3 - Motherhood and Gender in El cuarto mundo

Summary

Body and Text in the Periphery

El cuarto mundo is, essentially, a fictional representation of the construction of gender. The backdrop to the action of the novel is the increasingly enclosed space of, initially, the uterine chamber and then the family home, and the narrative is embedded in dysfunctional familial affiliations that become progressively intertwined with the public context. The narrative voices are those of fraternal twins, one male and one female, who narrate the first and second sections of the novel respectively, although there is a shift to an omniscient third-person narrator in the final two pages. The narrative of the ‘mellizo’ consists mainly of his attempts to comprehend his relationship with his mother and twin sister. His ponderous and self-opinionated language, and his use of conventional syntax starkly contrast with the fractured and often obscure narrative style of the ‘melliza’. While he aims to offer totalizing judgements and truths, the intention of his twin sister, she informs us, is to provoke and disturb. The novel ends with the birth of a baby girl produced by diamela eltit (the name given to the ‘melliza’ on the final page of the novel) and her twin brother: ‘Lejos, en una casa abandonada a la fraternidad, entre un 7 y 8 de abril, diamela eltit, asistida por su hermano mellizo, da a luz una niña. La niña sudaca irá a la venta’ (p. 159).

In contrast to Por la patria, which Eltit refers to as ‘una obra más … monumental’, she describes El cuarto mundo as ‘una obra menor pero bien hecha’ and makes reference to the concision and craftsmanship of two novellas, by Carson McCullers and Yasunari Kawabata, as important models for her own work. While drawing on themes previously explored in Por la patria, such as motherhood, the family, incest and sexual identity, Eltit has stated that her purpose in writing this novel was to create what she has called ‘“un doble relato”.