ZARITÉ SEDELLA: BODY AS A SPACE OF RESISTANCE IN ISABEL ALLENDE'S LA ISLA BAJO EL MAR

Abstract

In her literary work La isla bajo el mar (2009), Chilean writer Isabel Allende weaves a narrative of the complex journey of a mulatto slave, Zarité Sedella, towards emancipation, contextualized in the French colony of Santo Domingo during the 18th century, a period marked by the exacerbation of racial tensions and the outbreak of the famous Haitian Revolution. Throughout this journey to freedom, in contrast to the experiences of the male slaves, such as her lover Gambo, Zarité’s situation is notably more intricate due to her condition as a woman, since her feminine corporeality, as reflected in the text, not only prevents her from resorting to arms and assuming an active role as a warrior, but also exposes her to the leering and sexual aggressions of her master, Valmorian. This article aims to carry out an exhaustive analysis of the mechanisms employed by the protagonist to use her own body as a space of resistance, confronting the convergence of multiple facets of her subaltern identity -female, mulatto and slave-, which are imposed by the dominant discourses and are inscribed in her corporeality, and granting the body a subversive resignification. In this sense, we will discover that unlike her male counterparts, the protagonist challenges the operations of power through the configuration of the body’s space, attempting to emancipate herself from her prevailing social and cultural reality.