Mutaciones trasgresoras: el cuerpo fantástico en dos cuentos de Myriam Bustos y Carmen Naranjo

In the last four decades, the fantastic has become an instrument of transgression, a literary device to subvert the cultural codes that shape social and political reality in Latin America. A significant number of women writers have used the fantastic to challenge the patriarchal values and ideological narratives which have given meaning and defined female reality in many Latin American countries.
In the light of Christine Brooke-Rose proposition regarding allegory and the fantastic, and critical proposals from feminist theorists (Susan Bordo and Anne Cranny-Francis), this article discusses two short stories, “Simbiosis del encuentro” by Carmen Naranjo and “Mutante” by Myriam Bustos, as paradigmatic examples of this allegorical modality of the fantastic. Both texts introduce the fantastic as a metaphorical tool to challenge and re-interpret patriarchal discourses on the female body and identity. Both Naranjo and Bustos propose in their short stories a transgression of the limits and constrains imposed on women’s bodies by the dominant male discourse.