The body as a symbol of violence and monstrosity in Sacrificios humanos, by María Fernanda Ampuero

Abstract

This essay dives 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 increase the prejudices that surround the protagonists, unraveling the narrative complexity of Ampuero, which also allows us to address the treatment of the body in the author's work. To achieve this objective, this study makes an inventory of the conception of the female body from Western philosophy through authors such as Plato, Baruch Spinoza, Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Luc Nancy. With this theoretical framework, we proceed to analyze the stories that make up Ampuero's book in order to understand how, through denunciation and very personal poetics, the author gives an account of the city itself as a failed promise of modernity.