OBJECTIFIED BODIES: A READING ABOUT INHERITANCE BY CLORINDA MATTO DE TURNER
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15381/escrypensam.v14i29.7979Keywords:
Value in use, Exchange value, merchandise, fashion, social class, appearance.Abstract
“Cuerpos cosificados: Una lectura de Herencia (“Objectified bodies: A reading aboutInheritance”) by Clorinda Matto de Turner” examines how the female body works,above all, in the 19th-century capitalist society of Lima. We see how Margarita, theprotagonist, must advertise her body according to the fashion of the time, because ithelps her to search and find a husband. However, in order to have access to luxuryitems, she must enter into the market mechanisms of Lima: consumption, purchaseand sale of thousands of objects that, in turn, involve her psychologically and createconfusion to Margarita and Lucia –her stepmother. Thus, in the work, fashion helps topretend a social position in order to hide body deformities and to give the body a valueof use and exchange according to the Marxist logic. Finally, Margarita, in Inheritance,precisely reveals this construction of the female body and how the use of fashion helpsto promote her socially, to be exchanged and to be an object of use and of visual orsexual pleasure.
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