Re-Creating Space in Cristina Cerezales Laforet’s El pozo del cielo (2013)

Abstract

Cristina Cerezales Laforet’s 2013 novel El pozo del cielo, set in contemporary Madrid, intimates that by engaging the arts and literature we participate in a process that remedies divisions in life and creates space for re-defined gender roles. Cerezales’ narrative supports Henri Lefebvre’s theory that the arts serve the urban and neutralize alienation in modern society by illustrating how fiction can open the mind to new possibilities. Her novel demonstrates a creative way to alter men’s and women’s places in urban society when opposites—sky and well, male and female, house and urban space—attain a new balance. Cerezales illuminates the power of the pen by transposing the space her characters occupy, with the male inside and the female outside.