Luisa Valenzuela's Versions of Bedtime/Badtime Stories

The willful and spoiled young woman who is his heroine ignores the dangers presented by the wolf in grandmother's disguise and accepts his invitation to join him in bed. Since this Little Red Riding Hood does not try to escape his clutches, when she is eaten at the end, it is just deserts for the wolf! Initially, the daughter, mother, and welfare separate beings. Because of Little Red Riding Hood's activities in the forest, she gains in experience and wisdom. Valenzuela's reference to the "embetunados" alludes to these military rebels whose uprising began at a key army base in Buenos Aires, the Campo de Mayo Infantry School.9 La Señora, who witnesses the advances of the embetunados, is not in the Campo de Mayo but in the club "de campo," in my reading a not so subtle allusion to these monstrous armed forces. Valenzuela offers us heroines who can conquer concrete terrors and face painful memories. [...]the final reconciliation of the wolf and the woman in both stories suggests the issue of national reconciliation.