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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 11/04
Out of the Glass Niche and into the Swimming Pool: the Transformation of the Sirena figure in Concha Méndez's Surtidor: Poesías
Nicole Altamirano
March 2004
University of California, Berkeley
Center for German and European Studies
Abstract
The present study is an exploration of revisionist mythmaking in Concha Méndez's Surtidor: poesías (1928), specifically of the Generation of 27 poet's appropriation and inscription of the androcentric myth of the siren/mermaid into female discourse, as seen through three poems: "Nadadora," "Natación," and "Bar". Through an analysis of these poems I show that Méndez dismantles the conventional "sirena" figure and revises her to suit a modern woman. In her appropriation of the "sirena," Méndez replaces the antiquated siren/ mermaid of masculine hegemonic discourse with an athletic, capable, and liberated water woman who decides her own destiny. In presenting a woman who frees herself from the restrictions of male subjectivity, Concha Méndez proposes an alternative model for female iconography—a siren singing a song rarely listened to, a song of feminine freedom and self-determination that would set the poet apart from her contemporaries for many years.
