| The depiction of women in Cuban literature has suffered a noticeable change since the beginning of the 20th century, when the Spanish concept of honor was still present in the newly created republic, to the first years of the 21st century, in the heart of the "special period"---the economic crisis that started in 1990. By analyzing six novels written by male authors with strong women characters, I examine the transformations of the female literary models. I explore how they mutate from "senoras de su casa" (housewives supported by their husbands or partners) to "jineteras", hookers that deal with foreign tourists and who not only support themselves, but also give money to the men in their lives.;I use two novels written and published during the second decade of the 20th century, Las honradas and Las impuras, by Miguel de Carrion, to explore the republican period. They both show the naturalistic tendencies of the author and it is in them where the picture of women as housewives appears. In the second chapter I use two novels by Manuel Cofino, a follower of the current of socialist realism, for the first decades of the revolution: La ultima mujer y el proximo combate and Amor a sombra y sol. Here, women characters are either self-sacrificing comrades, still subordinate to men, or very sexual characters with some sort of mental problem. Finally, two novels by Pedro Juan Gutierrez, El rey de La Habana and Animal tropical are studied in the context of the economic crisis of the 90's. These novels belong to the current of "dirty realism" and are characterized by a critical picture of the Cuban reality. It is in them where the character of the jinetera appears.;I also resort to the concept of the "male gaze," as created by Laura Mulvey, but applied to literature instead of cinema. I analyze how the narrator (male in all cases except one) follows his female characters as if by holding a video camera close to them, and its implications in the appearance and behavior of the characters. |
