ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the gradual journey to self-acceptance is best exemplified by a close examination of one particular example of the final space of renegotiation in Molloy's text. The author find it compelling that dreams play a key role in En breve carcel just as they did in Peri Rossi's La nave de los locos; adopted in both texts as powerful tools for the examination and deconstruction of fixed identity categories. En breve carcel is absolutely a response to the experience of marginalization by others but initially not of social marginalization enacted by institutional forces. Molloy's narrative as a whole retains a rather oneiric quality as a result of its generation through a free-flowing, Proustian process of memory connections, inflecting the highly personal nature of the writing. Thus, Molloy underscores plurality of identity and defies rigid heterosexual and patriarchal norms not only by taking on narratives about gender, but by engaging some of the foundational myths of patriarchy.
