The forced silence of the stereotype: The personas of Um palimpsesto de putas, by Elvira Ligna

Abstract

This text is an analysis of the novel As if we were in the palimpsest of putas by Elvira Vigna (2016). The process of building the prostitute character, as well as the narrative characteristics that corroborate the development of identity, constitute the focus of this essay. There will be several aspects that contribute to a literary representation based on stereotype; these problems involve the female body, commodification and other labels placed on sex workers, those unremarkable individuals of the erotic underworld . The use of subjectivity in the construction of the characters will also be analysed in order to return the protagonism to the prostitute, a figure who is stigmatized both in society and in literature, and to give them recognition as a subject. Vigna skilfully presents a series of stigmas and then breaks them down via the questions of an enthusiastic narrator. Through her list of prostitutes, or her palimpsesto de putas, she employs a crude and successive exposure of stereotypes, in a model of denunciation, which she employs to destroy them.