Perversion as Subjective Strategy in Amor, curiosidad,prozac y dudas by Lucía Etxebarria
| Autor | Kristin Kiely |
| Cargo | Francis Marion University |
| Páginas | 129-148 |
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ENCUENTROS
ENCUENTROSISSN1692-5858.No.1.Juniode2013•P.129-148
Perversion as Subjective Strategy in Amor, curiosidad,
prozac y dudas by Lucía Etxebarria
Kristin A. Kiely
Francis Marion University
kkiely@fmarion.edu
ABSTRACT
Ana, Rosa, and Cristina are protagonists in a desperate search for the Law and a way to deal with desire and the Other.
Amor, curiosidad, prozac, y dudas, by Lucía Etxebarria, is a novel about the Gaena sisters that demonstrates the need
for a strategy for women to implement in order to come to terms with desire and the suspension of the Master, when the
Other is in abeyance, in post-Franco Spain. A psychoanalytic, specifically a Lacanian, analysis is appropriate for this
novel as its structures suggest such a reading. Lucía Etxebarria presents three sisters living in post-Franco Spain who
form a composite subject, which in turn provides the Spanish reader with a model of how to deal with desire and the Other.
Keywords: Post-Franco, Psychoanalysis, 20th Century Peninsular Literature, Lacan
La perversión como estrategia subjetiva en Amor, curiosidad prozac y dudas
por Lucía Etxebarria
RESUMEN
Ana, Rosa y Cristina son protagonistas que desesperadamente buscan la Ley y una manera de abordar el deseo y El Otro.
Amor, curiosidad, prozac y dudas, por Lucía Etxebarria, es una novela sobre las hermanas Gaena que demuestra la nece-
sidad de mujeres para una estrategia que se puede implementar para avenirse con el deseo y la suspensión del Maestro,
cuando El Otro está suspendido, en la España pos-Franco. Un análisis psicoanalítico, específicamente de Lacan, es apro-
piado para esta novela como sus estructuras sugieren este tipo de lectura. Lucía Etxebarria presenta a tres hermanas que
viven en la España pos-Franco y que forman una sujeta compuesta, la cual le provee a la lectora española con un modelo
de cómo abordar el deseo y El Otro.
Palabrasclave: Pos-Franco, psicoanálisis, la literatura peninsular del siglo XX, Lacan
Recibido: 8 de mayo de 2012. Aceptado: 13 de junio de 2013
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Introduction
Ana, Rosa, and Cristina are protagonists in
a desperate search for the Law and a way
to deal with desire and the Other. Amor,
curiosidad, prozac, y dudas, by Lucía Etxe-
barria, is a novel about the Gaena sisters
that demonstrates the need for a strategy
for women to implement in order to come
to terms with desire and the suspension of
the Master, when the Other is in abeyance,
in post-Franco Spain. As with Montero's
novel, there has been little critical attention
given to this novel in the ten years since it
was published. A psychoanalytic, speci-
fically a Lacanian, analysis is appropriate
for this novel as its structures suggest such
a reading. The critiques that have been
published about this text focus mainly on
gender roles and how the sisters represent
the three different stages of occupational
positions, sexuality, and gender mores after
Franco's dictatorship ended (1939-1975).
Most of the analyses of Amor, curiosidad,
prozac y dudas focus on the roles the Gae-
na sisters fall into or the pop-psychology
that the critics see the protagonists using.
However, Carmen de Urioste’s article
“Las novelas de Lucía Etxebarria como
proyección de sexualidades disidentes
en la España democrática,” comes close
to a psychoanalytic reading, highlighting
structures of the perverse strategy found
in Etxebarria’s novel, though not explicitly
mentioning them as perverse.
Carmen de Urioste notes the lack of models
that women in post-Franco Spain have avai-
lable to them in her article. She analyzes
the different forms of feminine sexuality
that appear in Lucía Etxebarria's novels
Amor, curiosidad, prozac y dudas and Beatriz
y los cuerpos celestes. De Urioste comments
upon the ethical stance that Etxebarria is
providing her readers, noting the difference
in the construction of her women characters.
She suggests that the author’s representa-
tion of feminine sexuality is distinct from
the traditional heterosexual model, instead
offering other models of sexuality in order
to accept desire that is not compulsorily
heterosexual. She also believes that this
model can also help women to recognize an
identity that has been censored, forbidden,
or completely absent (p. 123). De Urioste
notes that Etxebarria, as other Spanish
female authors have done, is providing a
model for her readers that is not available to
them otherwise. The critic discusses what
she believes is Etxebarria's historical and
archetypical summary of the three biggest
steps in feminine sexuality in twentieth
century Spain. Etxebarria has provided
“el singular modelo sociosexual hetero-
sexual difundido por la cultura franquista
de posguerra” ‘the singular socio-sexual,
heterosexual model spread by the Francoist
postwar culture’ (de Urioste, 2000, p. 124).
The older sister, Ana, is a traditional hou-
sewife; the middle child Rosa is a closeted
lesbian, and the youngest child Cristina is
sexually liberated.
De Urioste comments upon a line at the
end of the novel that is also important
in the Lacanian reading of perversion.
Cristina asks the reader who can say in
the end of the novel that the three Gaena
sisters are not the same person. De Urioste
notes that this question also has an effect
on the sexuality represented in the novel:
“Es decir, al finalizar la novela las tres
hermanas se encuentran en una situación
de desafío al heterosexismo compulsivo, el
cual prohibe cualquier alternativa sexual
que se aleje de la práctica reproductiva”
‘That is to say, at the end of the novel the
three sisters find themselves in a situation of
challenging the compulsive heterosexism,
which prohibits any sexual alternatives that
stray from the reproductive practice’ (de
Urioste, 2000, p. 126). The Gaena sisters
certainly lend credence to this claim by de
Urioste as Rosa is a closeted lesbian and
Cristina is very promiscuous although Ana
appears to have accepted this “compulsive
heterosexism” at first glance. But at the
end of the novel, Ana leaves her husband
and her traditional housewife position and
winds up in a mental institution. At this
point, she has become a part of a different
group, willfully joining the ranks of single
mothers and divorced women.
De Urioste analyzes the female protagonists
that Etxebarria has used to form one group,
stating that the women form a more or less
homogenous and cohesive group that has
been conditioned by biological factors as
much as by social and historical limitations.
The critic notes that the sisters' conditioning
has taken place with man always as a point
of reference, and that is how they relate to the
world. However, she also discusses Rosa’s
lesbianism as a sort of subversive strategy
against the heterosexual norm of society. De
Urioste claims that the destruction caused
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