“Violentada”, By Rafael Gallo: A Metonymic Body

Abstract

Metonymy is a figure of speech, in which a word or expression is used to refer to another that is related to it. When applying the concept to gender relations, in the female sphere there is a tendency to replace the whole with the sexualized parts that compose it. Given this configuration, the purpose of the present work is to observe how this process takes place in the short story “Violentada”, by Rafael Gallo, whose plot is the first contact between a woman victim of rape, and her fiancé, who sees in what happened a loss of its symbolic capital. For man, the violated body, even by virtue of physical coercion, boils down to the thing enjoyed and the usurpation of his right of possession, resulting in the necessary extirpation of the worthless object. In conclusion to the analysis, it was possible to establish two premises: the metonymic body, treated by the groom as if it were fragmented, and the fluid body, the woman's response to her physical and social deconstruction. To give rise to the proposal, a bibliographical survey of materials related to the theme was carried out and, subsequently, the summaries and files considered necessary were produced. In view of the macrosystemic view of the whole, the crossing of some information provided the establishment of the topics contained in this article, having as its motto to answer the following problem: fragmentation of the female body in the short story “Violentada” by Rafael Gallo is a necessary step for the eradication of the other?