ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I reconstrue the protagonist Álvaro’s affiliation with his grandmother’s memory, which, thus far, has been interpreted as a literary representation of the generation of grandchildren’s mobilisation to dignify their grandparents’ memory (de Urioste 74). I reread Álvaro’s recuperation of his grandmother’s memory as a process of historically gendered self-discovery that reaffirms the contemporary configuration of masculinity, repudiates patriarchal values, and showcases the emergence of the new man and neoliberal feminism. Based on a gender studies theoretical framework, my analysis proposes that Álvaro’s reverence for his grandmother’s memory is the outcome of a gendered process of identity work, spurred by a floundering father–son relationship and a subsequent yearning for a gender precedent that resonates with his own version of “feminist masculinity,” which he finds in the memory of his grandmother’s performance of female masculinity. Interwoven in my analysis is an examination of a highly affective victim–perpetrator relationship, in effect the marriage of Julio Carrión González and Angélica Fernández, which causes us to rethink the victim–perpetrator relationship in terms of intimacy and self-interest. This chapter illustrates the gendered and affective dimensions of perpetration
