Imaginarios del miedo y violencia de género en Pelea de gallos de María Fernanda Ampuero: un análisis hermenéutico del terror cotidiano

Abstract

This article analyzes the imaginaries of fear and the repre sentation of gender-based violence in Pelea de gallos (2018), a short story collection by Ecuadorian writer María Fernanda Ampuero. From a hermeneutic discourse perspective, selected stories are examined to show how horror arises not from the supernatural, but from everyday life, particularly within do mestic and family spaces. Based on a theoretical framework drawing on Tzvetan Todorov, Stephen King, Julia Kristeva, Pierre Bourdieu, Rita Segato, Teun van Dijk, and J.L. Austin, the analysis is structured around three axes: the configuration of the home as a space of violence, the use of the grotesque and the abject as narrative strategies, and the construction of imaginaries about femininity and masculinity. The article concludes that Ampuero’s stories construct a form of structural horror that challenges how patriarchal power operates in daily life through language, bodies, and power relations.