ЖЕНА У ДОБА МЕКСИЧКЕ РЕВОЛУЦИЈЕ: ЦРНА АНГУСТИЈАС ФРАНСИСКА РОХАСА ГОНСАЛЕСА
WOMEN IN THE AGE OF MEXICAN REVOLUTION FRANCISCO ROJAS GONZÁLEZ’S LA NEGRA ANGUSTIAS

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the role of women in the Mexican Revolution starting from the novel La Negra Angustias written by the Mexican writer Francisco Rojas González. The research is based on the assumption that the protagonist of the novel, Angustias Farrera, symbolically represents a powerless and downtrodden part of the Mexican population that, after centuries of suffering oppression, rises up in arms demanding a respect of basic human rights. We point out that in the period of the Mexican Revolution (1910– 1920), Angustias gets the opportunity to transform from a marginalised and passive mulatto peasant woman into an active social factor that tends to change the social system. As the military officer that forms part of the Liberation Army of the South, guerrilla force led by Emiliano Zapata, one of the most famous Mexican revolutionaries, Angustias stands up for the vulnerable part of the Mexican population, primarily women, demanding the right to freedom, independence and education. Her initial enthusiasm, however, gradually weakens under the influence of the teacher with whom she falls in love. The teacher Manuel in this Novel of the Mexican Revolution plays the role of an opportunistic intellectual who joins the Mexican Revolution in order to gain material benefit. By getting married with a greedy opportunist, Angustias abandons the revolution, and betrays her friends and ideals. From an active military officer, Angustias once again becomes a passive woman whose role in the context of the patriarchal Mexican culture is reduced to a self-sacrificing wife and mother. Therefore, following the fate of this revolutionary woman from childhood to adulthood, we try to follow the course of the Mexican Revolution in terms of armed rebellion, from the initial excitement, through the heated struggles to a status quo return.

• Details
• Contents