Domestic Violence in Latin American Literary Texts: Thinking Through the Idea of ‘Toxic Couples’

Introduction

This article is effectively a position paper in that it constitutes an initial experimental attempt to think and talk about Latin American literary representations of domestic violence by drawing upon Anna Motz’s Toxic Couples: The Psychology of Domestic Violence. One main stance that is being adopted, as Motz insists, is that domestic violence “is not simply an expression of patriarchal forces” (172). The overall approach is experimental because it involves the deployment in Latin American literary critical practice and discourse of a term imported from the field of developmental psychology and the practice of psychotherapy. In other words, the psychological idea of toxic couples, informed by attachment theory, is posited as a theoretical vantage point to begin a reconsideration of novelistic representations of domestic violence produced in Latin America as well as their contemporary sociocultural significance. On the conceptualisation of toxic couples, Motz characterises her practitioner’s approach from the outset as follows: “I want to emphasize that it is not the individual partners who are ‘toxic’ but the relationship itself, with its entrenched destructive dynamics. The ‘toxic couple’ reflects the interaction of two disturbed attachment systems” (1). Condensed into that statement is a reference to thinking that is associated with landmark work from the 1960s by the developmental psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth which has continued to be developed by other practitioners in the field and that still has currency in the twenty-first century with discussions of four different attachment styles that are believed to emerge in childhood and, although they are mutable, often to persist into adulthood. Those styles are variously labelled and, given evident variations anyway, are referred to in this article to ensure maximal clarity as: secure; insecure-avoidant; insecure-anxious, and insecure-disorganised. They refer essentially, and for the purposes of this discussion, to the quality and strength of the emotional bond that one person tends to build with another in an adult relationship. This includes each person’s expectations that his or her needs can and will be met by their partner, to characteristic responses to interpersonal conflict, to perceptions of closeness and intimacy, and to an ability to communicate emotions and to understand the emotions of others. Importantly, we must note that Motz also refers to moments of ‘disturbance’, to those situations in a relationship when the quality and strength of the emotional bond is perceived as threatened and is therefore being experienced as under stress. In a toxic relationship these moments tend to occur with some frequency.

From the field of Latin American literature, four Mexican texts spanning the twentieth century are brought into this discussion for illustration. Others could, and I hope in due course will, be chosen. Each of these texts constitutes a literary construction of domestic violence as well as of its causes, consequences and meanings. For example, in Rosario Castellanos’s Balún-Canán the secondary character Matilde attempts suicide by throwing herself into a river after she is raped by Ernesto. The latter is himself insecure: “no era más que un bastardo de quien su padre se avergonzaba” (Kindle Loc 927). In Angeles Mastretta’s Arráncame la vida Catalina quickly returns to her relationship with Andrés after his emotionally violent behaviours have prompted her to leave him. Yet only with his death can she feel “casi feliz” (115). In Azuela’s Los de abajo there are images of violence perpetrated by women as Demetrio watches La Pintada stab his lover Camila and then invite him to kill her in revenge. Demetrio remains at all times, despite his infidelities and violent relations with these other women, haunted by the moment of loss when he watched his house burning down and could see “la silueta dolorida de una mujer con su niño en los brazos” (6). And in Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo Susana San Juan is trapped in a relationship with the eponymous protagonist that seems to catalyse mental health issues and profound emotional suffering for both characters. These might all be considered as Mexican literary expressions of patriarchal culture...