Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Critical Ethics: Witnessing Otherness In La Última Niebla, Christine Garst-Santos

Dissidences

La última niebla [The Final Mist] (1935) by María Luisa Bombal presents a female protagonist traumatized by the restrictive gender norms of 1930s Argentina. One would expect that the protagonist’s increasing alienation throughout the novel and her ultimate surrender to an identity that she loathes would generate a compassionate response from readers. However, the text has generated a significant body of notably unsympathetic—and even censorious—criticism from scholars. In an effort to analyze why Bombal’s novel and the protagonist’s performance have been problematic for critics, I turn from literary theory to philosophy. By combining Richard Rorty’s vision of a …