Comic Lubricity: The Construction of Gender in Concierto Barroco

Even though there are numerous studies on Carpentier's Concierto barroco in both Spanish and English, this article is the first gender aware reading of the novella. The theoretical framework for this analysis draws on the works of feminist theorists including Simone de Beauvoir, Catherine Belsey, and Susan Rubin Suleiman. The author treats the issue of the representation of Woman in the text either as a denigrated grotesque object, as a comic, burlesque object, as an angel-like male fantasy, or as an aesthetic reference to Woman as myth-such as Eve or La Malinche. After presenting a general discussion of the construction of gender during the Baroque period, Maloof enters into a textual analysis and points out the specific moments of narrative ambiguity related to the depiction of Woman as the Other.