La vida íntima de Marie Goetz by Mariana Cox de Stuven: towards a construction of the female subject

Abstract

This essay offers an overview of the work by Chilean writer Mariana Cox de Stuven (pseud, Shade, 1871?-1914) in the social and cultural context of the turn of the 20th century, as well as a close reading of her novel La vida íntima de Marie Goetz (1909) in light of the prevailing views in love and the emergence of female voices on the literary scene of the time. This work, considered, despite its hybrid genre attributes, to be the first novel by a Chilean female writer, departs from the harmonious nineteenth century vision of the romantic relationship and proposes instead a dialogue between two opposite conceptions of love, one derived from Romantic Neo-Platonism and the other from bourgeois pragmatism, without opting definitively for either one. By treating the romantic relationship as an object central to women's existence and social roles, the novel proposes the construction of female subjectivity as inextricable defined by and tied to relationships with men and society.