South American Research Journal, 4(1), 5-11.

https://www.sa-rj.net/index.php/sarj/article/view/51

ISSN 2806-5638

Palabras clave: complejidad, narrativa ecuatoriana,

monstruosidad, violencia, cuerpo, modernidad.

The body as a symbol of violence and

monstrosity in “Sacrificios humanos”, by

María Fernanda Ampuero

INTRODUCTION

To analyze the stories in Ampuero's (1976) book

Sacrificios Humanos," published by Páginas de Espuma in

El cuerpo como símbolo de violencia y

monstruosidad en “Sacrificios humanos” de

María Fernanda Ampuero

2021, it is fitting to consider the statement by Aníbal

Fernando Bonilla (2022): "It is an autofictional compendium

questioning the dominant system, with passages of the

oppressed history of the deep Guayaquil, or, in turn, with

hyperbolic, brutal, vehement events, engendered in any other

geographical environment." Bonilla is correct in asserting

that "Sacrificios Humanos" combines, on one hand, the macro

reality (geographical environment) and, on the other, the

author's individual reality (autofictional compendium) and

her problematic relationship with her father. This

relationship, in a way, sheds light on the dark masculine

representation that loves and kills—a form of unhealthy love

that deforms and then kills. However, this is not the focus of

the present study, despite it being a theme that inevitably

intersects the analysis. Our focus is on the body as a symbol

of violence and monstrosity.

Oswaldo Sebastián Ávila-Vinueza

Universidad Bolivariana del Ecuador. Km 5 ½ vía Durán Yaguachi,

Ecuador.

Correspondence: avilavinuezasebastian@gmail.com

Received: May 3, 2024 - Accepted: June 10, 2024 - Published:

June 13, 2024

ABSTRACT

This essay delves into the literary fiction of "Sacrificios

Humanos" by Ecuadorian author María Fernanda Ampuero,

exploring the impact of violence, pain, and monstrosity on her

protagonists, especially the female ones. The purpose is to

analyze the characteristics that amplify the prejudices

surrounding the protagonists, unraveling the narrative

complexity of Ampuero's work. This complexity also allows

us to address the treatment of the body in the author's writing.

To achieve this objective, the study inventories the

conception of the female body from Western philosophy,

drawing on authors such as Plato, Baruch Spinoza, Friedrich

Nietzsche, and Jean-Luc Nancy. With this theoretical

framework, the analysis proceeds to examine the stories in

Ampuero's book to understand how, through denunciation

and a highly personal poetics, the author portrays the city

itself as a failed promise of modernity.

Initially, the study proposed examining the body as a

metaphor rather than a symbol, but this was ultimately

discarded. This is because a metaphor is a figure of speech

that represents a certain reality through another, whereas

Ampuero's narrative in "Sacrificios Humanos" does not

metaphorize reality but represents it starkly and without

embellishment. Although she uses metaphor and other

literary devices, it is different in essence. "Euphemisms and

metaphors are not enough, because in Ampuero's stories

everything is disconsolate and is enunciated from the most

purulent wounds" (Rodríguez, 2021).

In short, violence in Ampuero's stories is presented

starkly, exposing in the harsh light of noon the practices of a

sexist, xenophobic, and misogynistic society—violent in its

living conditions and in its responses. Narratively, this allows

the mutilated, beaten, and, in the best cases (sadly), injured

body to become a symbol of a sort of internal revolution that

her female characters often fail to carry out. When this

revolution does occur, it is only possible through violence

itself.

The body, trapped irreparably in a vicious cycle of

destruction, validates the phrase of another Ecuadorian

writer, Mónica Ojeda: "...never is our body more ours than

when it hurts" (2016, p. 81). Since the sexual act is also a

small death, Ampuero aptly responds: "Era ese nombre que

su amante decía durante el éxtasis y que la penetraba por

todos lados. Era esa mujer que se llamaba Edith y por lo tanto

existía" (2021, p. 78).

This study is grounded in a qualitative methodological

approach, focusing on the analysis of María Fernanda

Ampuero's stories in "Sacrificios Humanos" to articulate the

body as a symbol of violence and monstrosity. According to

Lourdes and Munch (2014), although the qualitative method

is generally applied in social sciences to capture and collect

information through observation, interviews, and focus

groups, its inductive procedure makes the methodology for

collecting information more flexible. Furthermore, this

research is descriptive in nature, as it describes the

characteristics of a situation or phenomenon.

Keywords:

complexity,

Ecuadorian

narrative,

monstrosity, violence, body, modernity.

RESUMEN

Este ensayo se sumerge en la ficción literaria de

“

Sacrificios humanos” de la autora ecuatoriana María

Fernanda Ampuero, explorando el impacto de la violencia, el

dolor y la monstruosidad en sus protagonistas, sobre todo

femeninas. El propósito es analizar las características que

acrecientan los prejuicios que envuelven a las protagonistas,

desentrañando la complejidad narrativa de Ampuero, lo cual

nos permite, además, abordar el tratamiento del cuerpo en la

obra de la autora. Para alcanzar este objetivo, el presente

estudio realiza un inventario de la concepción del cuerpo

femenino desde la filosofía occidental a través de autores

como Platón, Baruch Spinoza, Friedrich Nietzsche y Jean-

Luc Nancy. Con este marco teórico, se procede a analizar los

relatos que componen el libro de Ampuero para comprender

cómo, a través de la denuncia y la poética personalísima, la

autora da cuenta de la ciudad en sí misma como una promesa

fallida de la modernidad.

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The story "Edith" best represents the body trapped in

pain and liberated through pleasure. When the eponymous

protagonist is killed, her blood returns to her lover's place,

whom she mistakes for God due to his superhuman ability to

make love to her. This is a clear biblical allusion to the

passage of Sodom and Gomorrah, capitalized by Lot, the

fearful of Yahweh, and his "disobedient" wife, Sarah.

Monstrosity also intertwines with physical appearance,

embodied in teratological beings who star or co-star in

Ampuero's stories. These characters, who do not conform to

aesthetic canons, are marginalized by their environment: a

quasi-schizophrenic junkie, a hunchbacked girl, a mentally

disabled child who loves leeches, and bulimic or overweight

teenagers.

belonging to nature, whose existence is objective and whose

extension is limited. Of course, its limits respond to how the

legality of human societies is structured. One body cannot,

and should not, harm another, but it constantly happens. The

body is a presence, a proof that the being exists.

The body as a philosophical concept

Once the general definition has been established, it is

time to approach it from the conceptions of the body and

corporeality according to some Western philosophers such as

Plato, Baruch Spinoza, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Luc

Nancy. But first, we propose a concept that we believe

encompasses them all: "It is in the body that human existence

acquires a spatio-temporal dimension, and it is the body that

makes the human being an active part of nature and the

process of life" (Gómez and Sastre, 2008, p. 120).

In the ancient world, the term "soma" alludes to the

corpse and not directly to the body as a counterpart to the soul,

so that "the body is not conceived as a 'unity of harmonic

parts,' but as a juxtaposition of separate organs and elements"

(Gómez and Sastre, 2008, p. 121). Aristotle, for his part,

believed that the soul is a first "entelechy" of a body that has

life in potency; this principle of movement unifies life in its

totality, including sensibility and understanding. "The soul

cannot be without the body since it is the body that is the form

of the soul. Thus, the soul is not a separate entity from the

body: the soul is 'natural' and is inseparable from the animate

compound of living beings" (Páramo, 2012, p. 563).

While Aristotle held that the soul could not subsist

without a body, Plato posited a dualism between body and

soul so radical in his conception that he believed we could not

obtain truth except by getting rid of the body, which he called

the prison of the soul. He conceived of the body as guilty of

the passions, which attracted war, disease, and decay. This

thought was seminal to the Christian worldview, which

divided the paradise of God and his archangels from the earth

with its sinful men and women.

In time, Plato's idea of the body as a prison for the soul

was taken up by an important Christian thinker, Plotinus,

who, seeing the soul as an ethereal substance, argued that it

should be separated from the body or, better yet, used to

achieve spiritual goals. From such an approach came the need

for self-inflicted punishment to achieve liberation from the

earthly world. Torture and mortification became a Christian

tradition aimed at curbing impure desires and viewing

masturbation and sex in general with repudiation, labeling

them as the "original sin," which consequently made every

body impure.

Likewise, monstrosity is presented in a second form

through physically attractive male characters whose

personalities ultimately turn them into demonic creatures,

fulfilling the premonitory phrase of Tomás Eloy Martínez:

"Isn't the beautiful but the beginning of the terrible?" (1995).

As if the customary practice of Evil in capital letters were

embedded in the depths of their souls or essence, the male

body corrodes and ends up, as in the case of the gringo in the

story "Lorena"—a transcript of Lorena Gallo's rapist

husband—transforming into human waste. Ampuero seems

to suggest that Evil in capital letters crystallizes behind the

mask of good manners or promises of love because behind

them are people, and for that very reason, the quintessence of

everything abject that the world of human beings can exhibit.

Finally, the third form that monstrosity takes is found in

nature and the everyday brutality that is its own law. This

feature is more atmospheric than an exploration by the author,

demonstrating that even domestic animals, which appear

affable and tender to the naked eye, can suddenly tear two

fingers off a baby's right hand. In short, in the world of

"Sacrificios Humanos," there is no possible refuge because

Evil is not in others but within us, and it only takes one day

for chance to fill anyone with "the white ray of terror,"

leading them to splash in the waters of individual and

collective hysteria.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Concepts around the body

The conceptions presented here regarding the concept of

the body derive from an extensive exploration of Western

philosophy. This journey has allowed us to understand the

treatment of this concept throughout its narrative.

Definition of body

The body, besides being a "trapping" prison, was also

considered a kind of "animal" that, with its own instinctive

tendencies and spirits, waged war against the ideals and

values of the soul, thus hindering its dialectical process of

liberation towards truth and goodness. Because of its material

origin, the body was considered constitutively evil and

adverse to the healthy and spiritual origin of the soul, which

came from the world of ideas (Astacio, 2001, p. 1).

The implantation of the Christian worldview with its

rigid patriarchal hierarchies relegated women to domestic

tasks such as cooking and caring for children, while also

curbing human libido. Not only was the body, but also sex

incarnated in women, due to the heterosexuality imposed by

the conventional Christian family unit, rejected with deep

If we review the Dictionary of the Real Academia

Española (RAE, 2014), we find at least twenty-three

meanings of the concept "body": Cuerpo, (From lat. corpus),

m. 1. That which has limited extension, perceptible by the

senses. || 23. Mil. Set of soldiers with their respective officers.

In all the definitions reviewed, we find a constant: the

body has a limit, and as a limit, it must impose its boundaries.

These boundaries are eagerly sought by the women in

Sacrificios Humanos": not to be touched without their

consent, not to be beaten, not to be killed. Based on the above

and the experiences described by Ampuero, we propose a

definition of the body: a human or animal component, or

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contempt by the evangelized masses. Any desire that did not

aim for communion with God became, irremediably, a

shameful desire.

The reflection goes beyond biology; it implies stopping

thinking of the body as something organized and imagining it

as an event, a conception related to the vision of

contemporary Ecuadorian writers. They seek to write about

the body through the word: to turn the body into an idea, to

turn corporeality into individual territory to understand the

other, the different, that which until now has been

misunderstood. "Writing the body means to make inscriptions

on it, to touch it and sculpt it with thought, to develop a

somatography, to make the body itself to be read" (Gómez

and Sastre, 2008, p. 129).

All the interpretations that Western thinkers have

presented share a common question revolving around the role

of the body in human existence, and whether the body is an

indispensable element to understand human nature. "The

body is both an object of knowledge and a target of power"

(Prósperi, 2018, p. 171). From this conception, the human

being is (de)forming the world.

However, the Renaissance transformed theocentrism

into anthropocentrism, a time when man placed himself at the

center of creation and reclaimed his body and the corporeal,

manifesting this change above all in art: painting, sculpture,

music, and literature. The nascent field of anatomy, which

dissected bodies to show that humans possess an inalienable

component called the body, simultaneously encouraged

people to mold what was previously considered only God's

domain: nature. The idea of individuation progressed slowly,

first passing through the privileged layers of society. Before

becoming objectified in the social imaginary, it had to be a

universal practice (Gómez and Sastre, 2008, p. 125).

When Cartesian rationalism appeared with René

Descartes and his essay "The Discourse on Method," the body

was separated from consciousness, and reason from the

material world. Descartes divorced both entities, believing

that, although they are different substances, they can interact

with each other. However, English empiricist philosophers,

opposing the Cartesian view, claimed that the body is an

entity that feels and that knowledge arises from that process.

Baruch de Spinoza proposed "a single substance for all

attributes," performing a much more subtle and profound

intellectual operation: the soul is not dependent on the body,

and "an attribute of the body is also a sense of the soul"

"Sacrificios humanos": the body seen through violence

and monstrosity.

"To write is also to bless a life that has not been blessed,"

says a phrase by the famous Ukrainian-Brazilian writer

Clarice Lispector, quoted as an epigraph in "Sacrificios

Humanos." Setting an epigraph is indeed an art. The

Ecuadorian writer Leonardo Valencia (2021) foresaw the

need for an essay on the topic of the epigraph. The function

of an epigraph is to serve as a guide for the writer throughout

their literary exploration, much like Virgil guiding Dante.

Though the epigraph is a premonition for the context to be

fulfilled, it is not enough to simply choose one from Homer,

Borges, or Faulkner. The writer's talent must ensure that both

the book and the epigraph pose "a single question" (Carrión,

2002, p. 12) and formulate it throughout the writing of the

book. It is essential for the reader to clearly discern the

purpose of the epigraph in relation to the book's content. Only

when the book ends will the chosen epigraph become, or not,

an organic part of the reading. If the novel is good, an

epigraph from Borges, for example, becomes the writer's

own, merging into the essence of the work and enriching its

meaning, becoming an inseparable part of the reading

experience.

Within this framework, the epigraph with which

Ampuero begins the book is doubly significant and directly

related to the two narrative axes of her stories: violence and

monstrosity. First, "the life that has not been blessed" refers

to the broken bodies of women who have been raped,

murdered, and abused due to dire economic situations and the

lack of opportunities. These conditions, combined with the

macho imagery derived from religion, politics, and sexual

orientation, create a failed social fabric. Through the

representation of these broken bodies, reality becomes a

monster that spits out women.

(

Gómez and Sastre, 2008, p. 126).

Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, pointed to

Christianity and its values through a furious denunciation of

Plato and his system of thought, which has had such an

influence on the West. Nietzsche did not devalue Plato's

contribution but rather investigated the consequences it has

had for humanity. Later, Nietzsche wrote: "Write with blood

and you will write with the spirit" (Nietzsche, 2010),

implying that not only the body belongs to the human being,

but the soul is its effluvium.

Later on, phenomenology and existentialism take on the

theme of existence as a whole, with concepts like the body,

corporeality, and freedom being superimposed on merely

transcendental and ontological versions. In short, life is

experienced through the body and all its senses. In this regard,

Gómez and Sastre (2008) synthesize the assumptions of

thinkers such as Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Mounier, and

Michel Foucault. The body is conceived as a limit, becoming

a means of approaching fragility and a new understanding of

the world's conception. The body is articulated around time

and space, but at the same time, the corporeal being can

transcend them through its self-understanding and

understanding of the environment. Thus, the idea that the

body is an instrument becomes obsolete; to be such, it must

be beyond our reach, which is not the case with the body. It

is thanks to the body that knowledge of the world is attained.

Rather, the body is evoked as language, since through the

word we carry out a "co-construction" of the world. The idea

of the body as presence is configured because of its

relationship with "others." Individuality varies between men

and women due to their corporeality, but this does not mean

they cease to belong to the human gender (Gómez and Sastre,

The second meaning that Lispector's epigraph achieves

is by making these stark and unjust realities visible, realities

that have long been submerged in the most shameless silence.

In this context, the beauty of a book lies not only in its

aesthetics but in its capacity to reveal these hidden truths.

This suggests a religious dimension attributed to art: the

possibility of transcending the superficial and reaching a

deeper understanding of human reality. If the author succeeds

in giving form to their narrative matter, exorcising the tutelary

008, pp. 127-128).

Finally, Jean-Luc Nancy (1940) and his philosophy on

the body maintain that we lack a body, as the human being is

exteriority and infinite exposure, "a body turned outward."

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demons of the reality against which they struggle, writing can

bless life itself, or better: its prolonged silences.

again and in her attempt to stop him she is brutally attacked.

The end of the story raises a whole poetics: the woman who

through her screams found a new form of herself, freer and

more definitive, has a gag in her mouth. She is riding an old

donkey, going towards death.

Violence from the physically monstrous

This section addresses the first of the axes through

which Ampuero constructs the concept of violence: beauty.

By not conforming to Western aesthetic canons, beauty

becomes literal, concrete ugliness, often embodied in

teratological beings such as junkies, dwarfs, anorexic, or

overweight women. These individuals end up marginalized

by the system and are in a constant exchange of roles to

decide who will be the executioner and who will be the

victim.

This narrative brings together the myth of Lot and the

destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God would not

allow men and women, and especially same-sex couples, to

enjoy themselves without restraint. This myth suggests that

perhaps they might have discovered that God can be a wet

orgasm, a furious attack that satisfies an animal will. The flier

tells Edith's wife not to look back, not to see God, "the only

living thing among so much death," but she, brave like Sarah,

does not heed this warning. She looks back, sees, and is killed.

However, her blood flows down the hill, "returning,

returning," to the place where she loved and where life took

on meaning.

"Edith" is a story about a woman who rediscovers

herself through becoming the lover of an older man. The

moral problem of the story lies in the fact that, while the

woman has sex with her lover, her husband rapes her

daughters. One night she tells her lover, who dresses her with

maternal affection and leaves. She never sees him again. One

night, the woman sees her husband attempting to rape the

girls, and he attacks her, angrily throwing her to the ground.

When the woman regains consciousness, she finds herself on

a donkey, with a gag in her mouth, heading back to the village

where she lives. Her husband tells her not to turn around, but

she doesn't listen and ends up murdered. Her blood, however,

seeks to return to her lover. At the end, the narrator states:

‘Violence’ from the monstrous interiority

In this second section, Ampuero addresses the literary

treatment of violence, shifting the focus from physical

ugliness according to conventional aesthetic canons to the

values that emphasize the denunciation of violence and

oppression. She also explores identity and authenticity within

a Latin American social context, highlighting empathy and

solidarity as key elements for social transformation. Through

these values, an individual is constructed—one whose

integrity, dignity, and authenticity are defined not by external

standards but by the acceptance and appreciation of oneself

and others.

Ampuero delves into the latent drives within the human

psyche, such as violence, sadism, and submission, through

narratives that unravel the complexities of human behavior in

extreme contexts. She uses an introspective and descriptive

approach to examine these drives from a sociopsychological

perspective, offering a raw and uncompromising view of the

human condition. Her characters, always on the brink of

explosion, embody these drives.

The story of Lorena and John exemplifies this

exploration. Lorena, a Latina hairdresser in the United States,

falls in love with a gringo, thanks to the complicity of her best

friend at a discotheque. However, this man, John, gradually

reveals his true nature as a brutal rapist and woman beater.

Lorena is repeatedly attacked by John, who, in a drunken

state, rapes her until she bleeds "from all her orifices." One

night, fed up with the situation, she takes a knife from the

kitchen. Although the narration is suspended, the reader

understands that this mirrors the real-life case of Lorena

Bobbitt, who cut off her husband's penis.

“

the blood from all over her body was going down the hill,

returning, returning.”

Both this story and "Lorena" explore sex as a reunion

with the maternal womb, pre-consciousness, the pure

pleasure of not knowing oneself to be mortal and imbecile.

Sex is described as a house of one's own where geraniums

bloom (Ampuero, 2021, p. 78). In other words, sex is a

maternal conscience that is not solely the property of women

nor a concept emptied by some imbecile man, but a purified

form of love: attention to the other and, therefore, to oneself.

In this way, "sex" in "Sacrificios Humanos" becomes a

battle against the outside world and the one behind closed

doors. This implies that sex, like literature, needs to

perpetuate the image of the loved one to create another reality

in which we can be fully happy, even if only momentarily

imagined. Ampuero writes: "El sexo como todas las palabras

que alguna vez quisimos decir y nos faltó el lenguaje"

(

Ampuero, 2021, p. 78).

Sex is thus configured as a way of reclaiming the body.

The answer to existence is pleasure, and by finding it, the

human being becomes more tied to his own life and that of

the loved one. This happens because, only through sex in

"Sacrificios Humanos," do the characters stop being the roles

imposed on them by society, managing to be, for a moment,

a cry of ecstasy, a prolonged, ephemeral, but infinite orgasm.

In orgasm he said her name: Edith. He was the only one

who named and renamed her with his tongue, with his sex,

with his moan. Edith, Edith, Edith. She was no longer “the

woman of” or “the mother of” or “the daughter of.” It was

that name that her lover said during ecstasy and that

penetrated her everywhere. She was that woman who was

called Edith and therefore existed (Ampuero, 2021, p. 78).

Towards the middle of the story it is discovered that

Edith's wife's husband rapes the girls. Meanwhile, the

woman's lover understands her and does not judge her, but

abandons her. In the end the husband tries to rape the girls

Ampuero dedicates the story to Bobbitt, rewriting it in

fictional form. The reflection that Lorena's story brings is

that, while sex can be an escape valve or a driving force to

fight against an unjust reality marked by daily blows,

humiliation, and aggression, it can also be idealized to the

point of being seen as the only form of human self-realization,

leading to absolute abandonment. The same applies to other

activities; without proper channels to express personalities

and characters, society risks normalizing violence.

John me calienta como nadie en el mundo. Un hambre

que se alimenta de hambre. Nuestra vida sexual es

nuestra vida entera, nos sobra todo

todos,

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dejamos de ver televisión, de salir, de ver a la gente. Nos

la pasamos cogiendo. Nunca un hombre me ha hecho

sentir lo que me hace sentir mi gringo, mi John, qué

bestia, mi sueño americano con verga. (Ampuero, 2021,

p. 82)

Female culture finds its own mechanisms of expression

and subsistence, creating a sui generis female writing in

which two voices are evident: that of the male tradition and,

simultaneously, that of the female tradition, hidden from the

mainstream. In this way, the difference in female writing can

only be understood in terms of the complex cultural

relationship that is rooted in history. The dominant structure,

therefore, often determines the silenced structures; however,

even through the former, the latter can directly manifest their

political, social, and economic experiences (Vivero and

Cándida, 2008, p. 69).

Literary texts produced by women become inherently

political, a burden that society tends to perceive even if the

writers do not explicitly recognize it. This peculiarity arises

from the fact that, in its very essence, the text becomes a

demand for recognition and space within the literary and

social landscape. Moreover, this complexity is amplified

when considering that the body is imbued with identity

markers defined by ethnicity, religion, geopolitics, gender,

and age. This intersection of factors highlights the intricate

web of individual and collective experiences that shape our

narratives and understandings of the world.

The treatment of social reality through literature allows

for a very specific relationship with the world by offering a

unique window into the understanding of social reality.

Through narrative, readers can explore and reflect on

different perspectives, experiences, and challenges faced by

society, enabling them to deepen their understanding of the

world and, in many cases, inspire actions for change and

transformation. Ampuero, for her part, views it with terror,

and it is through this emotion that she brings to a terrestrial

plane the nightmares present not in dreams but in reality.

They are there, around the corner or entering right now

through the front door. Precisely in this pessimism,

Ampuero's literature finds its vitality. Her denunciation is

frontal through a word that will never again be silenced.

"Lorena" epitomizes all those women who, to free

themselves from submission and abuse, find only violence at

their disposal in a time where there is no equality of

opportunity. In a world filled with impunity and silence,

literature becomes the best medium to ask why she is the way

she is. The fact that the story is dedicated to Lorena Gallo,

using her maiden name, is the author's way of reclaiming a

deeply personal pain and transferring it to us, compelling us

to put ourselves in her place and understand her. It is an

invitation to become the same person through someone else's

pain.

Maria Fernanda Ampuero, writing of the body

Throughout this study, it has become clear that the book

of short stories "Sacrificios humanos" makes writing about

the body its banner. Through this, it literaturizes, but does not

whitewash," the violent conditions in which women in Latin

America find themselves immersed, whether due to their

status as immigrants, belonging to poor layers of society, or

not conforming to conventional aesthetic canons.

Hence, the idea of sacrifice as a ritual is not only the

private fiefdom of pre-Hispanic cultures but is also practiced

in contemporary times. This is evident in the accumulation of

capital that leads immigrants to surrender themselves to the

corrosive arms of the idol-money, or in the daily surrender

men and women make of themselves to fit into foreign molds,

becoming parasites, puppets, and monsters of others.

The ritual sacrifice of this era involves giving one's life

to a handful of people who define the meaning of love,

economy, religion, and morality. In response to this, the only

way to counter social destiny is to begin inhabiting one's own

body. This act implies not only becoming aware of our

physical existence but also rejecting the alienation imposed

by dominant social structures. By inhabiting our bodies, we

empower ourselves to question and resist the norms and

values imposed from outside. It is a return to our

individuality, a search for authenticity, and an affirmation of

our dignity as free human beings.

The battle is arduous because it requires naturalizing

even the most intimate passions in a hostile environment.

However, in this violent act, the system produces its own

enemies: turning women into rebels who have transitioned

from quietly occupying the corner of a kitchen to establishing

the course of contemporary literature.

For Ampuero, writing about the body has meant

exposing the rotten intricacies of urban life, which, as a result

of globalization, has accumulated peripheries and violence

that she makes visible, concrete, and gives a voice to with

such force that she creates her own language. This language

pushes her own experiences to the limit, inscribing them on a

much broader plane and inevitably posing a profoundly

political literature: finding a voice for the historical silences

that Ampuero fills with fiction, giving a human face, a

woman's face, to what were previously just headlines in crime

stories or gossip in the hallways.

DISCUSSION

The book “Sacrificios humanos” by María Fernanda

Ampuero brings together stories permeated by the concept of

the body as a symbol of violence and monstrosity. These

stories are led by women who are doubly violated, both due

to their condition as women and because of other

characteristics marked by prejudice, such as being migrants.

Ampuero delves into the exploration of other dissident

conditions that surround the body, such as disgust,

repugnance, and rejection towards those perceived as

“different” due to their appearance or physical conditions.

These representations highlight how the body, when it

deviates from established social norms, becomes an object of

marginalization and exclusion.

To understand the concept of the body, this study has

inventoried how it has been conceived, starting from the

Platonic view that privileges the soul and despises the flesh,

to the rupture caused by Nietzsche's 'hammer-force'

philosophy that opens up a whole current of thought around

the body as a political entity, up to Jean-Luc Nancy, who sees

writing as a kind of body tattoo.

The analysis of machismo in relation to the female body

is fundamental to understanding the gender violence present

in society. Machismo manifests itself in various ways, from

the objectification of the female body to the normalization of

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violence against it. This reality is evident in the statements of

critics such as Wilfrido Corral, who, when expressing himself

in the media, reveals a discourse impregnated with prejudices

rooted in the Ecuadorian social imaginary. His comments

suggest a devaluation of literature written by women,

insinuating that it only achieves international recognition by

following trends such as feminism and autofiction, while it

would be ignored if published by local publishers. This

attitude underscores the persistence of machismo in the

literary field and reflects the barriers that women writers face

in obtaining recognition and respect in a deeply patriarchal

society.

After reviewing important critical studies, it is

confirmed that national literature is on the right path due to

its ability to address universal themes from diverse and

authentic perspectives. These works offer a unique look at the

human condition, enriching the global literary panorama with

narratives that explore identity, resistance, and social

struggles from a critical perspective, using the body as a

central message.

The feminine language resulting from the analysis of

these literary works, which reflect a harsh reality for women,

allows their authors to approach the world without

reservation, both in their personality and their voices, thus

eliminating social masks. For example, Ampuero represents

violence against female bodies in a raw and direct manner,

challenging the taboos and norms of silence surrounding this

topic in society. This uncensored representation of the

violated female body makes visible and confronts the

brutality women face in their daily lives, promoting open

dialogue about gender violence and its social implications.

This provokes discomfort in the reader, reflecting daily

reality. This discomfort is directly proportional to the

prejudices of the nation from which this literature emerges,

seeking to confront and deconstruct those prejudices in

literary terms. The female voice ceases to reproduce a reality

that is overused and full of clichés, as demonstrated in

contemporary literature by Ecuadorian women such as

Mónica Ojeda, Daniela Alcívar Bellolio, Gabriela Ponce, and

Natalia García Freire, among others.

Against this background, the analysis of "Sacrificios

humanos" finds a thematic division between stories that deal

with violence from physically attractive beings, who use their

beauty as a mask to carry out their basest impulses, and

teratological beings, who, on the other hand, are

marginalized.

In both axes of violence and monstrosity, the woman is

both a heroine and an antagonist of herself. However, amidst

these internal contradictions caused by social configurations

based on a patriarchal model, the city stands out as a symbol

of the failed promise of modernity. The city becomes a true

antagonist for each of the characters, who enter and leave this

great theater of the world, howling in pain without knowing

if someone will ever answer their cry.

This response is verbalized through Ampuero's writing.

Through the denunciation and poeticization of the real

material from which she starts, Ampuero conjures the ghosts

of her characters and questions the reader. This demonstrates

that the Sacrificios humanos of contemporary times are

before us. Then, the reader, along with the characters, falls

with open eyes into the black throat of the deep abyss.

This study does not intend to exhaust the multiple

meanings of the concept of the body identified in "Sacrificios

humanos" by María Fernanda Ampuero. Instead, it aims to

clarify that the thematic axis of the body as a symbol of

violence and monstrosity revolves around a political position

of the author. This position is not aligned with the left or the

right, but with the radicality of what it means to find a voice

and, therefore, a place as a woman in the midst, not only of

literature but of the Ecuadorian literary world burdened by

prejudices.

In this sense, future studies could address the work of

other Ecuadorian women writers such as Mónica Ojeda,

Daniela Alcívar Bellolio, Gabriela Ponce, and Natalia García

Freire, as well as those of past generations such as Sonia

Manzano, Lupe Rumazo, and Alicia Yánez Cossío. These

studies would allow us to understand holistically the universe

of Ecuadorian women writers and shed light on the country's

atavistic sexist prejudices, projecting them into the present to

better understand why people are the way they are.

In the political realm, the body becomes a terrain of

struggle for power and control. The imposition of norms and

regulations on the body, whether through restrictive laws or

discriminatory policies, exerts structural violence that affects

individuals and entire communities. The instrumentalization

of the body to perpetuate political agendas contributes to the

oppression and marginalization of certain groups, creating

divisions and conflicts in society.

In the religious context, the body takes on deep

symbolic meaning. Religious practices involving human

sacrifice, as portrayed in Ampuero’s work, illustrate how

faith can be manipulated to justify atrocious acts. The

objectification of the body in sacrificial rituals reflects a

complex relationship between the sacred and the profane,

where veneration of the divine can lead to the degradation and

dehumanization of the individual.

In the social sphere, the body becomes a battlefield in

the struggle for recognition and inclusion. The beauty

standards imposed by society generate unrealistic pressures

and expectations that can lead to alienation and impaired self-

esteem. Additionally, the objectification of the body,

especially of marginalized groups, reinforces unequal power

dynamics and perpetuates harmful stereotypes.

Additionally, the study could inventory the construction

of a literary canon almost exclusively produced by a specific

social segment and male authors, a topic that could be treated

in greater depth in subsequent studies. This would allow us to

reflect on the thinking of Ecuadorian critics and under what

criteria certain authors were included.

Furthermore, the theme of the body as a symbol of

violence and monstrosity not only leaves its mark on this

book by Ampuero but also on the general work of

contemporary women writers. In short, they use this symbol

to reflect on the space occupied by women in their respective

societies, highlighting childhood as a realm of horror that

preludes impunity and indifference.

Through the serious social conflicts caused by

misogyny, homophobia, racism, and xenophobia, Ampuero

builds ominous atmospheres and generally portrays female

characters who are problematized by the mere fact of existing.

These characters, in their attempts to survive in a barbaric

world, often find death. The stories, with their perpetually

open endings, must be completed by the reader as an exercise

against the very reality that allows and reproduces impunity.

Imagination also allows us to glimpse where humanity is

heading.

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ISSN 2806-5638

In conclusion, Ampuero's work, particularly

Sacrificios humanos," uses the body as a powerful symbol

of the violence and monstrosity inherent in society. This

symbolism not only questions the brutality to which women

are subjected but also invites a broader reflection on the

human condition. Ultimately, it is through the body and its

representation that Ampuero confronts us with the darkest

realities of our existence, proposing a profound and necessary

critique of the systems of oppression that continue to prevail.

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