations present themselves

to her: the first, the contemplation of the drawing in her ex-employee's room. This image,

which shows a naked couple with their dog, represents for the character G.H. a sort of mold

in which she fits genuinely and more comfortably than in the photographs of her trips and

parties, where she smiles. We would thus be in front of what Pérez (2016) nominates as

"the image of the other is the mirror of one's own" (p. 19). These cave images open a door

for G.H. to observe her inner self, that ancestral being that emerges through an exercise of

introspection that allows her to undress her inner self. G.H. approaches her inner self, the

one that society taught her to hide, since her role was to fulfill the stereotype of the

educated, artistic, refined and well-to-do woman.

On the whitewashed wall next to the door - and that is why I had not yet

seen it - there was almost a life-size silhouette, drawn in charcoal, of a

naked man, a naked woman and a dog that was more naked than a dog.

In the bodies was not drawn what nudity reveals, the nudity came only

from the absence of everything that covers: they were the silhouettes of

an empty nudity. The line was coarse, made with the broken tip of the

charcoal. In some pieces the line was duplicated as if one stroke was the

tremor of another. A dry tremor of dry charcoal (Lispector, 1964, p.25).

Before seeing the insect in Janair's room, G.H. does not recognize herself, she does not find

her true self, she is only aware that what she has experienced up to that moment is the

product of an image constructed by agents external to her. Her true inner self was known to

her employee, the woman whom G.H. fired, and that is why she painted this image for her.

In this regard, Levinas (2001) mentions that:

the Desire of the Other [Autrui] is born in a being that lacks nothing or,

more precisely, is born beyond what can lack or satisfy it. This Desire of

the Other [Autrui], which is our very sociality, is not a simple relation to

the being in which, according to the formulas from which we started, the

Other becomes the Self (p. 57).

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The second situation that G.H. experiences is the symbolism of the cockroach, because in the

moments of his introspection this insect ceases to mean a pest-animal and becomes the

symbol of the return to the origin and the integrality of the human being by merging with it.

This form of acceptance of two realities in the same being is possible when he observes it

carefully and turns it into his food in order to mimic the essence of the animal that

represents the hidden side and thus recognize his true identity, the one he wishes to hide.

That morning, before I entered the room, what was I? I was what others

had always seen me to be, and that's how I knew myself. I couldn't say

what I was. But, at least, I want to remember: what was I doing (Lispector,

1964, p.14).).

This reflection precedes the turn that G.H.'s life will experience after entering the room of

Janair, his former employee. And that then leads to a recognition of his true self, which at

times he is afraid to face. When he observes this image, G.H. senses that this encounter will

allow him to find himself again in a new space and tries to return to his origin, which he

achieves at the end of the work, when he merges with an original insect by devouring it. In

that instant GH dies as an image formed by the other and lives from herself by recovering

her inner self. In this regard, Pérez (2016) indicates:

Nowadays, scholars are increasingly emphasizing that this discipline

(imagology) not only helps to understand the idea of the Other from its

representation but also to become aware of an "I" with respect to that

Other (p. 12).

The character of María Illacatu recovers her origin through the murder of the person who

took it away from her, and returns to it through her suicide. Thus, it is possible to establish

an analogy between three actions that occur in these stories: the murder of the Spaniard,

Maria Illacatu's husband; the death of the cockroach and the reunion that the authors of

these murders experience with themselves, Maria Illacatu with her suicide and G.H. by

eating the cockroach.

Through death, both women free themselves from the image that society constructed of

them and recognize themselves in a new space where they are reunited, where they are no

longer strangers to each other or to themselves. In this regard, Ruiz (n.d.) states that "the

problem of otherness finds its origin in the assumption of a center. Accordingly, we acquire

an identity whose foundation is to provide us with a location and a meaning that articulates

the way we relate to the world" (p. 99). In the female characters indicated, that center

wavers because they feel emptied within a space that does not recognize them, but has

molded them to fulfill a role through the annulment of their self. To which they recover with

their death, either physical as in the case of María Illacatu or the death of an image

constructed by society in which GH does not recognize herself.

With respect to the identity that is constructed of the self through the vision of the other, it

can be noted that the characters María Illacatu and Janair remain invisible, the space they

occupy is that of the shadow and they come to light while they are productive for those who

make use of them. Maria Illacatu is given another life and her welcome letter is the baptism

she receives "I baptize you, Yahuma with the name of Mary. In the name of the Father, the

Son and the... And she was called María from that moment when they poured water over her

bent head and washed with it the ideas of father Sol" (Yánez, 2010, p. 78). From the moment

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of baptism, María Illacatu becomes visible to a society that has marginalized her. Religion is

then understood as a form of repression that annuls the human being and makes him/her

visible as long as he/she adjusts to what the Western vision determines as the center. In this

regard, Ruiz (n.d.) affirms:

The clearest criticism of the attempt to know the other is formulated on

the basis of practical historical experience. It has been sought to know

the other in order to dominate and subjugate him, never to establish a

permanent and daily dialogue in which the possibility of the other's

participatory existence is granted (p. 99).

Within her cultural context, Maria Illacatu was the daughter of a cacique and would be a

wife of the sun. But when she was taken by force by a Spaniard, these privileges were taken

away from her and she was visible as much as the gold she possessed, an element that

nullified her and from which she detached herself with her suicide: "all the truths of our

present are the surviving beliefs of the past. Beliefs that were imposed on others and come

to us as truths in use. The history of the center is not wrong, until the other appears and

shakes that order that excludes it" (Ruiz, n.d., p.99).

Concerning Janair, there is a singularity, she is invisible while she is useful to G.H., and her

strength is present in her absence, her being takes shape while G.H. remembers her through

the traces she left in the back room that was destined for servitude, a space that G.H. had

never been to, although it was within the same place where she lived as the owner of the

apartment. When she entered that white room, she recognized herself and realized that the

image that society had made of her was nothing more than a staging that she had

represented up to that moment

That woman, G. H. in the leather of the suitcases, was me; is it me, still?

No. From now on I foresee that the hardest thing my vanity will have to

face will be the judgment of myself: I will have all the appearance of one

who failed, and I alone will know if bankruptcy was necessary (Lispector,

1964, p. 20).

This questioning that arises from her loneliness and that in an internal dialogue allows her

to recognize that she does not feel identified with the life she has and that is represented by

the initials of her name. This identity that has been built from the gaze of her environment,

also opens a door to the uncertainty of knowing if the identity in which she recognizes

herself, which is distant from the other and which comes only from her, will be enough to

move away from the one she was. These reflections come to her and come to the surface

when she remembers Janair:

I looked at the mural where I must have been represented... Me, the Man.

And as for the puppy, was this the epithet she gave me? For years I had

been judged only by my peers and by my own environment, which were

made, in short, of myself and for myself. Janair was the first truly alien

person whose gaze I became aware of (Lispector, 1964, p. 26).

The gaze of the other gives way to the construction of an identity. In the case of G.H., the

gaze of an invisible person offered her the possibility of recognizing and reconstructing

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herself, far from the gazes that had constructed an identity that she felt alien to, and that

turned her into a hollowed-out being.

It was then that I unexpectedly managed to remember his face; of course,

how could I have forgotten it? I saw again the black and calm face, I saw

again the entirely opaque skin that seemed more like one of her ways of

keeping quiet, the well-drawn eyebrows, I saw again the fine and delicate

features that were barely distinguishable in the dull blackness of the skin

(Lispector, 1964, p. 26).

Janair, in this case is a door to introspection and to the construction of identity based on

self-knowledge and acceptance. "We are the other with respect to a history of thought that

ignores us. And it is the otherness and its possibility what sustains us and the aspiration to

a realization that in this time we ignore what we expect" (Ruiz, n.d., p.100). When G.H.

recognizes Janair's physical features, she also recognizes herself, she banishes from herself

the image she has created of her identity and now longs to rediscover the truth and the

origin, elements symbolized in an ancestral insect.

4.2 Imagotipo: three aspects of Moura's proposal in Bruna Soroche and the uncles

and The Passion according to GH.

Before carrying out the imagological analysis, we quote what Boadas (2015) mentions

regarding the factors that need to be taken into account when carrying out a work of this

nature: "to stop and reason about which cultures are looked at, how they are looked at, from

where they do it and if from that look attitudes linked to judgments, questioning, dreams,

fantasies about the Other emerge" (p. 143). The aspects mentioned by Boadas coincide with

the three axes from which Moura starts: "the image of the foreign or foreigner, the image as

a product of a nation, culture or society, and the image as a product created by a specific

author" (Sánchez, 2005, p. 13).

Within the works analyzed in this study, the elements that are found in function of the

parameters indicated are presented in the following tables:

Works under study

Traces leading to otherness

Bruna soroche and uncles

Presence of religion

Image configuration

Imposition of identity

Image, identity and meaning

Alterity

Passion according to G.H .

Social role as a construct

Recognition of the inner self

Encounter between the real self and

the self as social construct

Table 1. Traces of otherness in the plays Bruna Soroche and the uncles and The Passion according to GH.

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Bruna, soroche and the uncles

Passion according to GH

The apostles in Aunt Catalina's bed

Rupestrian images in the utility room

Images of a man, a woman

a dog painted in the utility room.

service room.

images of pool, mermaid, manneken pis

The image of the unclean and

the occult represented in a

Cockroach.

Table 2. Imagotypes in the plays Bruna Soroche and the uncles and The Passion according to GH

4.3 Bruna, soroche and the uncles: the apostles in aunt Catalina's bed

The character of Aunt Catalina shows a woman who takes refuge in her particular way of

understanding faith, a faith that instead of evoking peace in those close to her, provokes fear

and rejection. This character conceives faith from the point of view of repression,

flagellation, sacrifice, etc. And he demands the same behaviors from those around him. In

this regard, Sánchez (2015) indicates that "the imagotype consists of several elements,

including images, stereotypes or prejudices" (p. 24). Catalina's stereotype is that of a woman

who shuns affection and the spaces of pleasure that life generates and hides in religion

conceived from repression.

This way of living her faith led her to ask a carpenter to build her a bed whose pillars were

the four Evangelists, and which is described in the novel as follows:

The four evangelists: St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John and St. Matthew had been

lowered from heaven itself to contemplate the murky dream of the aunt.

They were covered with gold leaf on which the painting had been

applied... (Yánez, 2010, p. 265).

The significant thing about this image of the bed is its exterior, as it is described as an

unreachable space, it transmits fear and marks distance. It can be noted, according to the

description, that there are inconsistencies in the proportions of the evangelists, a detail that

is narrated with a certain sarcasm. In view of this particularity, Aunt Catalina, a woman

marked by religion, does not feel comfortable, but accepts it. Another detail of this resting

place is that, just as its exterior is majestic, despite the errors pointed out, the mattress, the

inner part of the bed, is rather modest and neglected. In this passage of the novel, the latent

conflict between the inner self and the outer self is addressed.

It was a papal bed, imposing, superb, on which any mortal other than the

aunt would have had qualms of conscience when lying on it. But the

mattress was miserable, made of moor straw, stiff and cold, full of icy

edges that penetrated through the skin, until they touched the bones

(Yánez, 2010, p. 266).

An analogy can be drawn between the inner and outer parts of the bed with the image of

Catalina, whose stereotype is that of a sanctimonious woman who shows a reserved

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exterior, intent on following the norm, but with an intimidating lack of feelings. However,

her inner self is cold, worn, stiff, just like the mattress. According to Sanchez (2005) "the

imagotype consists of several elements, among them images, stereotypes or prejudices" (p.

24) In the character of Aunt Catalina we can see portrayed the stereotype of a repressed

woman who takes refuge in religion as a way to face the outside world that hurts her,

because her inner self, like the straw of the mattress of the papal bed, is dry.

4.4 The images of the pool: mermaid, fish, manneken pis

These three images have water as a common factor, symbol of the flow of time and of the

generations that are renewed in Bruna's family. The little mermaid would be linked to the

uninhibited, spontaneity, femininity that characterized the house, while Camelia the

weeping one led it. This image of novelty represents the new world that Camelia discovered

on her journey and the sensuality that characterizes this female character.

When Aunt Catalina was in charge of the house, she replaced the little mermaid with a stone

fish. She attributed this change to the fact that the fish was the first symbol of Christianity,

and since religion, in the way she understood and practiced it, was her main reference, she

decided to make this change. Religion from a traditional conception constituted the axis that

guided Catalina's life, which was reflected in the image of the fish in the pool. This symbol

located in a strategic place in the family home constituted a refuge from what Catherine

considered an impure world.

With the manneken pis, which came to replace the fish, the novelty of getting to know new

worlds through migratory displacements returns and now comes from the hand of Bruna's

brother, when he travels to Europe. The manneken pis, as well as the little mermaid, are

uncovered images, that do not wear clothes and that to a certain extent represent freedom

and abolition of ties, as well as the disinhibition that shows the inner being. These three

elements that with the appearance of each family generation are replaced in the decoration

of the pool of Bruna's house, are related by the flow of liquid, the mermaid and the fish

inhabit the water, while the manneken pis emanates liquid in the form of waste. This last

symbol is understood, then, as a prelude to the dissolution of Bruna's family.

It was only a few days before grandma's house was to be demolished.

They were going to tear down the walls that sheltered so many lives of

orphaned children and so many generations. They were going to tear out

the doors and windows as they had torn out the children of María Illacatu

(Yánez, 2010, p. 207).

These images, which represent the identity of a family that tries to hide its origin, change as

different stages pass and new generations inhabit it. Both the family and social spheres are

linked in a space crossed by the religious and the mundane and are questioned within the

novel because none of these spheres offers the possibility of freedom for its characters. On

the contrary, these spaces of submission are confirmed or endorsed, which perpetuates the

idea of the center-periphery and its influence within the family sphere. Faced with this

behavior of abandonment that arises from the power groups, the other is marginalized, the

one who does not fit within the parameters of social imposition inherited from the West. In

this sense, Ballesteros (2016) indicates that:

The oppressed, offended and humiliated, the vilified of history who

become aware of their situation, are the only protagonists capable of

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breaking the silence that has denied their voice and presence for

centuries (p. 176).

In the works analyzed in this study, the characters María Illacatu and Janair break the

imposed silence and reveal themselves through the decision to appropriate their lives. In

the case of María Illacatu, her presence is revealed through her suicide, while Janair, G.H.'s

employee, acts as a mirror of the protagonist mediated by the image she painted in his room.

This image plays the role of triggering processes of introspection that lead G.H. to question

how he had led his life up to that point.

4. 5 Passion according to G.H.: image in the utility room

Among the most significant images found in this work is the painting that GH finds in the

maid's room, which he presumes could have been made by Janair. What stands out about

this image within the construction of the story is the freedom from conventionalisms that it

presents, an aspect that is reflected in the nudity of the painting: